Famous Quotes & Sayings

W. S. Gilbert

See how the Fates their gifts allot, For A is happy-B is not. Yet B is worthy, I dare say, Of more prosperity than A.

W. H. Auden

So long as we think of it objectively, time is Fate or Chance, the factor in our lives for which we are not responsible, and about which we can do nothing; but when we begin to think of it subjectively, we feel responsible for our time, and the notion of punctuality arises.

W. H. Auden

Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are the irresponsible puppets of fate or chance.

William Cowper

Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oftenest in what least we dread; Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.

Vayalar Ravi

Our policy is not to discourage the private sector, but to see that Air India plays the role of flagship in the industry. In the transport sector, Air India is the 'fate of India' and all efforts will be made to restore its past glory.

Van Morrison

Heavy Connection is just basically about psychic stuff...it's kind of about connections that you're not normally making. It's like a fate number where you're making psychic connections that you're not really aware of but they're there.

Upton Sinclair

Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of by unheroic self-indulgence?

Ursula K. Le Guin

It did not matter, after all. He was only one man. One man's fate is not important. "If it is not, what is?" He could not endure those remembered words.

Ursula K. Le Guin

A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Not even need and love can defeat fate...

Walter Kaufmann

Here an attempt is made to explain suffering: the outcaste of traditional Hinduism is held to deserve his fetched fate; it is a punishment for the wrongs he did in a previous life.

Voltaire

The fate of a nation has often depended upon the good or bad digestion of a prime minister.

The admiral, or commander in chief of a squadron, being frequently invested with a great charge, on which the fate of a kingdom may depend, ought certainly to be possessed of abilities equal to so important a station and so extensive a command.

William Butler Yeats

I weave the shoes of Sorrow: Soundless shall be the footfall light In all men's ears of Sorrow, Sudden and light.

Will Carleton

But I have learned a thing or two; I know as sure as fate, when we lock up our lives for wealth, the gold key comes too late.

Wilhelm von Humboldt

It is usually more important how a man meets his fate than what it is.

Walter Scott

As long as the Fates permit, live cheerfully.

Winifred Holtby

Life flows on over death as water closes over a stone dropped into a pool. ... Fate is certain; death is certain; but the courage and nobility of men and women matter more than these.

Winston Churchill

The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories, and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny.

William Samuel Johnson

It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity.

William S. Burroughs

The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is anathema to these idiots. I predict in the near future right-wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus.

William S. Burroughs

Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered.

William J. Brennan

It is tempting to pretend that minorities on death row share a fate in no way connected to our own, that our treatment of them sounds no echoes beyond the chambers in which they die. Such an illusion is ultimately corrosive, for the reverberations of injustice are not so easily confined.

William Jennings Bryan

Nation after nation, when at the zenith of its power, has proclaimed itself invincible because its army could shake the earth with its tread and its ships could fill the seas, but these nations are dead, and we must build upon a different foundation if we would avoid their fate.

Woodrow Wilson

It would be the irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs.

William Shakespeare

What fates impose, that men must needs abide; it boots not to resist both wind and tide.

William Shatner

Fate gives you the finger and you accept.

William McKinley

We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is Manifest Destiny.

William James

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone.

William Friedkin

There is a thin line between the policeman and the criminal. The best cops are always crossed. The best cops are the ones who are able to think like criminals. But for a quirk of fate, they might have been criminals.

Whitney Cummings

I remember my agent at ICM at the beginning of my career telling me that I wasn't pretty enough, that I was always going to be a quirky sidekick. And he was an ogre of a man. He should have been carrying a torch. If he was in a bar, he couldn't have come near me, and then he was deciding my fate.

Sarah Addison Allen

Fate never promises to tell you everything up front. You aren't always shown the path in life you're supposed to take. But if there was one thing she'd learned in the past few weeks, it was that sometimes, when you're really lucky, you meet someone with a map.

Our age of mechanization leads along a road ending with man himself as a machine. Only the spirit of singing can save us from this fate.