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The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
The great, the important day, big with the fate
Of Cato, and of Rome.
Author: Joseph Addison
Source: Cato (act I, sc. 1)
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The bow is bent, the arrow flies,
The winged shaft of fate.
Author: Ira Frederick Aldridge
Source: On William Tell (st. 12)
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No power or virtue of man could ever have deserved that what has
been fated should not have taken place.
[Lat., Nulla vis humana vel virtus meruisse unquam potuit, ut,
quod praescripsit fatalis ordo, non fiat.]
Author: Marcellinus Ammianus (Ammianus Marcellinus)
Source: Historia (XXIII)
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Yet who shall shut out Fate?
Author: Edwin Arnold
Source: Light of Asia (bk. III, l. 336)
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The heart is its own Fate.
Author: Philip James Bailey
Source: Festus (sc. Wood and Water, Sunset)
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Let those deplore their doom,
Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn:
But lofty souls, who look beyond the tomb,
Can smile at Fate, and wonder how they mourn.
Author: James Beattie
Source: The Minstrel (bk. I)
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Yet what are they, the learned and the great?
Awhile of longer wonderment the theme!
Who shall presume to prophesy their date,
Where nought is certain save the uncertainty of fate?
- Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher,
Author: Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
Source: Rejected Addresses--By Lord Cui Bono
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As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse
causeless shall not come.
Author: Bible
Source: Proverbs (ch. XXVI, v. 2)
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But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up
another.
Author: Bible
Source: Psalms (ch. LXXV, v. 7)
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Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.
Author: Elizabeth Bowen
Source: The House in Paris (pt. 2, ch. 2)
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Many things happen between the cup and the lip.
Author: Robert Burton
Source: Anatomy of Melancholy (pt. II, sec. II, memb. 3)
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Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of
them will be what they will be; why then should we desire to be
deceived?
Author: Bishop Joseph Butler
Source: Sermon VII--On the Character of Balaam (last paragraph)
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Success, the mark no mortal wit,
Or surest hand, can always hit:
For whatsoe'er we perpetrate,
We do but row, we're steer'd by Fate,
Which in success oft disinherits,
For spurious causes, noblest merits.
Author: Samuel Butler (1)
Source: Hudibras (pt. I, canto I, l. 879)
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Here's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: To Thomas Moore (st. 2)
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To bear is to conquer our fate.
Author: Thomas Campbell
Source: On Visiting a Scene in Argyleshire
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The wine is poured, you should drink it.
[Fr., Le vin est verse, il faut le boire.]
Author: Thomas Campbell
Source: On Visiting a Scene in Argyleshire
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They are raised on high that they may be dashed to pieces with a
greater fall.
[Lat., Tolluntur in altum
Ut lapsu gaviore ruant.]
Author: Claudian (Claudianus)
Source: In Rufinum (bk. I, 22)
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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.
Author: William Cowper
Source: A Fable--Moral
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He has gone to the demnition bow-wows.
Author: Charles Dickens
Source: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (ch. LXIV)
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Rowe's Rule: the odds are five to six that the light at the end
of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Author: Paul Dickson
Source: in the "Washingtonian", Nov., 1978
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All human things are subject to decay,
And when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
Author: John Dryden
Source: Mac Flecknoe (l. 1)
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'Tis Fate that flings the dice,
And as she flings
Of kings makes peasants,
And of peasants kings.
Author: John Dryden
Source: Works (vol. XV, p. 103)
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Kabira wept when he beheld the millstone roll,
Of that which passes 'twixt the stones, nought goes forth whole.
- Edward B. Eastwick,
Author: Edward B. Eastwick
Source: his translation of the "Bag-o-Behar" (Garden and the Spring)
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Fate has carried me
'Mid the thick arrows: I will keep my stand--
Not shrink and let the shaft pass by my breast
To pierce another.
Author: George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans Cross)
Source: The Spanish Gypsy (bk. III)
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Stern fate and time
Will have their victims; and the best die first,
Leaving the bad still strong, though past their prime,
To curse the hopeless world they ever curs'd
Vaunting vile deeds, and vainest of the worst.
Author: Ebenezer Elliott ("The Corn Law Rhymer")
Source: The Village Patriarch (bk. IV, pt. IV)
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Destiny has two ways of crushing us -- by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.
Author: Henri Frederic Amiel
Source: None
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Everything comes gradually and at its appointed hour.
Author: Ovid
Source: None
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Tempted fate will leave the loftiest star.
Author: Lord Byron
Source: None
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Go with your fate, but not beyond. Beyond leads to dark places.
Author: Mary Renault
Source: None
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A person must stand very tall to see their own fate.
Author: Danish Proverb
Source: None
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Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: None
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Fate leads the willing and drags along the unwilling.
Author: Seneca
Source: None
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Chance generally favors the prudent.
Author: Joseph Joubert
Source: None
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Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.
Author: Seneca
Source: None
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Every one is the architect of his own fortune.
Author: Mathurin Regnier
Source: None
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There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.
Author: Albert Camus
Source: None
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It's the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.
Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Source: None
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Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.
Author: Elizabeth E. Bowen
Source: None
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