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Truly some men there be
That live always in great horrour,
And say it goeth by destiny
To hang or wed: both hath one hour;
And whether it be, I am well sure,
Hanging is better of the twain;
Sooner done, and shorter pain.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: The School-house, published about 1542
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My death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
Author: Joseph Addison
Source: Cato (act V, sc. 1)
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For rarely man escapes his destiny.
[It., Che l'uomo il suo destin fugge di raro.]
Author: Ludovico Ariosto
Source: Orlando Furioso (XVIII, 58)
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Life treads on life, and heart on heart;
We press too close in church and mart
To keep a dream or grave apart.
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Source: A Vision of Poets (conclusion)
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There are certain events which to each man's life are as comets
to the earth, seemingly strange and erratic portents; distinct
from the ordinary lights which guide our course and mark our
seasons, yet true to their own laws, potent in their own
influences.
Author: Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
Source: What Will He Do With It? (bk. II, ch. XIV)
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For I am a weed,
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail,
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 2)
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Art and power will go on as they have done,--will make day out of
night, time out of space, and space out of time.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: Society and Solitude--Works and Days
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Character is fate. (Destiny)
Author: Heraclitus of Ephesus
Source: in Mullach's "Fragmenta Philosophurum Groecorum"
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No living man can send me to the shades
Before my time; no man of woman born,
Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
Author: Homer ("Smyrns of Chios")
Source: The Iliad (bk. VI, l. 623), (Bryant's translation)
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All, soon or late, are doom'd that path to tread.
Author: Homer ("Smyrns of Chios")
Source: The Odyssey (bk. XII, l. 31), (Pope's translation)
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The future works out great men's destinies;
The present is enough for common souls,
Who, never looking forward, are indeed
Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age
Are petrified forever.
Author: James Russell Lowell
Source: Act for Truth
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We are but as the instrument of Heaven.
Our work is not design, but destiny.
Author: Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton) ("Owen Meredith")
Source: Clytemnestra (pt. XIX)
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We are what we must
And not what we would be. I know that one hour
Assures not another. The will and the power
Are diverse.
Author: Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton) ("Owen Meredith")
Source: Lucile (pt. I, canto III, st. 19)
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Unseen hands delay
The coming of what oft seems close in ken,
And, contrary, the moment, when we say
"'Twill never come!" comes on us even then.
Author: Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton) ("Owen Meredith")
Source: Thomas Munster to Martin Luther (l. 382)
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They only fall, that strive to move,
Or lose, that care to keep.
Author: Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton) ("Owen Meredith")
Source: The Wanderer (bk. III, Futility, st. 6)
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The irrevocable Hand
That opes the year's fair gate, doth ope and shut
The portals of our earthly destinies;
We walk through blindfold, and the noiseless doors
Close after us, forever.
Author: Dinah Maria Mulock (used pseudonym Mrs. Craik)
Source: April
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Every man meets his Waterloo at last.
Author: Wendell Phillips
Source: Speech
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I feel that I am a man of destiny.
[Ger., Ich fuhl 's das ich der Mann des Schicksals bin.]
Author: Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
Source: Wallenstein's Tod (III, XV, 171)
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O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there,
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage, and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Ghost at I, v)
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A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of
the fish that hath fed of that worm.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Hamlet at IV, iii)
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Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth which kept the world in awe
Should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw!
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Hamlet at V, i)
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Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Hamlet at V, i)
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We shall be winnowed with so rough a wind
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff
And good from bad find no partition.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: King Henry the Fourth, Part II (Mowbray at IV, i)
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Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,
Which, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: King Henry the Sixth, Part III (Clifford at II, vi)
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Think you I bear the shears of destiny?
Have I commandment on the pulse of life?
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: The Life and Death of King John (King John at IV, ii)
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Upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.
Author: Alexander the Great
Source: None
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Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: None
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Fate is what happens to you when your luck runs out.
Author: Michael Garrett Marino
Source: None
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In life, the only certainty is uncertainty.
Author: Robert Levine
Source: None
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It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny.
Author: Jean Nidetch
Source: None
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Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
Author: William Jennings Bryan
Source: None
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No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
Author: Agnes DeMille
Source: None
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It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.
Author: Sir Winston Churchill
Source: None
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To accomplish our destiny it is not enough to merely guard prudently against road accidents. We must also cover before nightfall the distance assigned to each of us.
Author: Alexis Carrel
Source: None
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Men heap together the mistakes of their lives and create a monster they call destiny.
Author: John Oliver Hobbes
Source: None
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Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
Author: John F Kennedy
Source: None
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Man's ultimate destiny is to become one with the Divine Power which governs and sustains the creation and its creatures.
Author: Alfred A Montapert
Source: None
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Nature is at work.. Character and destiny are her handiwork. She gives us love and hate, jealousy and reverence. All that is ours is the power to choose which impulse we shall follow.
Author: David Seabury
Source: None
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But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.
Author: Alfred North Whitehead
Source: None
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Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.
Author: Henri-Frederic Amiel
Source: None
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Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.
Author: Carl Schurz
Source: None
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Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
Author: Albert Einstein
Source: None
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Men heap together the mistakes of their lives, and create a monster they call Destiny.
Author: John Oliver Hobbes
Source: None
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Our destiny changes with our thought; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thought corresponds with our desire.
Author: Orison S. Marden
Source: None
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If a man is destined to drown, he will drown even in a spoonful of water.
Author: Yiddish Proverb
Source: None
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One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it.
Author: French Proverb
Source: None
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Destiny. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
Author: Ambrose Bierce
Source: None
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Men are what their mothers made them.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: None
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Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
Author: William Jennings Bryan
Source: None
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And so we stand here motionless, waiting for the bitter end of all that is beautiful in this world; hoping only that the futures power will shed light on a new and wonderful destiny.
Author: Paul Acquasanta
Source: None
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