Quotes about Fate

Yes, blood for blood, his bitter loan came due. He paid with death.

Many matters the gods bring to surprising ends. The things we thought would happen do not happen; The unexpected God makes possible; And such is the conclusion of this story.

And for thee, who didst me all that evil, I prophesy an evil doom.

Most of us are content to exist and breed and fight for the right to do both, and the dominant idea, the foredoomed attest to control one's destiny, is reserved for the fortunate or unfortunate few.

I refuse to dedicate my life to posterity. Surely one owes as much to the current generation as to one's unwanted children. What a fate - to grow rotund and unseemly, to lose my self-love, to think in terms of milk, oatmeal, nurse, diapers. ...Dear dream children, how much more beautiful you are, dazzling little creatures who flutter (all dream children must flutter) on golden, golden wings.

We drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.

For this is wisdom—to love and live,     To take what fate or the gods may give,     To ask no question, to make no prayer,     To kiss the lips and caress the hair,     Speed passion's ebb as we greet its flow,     To have and to hold, and, in time—let go.

But it was too late. He had angered Providence by resisting too many temptations. There was nothing left but heaven, where he would meet only those who, like him, had wasted earth.

They made no love that day, but when he left her outside the sad door on the Zurichsee and she turned and looked at him he knew her problem was one they had together for good now.

You see, I am fate," it shouted, "and stronger than your puny plans; and I am how-things-turn-out and I am different from your little dreams, and I am the flight of time and the end of beauty and unfulfilled desire; all the accidents and imperceptions and the little minutes that shape the crucial hours are mine. I am the exception that proves no rules, the limits of your control, the condiment in the dish of life.

For this is wisdom-- to love and live, To take what fate or the gods may give, To ask no question, to make no prayer, To kiss the lips and caress the hair, Speed passion's ebb as we greet its flow, To have and to hold, and, in time-- let go.

Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.