Quotes about Fate

Plans must be made for men. We cannot think of making men, and binding nature to our designs.

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

Wer sich vornimmt, Gutes zu wirken, darf nicht erwarten, dass die Menschen ihm deswegen Steine aus dem Weg räumen, sondern muss auf das Schicksalshafte gefasst sein, dass sie ihm welche daraufrollen.

The question of Heaven, the question of what happens after death, is one which a lot of people in our culture try to put off as long as they can, but sooner or later it suddenly swings round and looks them in the eye.

The same strength which has extended our power beyond a continent has also interwoven our destiny with the destiny of many peoples and brought us into a vast web of history in which other wills, running in oblique or contrasting directions to our own, inevitably hinder or contradict what we most fervently desire. We cannot simply have our way, not even when we believe our way to have the "happiness of mankind" as its promise.

Thomas Merton who said: "The will of God is not a 'fate' to which we must submit, but a creative act in our life that produces something absolutely new, something hitherto unforeseen by the laws and established patterns. Our cooperation consists not solely in conforming to external laws, but in opening our wills to this mutually creative act."5

The end is already planted in us at the beginning, and it gnaws away at us until we get there freely and consciously.

The ancients rightly called this internal longing for wholeness "fate" or "destiny," the "inner voice" or the "call of the gods." It has an inevitability, authority, and finality to it, and was at the heart of almost all mythology. Almost all heroes heard an inner voice that spoke to them. In fact, their heroism was in their ability to hear that voice and to risk following it—wherever!

Those who walk the full and entire journey are considered "called" or "chosen" in the Bible, perhaps "fated" or "destined" in world mythology and literature, but always they are the ones who have heard some deep invitation to "something more," and set out to find it by both grace and daring.

There's a Grand Designer behind everything. Your life is not a result of random chance, fate, or luck. There is a master plan. History is His story. God is pulling the strings.

O how feeble is man's power, that if good fortune fall, cannot add another hour, nor a lost hour recall!

What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.