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Odd instances of strange coincidence.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: Queen Caroline's Advocate in the House of Lords, on her association with Bergami
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The massive gates of circumstance
Are turned upon the smallest hinge,
And thus some seeming pettiest chance
Oft gives our life its after-tinge.
The trifles of our daily lives,
The common things, scarce worth recall,
Whereof no visible trace survives,
These are the mainsprings after all.
Author: Anonymous
Source: in "Harper's Weekly"
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Epicureans, that ascribed the origin and frame of the world not
to the power of God, but to the fortuitous concourse of atoms.
Author: Richard Bentley
Source: Sermons (II), preached in 1692
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And circumstance, that unspiritual god,
And miscreator, makes and helps along
Our coming evils, with a critch-like rod,
Whose touch turns hope to dust--the dust we all have trod.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 125)
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Men are the sport of circumstances, when
The circumstances seem the sport of men.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 17)
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I am the very slave of circumstance
And impulse--borne away with every breath.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Sardanapalus (act IV, sc. 1)
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The long arm of coincidence.
Author: Charles Haddon Chambers
Source: Captain Swift
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By some fortuitous concourse of atoms.
[Lat., Fortuito quodam concursu atomorum.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: De Natura Deorum (bk. I, 24)
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Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Letter to Mr. Newton
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Circumstances beyond my individual control.
Author: Charles Dickens
Source: The Personal History of David Copperfield (ch. 20)
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Man is not the creature of circumstances,
Circumstances are the creatures of men.
Author: Benjamin Disraeli
Source: Vivian Grey (vol. II, bk. VI, ch. 7)
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It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are.
Author: Benjamin Disraeli
Source: Vivian Grey (vol. II, bk. VI, ch. 7)
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To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and
convenience of our lives.
Author: Oliver Goldsmith
Source: Vicar of Wakefield (ch. XXI)
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Circumstances alter cases.
Author: Thomas Chandler Haliburton (used pseudonym Sam Slick)
Source: The Old Judge (ch. XV)
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Man, without religion, is the creature of circumstances.
Author: Thomas Hardy
Source: Guesses at Truth (vol. I)
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Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons assimilate only
what is ugly and evil from the same moral circumstances which
supply good and beautiful results--the fragrance of celestial
flowers--to the daily life of others.
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Source: Mosses from an Old Manse--The Old Manse
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And I endeavour to subdue circumstances to myself, and not myself
to circumstances.
[Lat., Et mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Epistles (I, 1, 191)
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What the discordant harmony of circumstances would and could
effect.
[Lat., Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Epistles (I, 12, 19)
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For these attacks do not contribute to make us frail but rather
show us to be what we are.
Author: Thomas a Kempis
Source: Imitation of Christ, (Dibdin's translation)
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Men's plans should be regulated by the circumstances, not
circumstances by the plans.
[Lat., Consilia res magis dant hominibus quam homines rebus.]
Author: Titus Livy
Source: Annales (XXII, 39)
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Man is the creature of circumstances.
Author: Robert Owen
Source: The Philanthropist
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Accidental and fortuitous concourse of atoms.
Author: Henry John Temple Palmerston
Source: on the combination of parties led by Disraeli and Gladstone
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Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king.
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Essay on Man (ep. IV, l. 57)
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The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.
Author: C.P. Scott
Source: Answer of the Author of Waverly to the Letter of Captain Clutterbuck, The Monastery
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Sir, my circumstances,
Being so near the truth as I will make them,
Must first induce you to believe; whose strength
I will confirm with oath, which I doubt not
You'll give me leave to spare when you shall find
You need it not.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Cymbeline (Iachimo at II, iv)
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To leave frivolous circumstances, I pray you tell Signior
Lucentio that his father is come from Pisa and is here at the
door to speak with him.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: The Taming of the Shrew (Petruchio at V, i)
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How comes it to pass, if they be only moved by chance and
accident, that such regular mutations and generations should be
begotten by a fortuitous concourse of atoms.
Author: J. Smith ("John Smith of Cambridge")
Source: Select Discourses (III, p. 48)
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The circumstances of others seem good to us, while ours seem good
to others.
[Lat., Aliena nobis, nostra plus aliis placent.]
Author: Syrus (Publilius Syrus)
Source: Maxims
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The changeful change of circumstances.
[Lat., Varia sors rerum.]
Author: Tacitus (Caius Cornelius Tacitus)
Source: Historioe (bk. II, 70)
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So runs the round of life from hour to hour.
Author: Lord Alfred Tennyson
Source: Circumstance
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And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance.
Author: Lord Alfred Tennyson
Source: In Memoriam (pt. LXIII, st. 2)
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This fearful concatenation of circumstances.
Author: Daniel Webster
Source: Argument--The Murder of Captain Joseph White (vol. VI, p. 88)
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F.M. The Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to Mr.
------ and declines to interfere in circumstances over which he
has no control.
Author: Daniel Webster
Source: Argument--The Murder of Captain Joseph White (vol. VI, p. 88)
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Who does the best that circumstance allows,
Does well, acts nobly, angels could no more.
Author: Edward Young
Source: Night Thoughts (night II, l. 90)
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