Destiny

“My death and life,My bane and antidote, are both before me.”

“[God] promised not from the power of our will but from His own predestination. For He promised what He Himself would do, not what men would do. Because, although men do those good things which pertain to God’s worship, He Himself makes them to do what He has commanded; it is not they that cause Him to do what He has promised. Otherwise the fulfilment of God’s promises would not be in the power of God, but in that of men.”

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

“We believe that all the posterity of Adam, being thus fallen into perdition and ruin by the sin of our first parents, God then did manifest himself such as he is; that is to say, merciful and just: Merciful, since he delivers and preserves from this perdition all whom he, in his eternal and unchangeable council, of mere goodness hath elected in Christ Jesus our Lord, without respect to their works: Just, in leaving others in the fall and perdition wherein they have involved themselves.”

“Destiny is not a 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.”

“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.”

“For I am a weed,Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.”

“All events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God.”

“The trick in chasing destiny is to feel it as a rider, a rider on a spinning ball waiting for a rare chance in time. Those few moments of balance between darkness and light where the infinite is in motion and the motion is felt as a dance, as a solution that dissolves the question.”

“[Ivan:] "Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.""No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly.”

“Nature—pitiless in a pitiless universe—is certainly not concerned with the survival of Americans or, for that matter, of any of the two billion people now inhabiting this earth. Hence, our destiny, with the aid of God, remains in our own hands.”

“Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it.”

“Sometimes a man can still meet his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”

“Hot tunnels alternated with cool tunnels. Coolness was wedded to discomfort in the form of hard X-rays. By the time they were decanted the embryos had a horror of cold. They were predestined to emigrate to the tropics, to be miner and acetate silk spinners and steel workers. Later on their minds would be made to endorse the judgment of their bodies. "We condition them to thrive on heat," concluded Mr. Foster. "Our colleagues upstairs will teach them to love it."”

“'Tis strange how the heart can create We are ourselves our happiness.”

“We can't run from who we are. Our destiny chooses us.”

“Destiny is the bridge you build to the one you love.”

“We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us.”

“We are what we mustAre diverse.”

“We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

“When we heard what they [Simmias and Cebes] said we were all depressed, as we told each other afterwards. We had been quite convinced by the previous argument [Socrates' argument], and they seemed to confuse us again, and to drive us to doubt not only what had already been said but also what was going to be said, lest we be worthless as critics or the subject itself [the fate of the soul] admitted of no certainty.”

“The problem with Destiny, of course, is that she is often not careful where she puts her finger.”

“What a falling-off was there!”

“A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.”

“Imperious Cæsar, dead and turn'd to clay,Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!”

“Let Hercules himself do what he may,The cat will mew and dog will have his day.”

“We shall be winnow'd with so rough a windAnd good from bad find no partition.”

“Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,Which, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.”

“Think you I bear the shears of destiny?Have I commandment on the pulse of life?”

“For it is a knellThat summons thee to heaven or to hell.”

“What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?”

“Things at the worst will cease or else climb upwardTo what they were before.”

“If he had been as you and you as he,You would have slipt like him.”

“A man whom both the waters and the wind,For them to play upon.”

“They that stand high have many blasts to shake them;And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.”

“What is done cannot be now amended.”

“But He, that hath the steerage of my course,Direct my sail!”

“And all the bustle of departure—sometimes sad, sometimes intoxicating—just as fear or hope may be inspired by the new chances of coming destiny.”

“And from his ashes may be madeThe violet of his native land.”

“Life treads on life, and heart on heart;To keep a dream or grave apart.”

“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.”

“Character is fate. (Destiny).”

“No living man can send me to the shadesCoward or brave, can shun his destiny.”

“All, soon or late, are doom'd that path to tread.”

“The future works out great men's destinies:Are petrified forever.”

“We are but as the instrument of Heaven.Our work is not design, but destiny.”

“Unseen hands delay"'Twill never come!" comes on us even then.”

“They only fall, that strive to move, Or lose, that care to keep.”

“The irrevocable HandClose after us, forever.”

“Every man meets his Waterloo at last.”

“Truly some men there beSooner done, and shorter pain.”

“The seed ye sow, another reaps;The arms ye forge, another bears.”

“Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident,Do not for this give room for discontent.”

“Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; Through all will run.”

“One country, one constitution, one destiny.”

“To be a Prodigal's favourite,—then worse truth,A Miser's Pensioner,—behold our lot!”