Fate

“ Wherefore, if I should choose to apply the name of fate to anything at all, I should rather say that fate belongs to the weaker of two parties, will to the stronger, who has the other in his power, than that the freedom of our will is excluded by that order of causes, which, by an unusual application of the word peculiar to themselves, the Stoics call Fate. ”

“ Prophetic of our life,
The chronicles where Fate inscribes
Our sorrow, sin, and strife;
All that we struggle with in vain,
All that we seek to shun,
The weird of that stern destiny,
Whose will must aye be done. ”

“ Ormond, have interested me in your fate. But fate is an unmeaning commonplace—worse than commonplace—word: it is a word that leads us to imagine that we are fated or doomed to certain fortunes or misfortunes in life. ”

“ Which Fate’s own acts as if in itself shows;
And men, like children, seeing the image there,
Take place for cause and make our will Fate bear.
XXXV. Good. I have done. My heart weighs. I am sad.
The outer day, void statue of lit blue,
Is altogether outward, other, glad
At mere being not-I (so my aches construe) .
I, that have failed in everything, bewail
Nothing this hour but that I have bewailed,
For in the general fate what is’t to fail?
Why, fate being past for Fate, ’tis but to have failed.
Whatever hap-or stop, what matters it,
Sith to the mattering our will bringeth nought? ”

“ If the book of fate, dear lady, could be laid open before your eyes, it would appear to you only full of darkness and contradictions, unless you could perceive all the myriads of fine links and intricate threads which unite event and event together. ”

“ And, giving a great leap, his heart began to thrash with the excitement of a chase all but completed, with the foreknowledge that, in the next few minutes, destiny was making, life and death were being weighed, the balances of fate about to tip! ”

“ Till birth and death be one in sight of life;
Fate, heard and seen of no man's eyes or ears,
To no man shown through light of smiles or tears,
And moved of no man's prayer to fold its wings;
Fate, that is night and light on worldly things;
Fate, that is fire to burn and sea to drown,
Strength to build up and thunder to cast down;
Fate, shield and screen for each man's lifelong head,
And sword at last or dart that strikes it dead;
Fate, higher than heaven and deeper than the grave,
That saves and spares not, spares and doth not save ”

“ When Fate selects her human agents, her dark and mysterious spirit is at work within them; she moulds their hearts, she exalts their energies, she shapes them to the part she has allotted them, and renders the mortal instrument worthy of the solemn end. ”

“ Fate should see that she had no refractory nor rebellious spirit in me, no self-indulgent voluptuary, seeking only the sunny side of existence, but a nature ready to confront the rugged conflict of life, and to meet its hardships, if such were my allotted path. ”

“ Little life has got to offer, and little man to lose, Since to-day Fate deigns to proffer, Oh wherefore, then, refuse To take this transient hour, in the dusky Temple gloom While the poppies are in flower, and the mangoe trees abloom. And if Fate remember later, and come to claim her due, What sorrow will be greater than the Joy I had with you? ”

“ We are creatures of the world, we reflect its every light and shadow, we rejoice in its rejoicing, its every feature has a tiny parallel in us. Why should not our fate be as its fate, and its fate is so far as we know eternal. ”

“ I forgot that the moment when fate knocks at our door, is the time to show that one is capable of receiving it and, if necessary, of throwing it downstairs; otherwise circumstances, confident of our weakness, might easily take to masking under the cloak of fate. ”

“ Sad to me’s my fate, Though men don’t understand, Suffer not, Son of God, Me to have pain to-day. Little thought the school That such should be my fate, The fate which me o’ertook, ’Tis it has me destroyed. The pain in it I have, Is threefold what I’ve felt, The trouble I have found Is weighted with a stone. For her who caused my grief, My wrath and rage are great. ”

“ What is it that he secretly yearns for, amid all the placidity of fate? 'To be, or not to be,' this may be the question, but is it not a question for death to answer. It is not a question of living or not-living. ”

“ Nature, who lost, cannot remake him; Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him; Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain. And whither now, my truant wise and sweet, O, whither tend thy feet? I had the right, few days ago, Thy steps to watch, thy place to know: How have I forfeited the right? Hast thou forgot me in a new delight? I hearken for thy household cheer, O eloquent child! ”

“ Fate cannot be that! Gods themselves, that make
Things change, Fate's own hand, that doth overtake
The gods themselves with darkness, will draw back
From marring thus thy statue and my boon,
Leaving the wide world hollow with thy lack. ”

“ Vague and far-off, and fixt as fate,
Which hide from sight that land unknown
Where, ever, like a carven stone
The setting sun doth stand and wait,
And men cry not: "Too late! too late!"
And sorrow turns to a golden gloom. ”

“ If a vision was granted to you, if you saw, beforehand, what would be in the future, and if now the vision is followed by what is, or appears to be, a reality, is that any reason why your strength and presence of mind should desert you?' A pause, and then, answering the thought of his heart, the voice went on, 'Fate! That is true. Everything is fate. But our resistances are predicted and foreseen as well as our trials. Arise and be of good cheer. ”

“ Fate, the ineffable Word of an Eternal Will.
All things that are or seem,
Whether we wake who see or do but dream,
Are of that Primal Will phantasms, if no more;
He who sees these sees God, and seeing doth adore.
Joy, suffering, evil, good,
Whatever our daily food,
Whate'er the mystery and paradox of things,
Low creeping thoughts and high imaginings.
The laughters of the world, the age-long groan,
Bring to his mind one name, one thought alone;
All beauty, right, deformity, or wrong,
Sing to his ear one high unchanging song ”

