Every moment of our lives we are either growing or dying—and it’s largely a choice, not fate. Throughout its life cycle, every one of the body’s trillions of cells is driven to grow and improve its ability to use more of its innate yet untapped capacity. Research biologist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who was twice awarded the Nobel Prize, called this syntropy, which he defined as the “innate drive in living matter to perfect itself”. It turns conventional thinking upside down…As living cells—or as people—there is no staying the same. If we aim for some middle ground or status quo, it’s an illusion—beneath the surface what’s actually happening is we’re dying, not growing. And the goal of a lifetime is continued growth, not adulthood. As Rene Dubos put it, “Genius is childhood recaptured”. For this to happen, studies show that we must recapture—or prevent the loss of—such child-like traits as the ability to learn, to love, to laugh about small things, to leap, to wonder, and to explore. It’s time to rescue ourselves from our grown-up ways before it’s too late.
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey;
This Flecknoe found, who like Augustus young
Was call’d to empire, and had govern’d long:
In prose and verse, was own’d, without dispute
Through all the realms of nonsense, absolute.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
What must be shall be; and that which is a necessity to him that struggles, is little more than choice to him that is willing.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Men at sometime are the masters of their fate.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Seek not to know what must not be reveal, for joy only flows where fate is most concealed. A busy person would find their sorrows much more; if future fortunes were known before!
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.
—Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher
The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
Fate rules the affairs of men, with no recognizable order.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow.
—William McFee (1881–1966) English Writer
Death and life have their determined appointments; riches and honors depend upon heaven.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian Head of State
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
—Anonymous
Whatever limits us we call Fate.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Public opinion is a weak tyrant, compared with our private opinion – what a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates his fate.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
It is a singular fact that many men of action incline to the theory of fatalism, while the greater part of men of thought believe in a divine providence.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
Our wills and fates do so contrary run, that our devices still are overthrown; our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
There is tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries; on such a full sea we are now afloat; and we must take the current the clouds folding and unfolding beyond the horizon. when it serves, or lose our ventures.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
A strict belief in fate is the worst kind of slavery; on the other hand there is comfort in the thought that God will be moved by our prayers.
—Epicurus (c.341–270 BCE) Greek Philosopher
There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
Chance generally favors the prudent.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
Dreadful is the mysterious power of fate; there is no deliverance from it by wealth or by war, by walled city or dark, seabeaten ships.
—Sophocles (495–405 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
It’s the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
Fate leads him who follows it, and drags him who resist.
—Plutarch (c.46–c.120 CE) Greek Biographer, Philosopher
The men and woman who make the best boon companions seem to have given up hope of doing something else…some defect of talent or opportunity has cut them off from their pet ambition and has thus left them with leisure to take an interest in their lives of others. Your ambition may be, it makes him keep his thoughts at home. But the heartbroken people—if I may use the word in a mild, benevolent sense—the people whose wills are subdued to fate, give us consolation, recognition, and welcome.
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933) American Literary Critic, Essayist
Destiny has a constant passion for the incongruous.
—Booth Tarkington (1869–1946) American Novelist, Dramatist
Thought presides over all.—Fate, that dead phantom, shall vanish from action, and providence alone be visible in heaven and on earth.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbow’d.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Lies but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
—William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English Poet, Critic, Editor
I see it only that thyself is here, and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels and the supreme being shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Destiny has two ways of crushing us—by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
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