“ Here I was ready if necessary to go through fire and water--a certain amount of each, at any rate--to get a better knowledge of the frank-hearted girl whose enthusiasm had so touched me in the afternoon, and all that Fate asked was a cabman's fare and a few stern words delivered with an air! Fate is no bargainer worthy the name. ”

“ It had been in her manner all along, she was like Fate; like the abominable Fate that desolates the whole length of our lives; that leaves of our hopes, of our plans, nothing but a hideous jumble of fragments like those of statues, smashed by hammers; the senseless, inscrutable, joyless Fate that we hate, and that debases us forever and ever. ”

“ Thy fate is it, indeed! Whilst thou makest that thy chief question, thy life to me and to thyself and to thy God is worthless. What is incredible to thee thou shalt not, at thy soul's peril, pretend to believe. ”

“ Fate slaps your face midway in a pretty romance. All right. But when I make a record of the matter I pick, choose, sort, re-assort my box of words, and when things are going too rapidly I wink at Fate with my tongue in my cheek and round up everybody so amiably that nobody knows exactly what did happen—and nobody even stops to think because everybody has already finished the matter in their own minds to their own satisfaction. ”

“ But to see how fate slides into freedom, and freedom into fate, observe how far the roots of every creature run, or find, if you can, a point where there is no thread of connection. Our life is consentaneous and far-related. This knot of nature is so well tied, that nobody was ever cunning enough to find the two ends. Nature is intricate, overlapped, interweaved, and endless. ”

“ So soft and so stanch is the ring of Fate. Neither brandy, nor nectar, nor sulphuric ether, nor hell-fire, nor ichor, nor poetry, nor genius, can get rid of this limp band. For if we give it the high sense in which the poets use it, even thought itself is not above Fate: that too must act according to eternal laws, and all that is wilful and fantastic in it is in opposition to its fundamental essence. ”

“ The fate of some of you in this world is, I am sorely afraid, irrevocably sealed, and thus the few moments you have yet to linger in this vale of grief and sorrow should unceasingly be fixed on the salvation of your souls. ”

“ then we say, a part of Fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in the soul. ”

“ Fate or Providence, as you would say, has wrought a wonderful change in our lots, has reversed our positions, and just at the proper moment. By placing you a little lower, as far as worldly considerations are concerned, Fate has brought you nearer to him you love, and brought hopes of future happiness. ”

“ The chain of fate moves the heaven and the stars, tempers the elements to one another, and models them by a reciprocal transformation. By fate all things that are born into the world and perish are renewed in a uniform progression of offspring and seed. ”

“ And in those clothes perhaps you'd prate,
Couldst thou but speak or meditate,
Oh, but times then were better still.
'Tis fate's old witticism ill.
So, it may be a better fate
When hearts will cease to meditate. ”

“ Very odious, I confess, are the lessons of Fate. Who likes to have a dapper phrenologist pronouncing on his fortunes? Who likes to believe that he has hidden in his skull, spine, and pelvis, all the vices of a Saxon or Celtic race, which will be sure to pull him down, — with what grandeur of hope and resolve he is fired, — into a selfish, huckstering, servile, dodging animal? ”

“ Is it not strange how fate seems to play with us, when once we are fairly embarked upon life's great current? I am now completely wound up in perplexities and embarrassments, which, a week ago, I never once thought of. ”

“ Others apart sat on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate, Fixed fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost. ”

“ Fate is worked out when Divine Providence is served by certain spirits; whether by the soul, or by all nature itself which obeys Him, whether by the heavenly movements of the stars, whether by the angelic power, or by the ingenuity of the demons, whether by some of these, or by all, the chain of fate is forged. ”

“ Again have we been reminded that the whole course of human life and destiny hinges often upon a single circumstance, and that in the loom of fate the breaking of a single strand is adequate to mar forever life's golden cloth. ”

“ Fate announces love, happiness, and death. You have the privilege of not continuing the enterprise you have begun. The spotted cards say you will not succeed. The water predicts death! For whom? That we cannot learn. ”

“ His fate affects the welfare of a whole nation or empire; and when he falls suddenly from the height of earthly greatness to the dust, his fall produces a sense of contrast, of the powerlessness of man, and of the omnipotence—perhaps the caprice—of Fortune or Fate, which no tale of private life can possibly rival? ”

“ Here am bound, the scorn of fate;
'Twas a dream that once a state
I enjoyed of light and gladness.
What is life? 'Tis but a madness. ”

“ Life or Death are his to give, and the trembling of the balance one way or the other is to be guided and controlled by his [274] unerring eye, his unerring brain, and his skilled, infallible hand. He holds the balances of Fate—he guides and controls Destiny, and knows his power and glories in it. ”

“ My lord stared before him, glum and unconvinced.
“’Tis a cursed risk,” he said. “What if it should fail?”
“Then everything would fail. The gods themselves are subject to Fate; and Fate is jealousy. ”

“ You'll see that, since our fate is ruled by chance, Each man, unknowing, great, Should frame life so, that at some future hour Fact and his dreamings meet. ”

“ Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; — for causes which are unpenetrated. ”

“ Yet suffer not thy wrongs to shroud thy fate,
But turn, my Soul, to blessings which remain; ”

“ From which it must be understood that fate is not a mere superstitious imagination, but is what is called, in the language of natural philosophy, the eternal cause of things; the cause why past things have happened, why present things do happen, and why future things will happen. ”

“ 'Tis the best use of Fate to teach a fatal courage. Go face the fire at sea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own, or what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the cherubim of Destiny. ”