C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Destiny
Alas! we are the sport of destiny.
Destiny is always dark.
Destiny is our will, and our will is nature.
How circumscribed is woman’s destiny!
We are but as the instrument of heaven.
Marriage is ever made by destiny.
Men must work, and women must weep.
Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.
Every man meets his Waterloo at last.
If we cannot shape our destiny there is no such thing as witchcraft.
What a glorious thing human life is,***and how glorious man’s destiny!
That which God writes on thy forehead thou wilt come to.
Vast, colossal destiny, which raises man to fame, though it may also grind him to powder!
What unknown power governs men! On what feeble causes do their destinies hinge!
Resist as much as thou wilt; heaven’s ways are heaven’s ways.
Woman is born for love, and it is impossible to turn her from seeking it.
Destiny bears us to our lot, and destiny is perhaps our own will.
What fates impose, that men must needs abide.
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
We are all sure of two things, at least; we shall suffer, and we shall all die.
Na man of woman born, coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
’Tis man himself makes his own god and his own hell.
Everything is done by immutable laws, and our destiny is already recorded.
Each thing, both in small and in great, fulfilleth the task which destiny hath set down.
Maids must be wives and mothers to fulfill the entire and holiest end of woman’s being.
If the course of human affairs be considered, it will be seen that many things arise against which heaven does not allow us to guard.
There are but two future verbs which man may appropriate confidently and without pride: “I shall suffer,” and “I shall die.”
Our minds are as different as our faces; we are all traveling to one destination—happiness; but few are going by the same road.
That which is not allotted the hand cannot reach, and what is allotted will find you wherever you may be.
Stern is the onlook of necessity. Not without a shudder may the hand of man grasp the mysterious urn of destiny.
Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is irretrievably under the control of destiny.
That each thing, both in small and in great, fulfilleth the task which destiny hath set down.
Death and life have their determined appointments; riches and honor depend upon heaven.
Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man’s destiny were not equally so.
Can man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace, or their father and mother.
The heart of silver falls ever into the hands of brass. The sensitive herb is eaten as grass by the swine.
They who talk much of destiny, their birth-star, etc., are in a lower dangerous plane, and invite the evil they fear.
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.
He whom the gods love dies young, while he is in health, has his senses and his judgment sound.
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.
The scapegoat which we make responsible for all our crimes and follies; a necessity which we set down for invincible, when we have no wish to strive against it.
I know that nothing comes to pass but what God appoints; our fate is decreed, and things do not happen by chance, but every man’s portion of joy and sorrow is predetermined.
Men are what their mothers made them. You may as well ask a loom which weaves huckabuck why it does not make cashmere as to expect poetry from this engineer or a chemical discovery from that jobber.
Philosophers never stood in need of Homer or the Pharisees, to be convinced that everything is done by immutable laws, that everything is settled, that everything is a necessary effect of some previous cause.
“It is destiny!”—phrase of the weak human heart; dark apology for every error. The strong and the virtuous admit no destiny. On earth, guides conscience; in heaven, watches God. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one, to dethrone the other.
And this is woman’s fate: all her affections are called into life by winning flatteries, and then thrown back upon themselves to perish; and her heart, her trusting heart, filled with weak tenderness, is left to bleed or break!
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.
Take life too seriously, and what is it worth? If the morning wake us to no new joys, if the evening bring us not the hope of new pleasures, is it worth while to dress and undress? Does the sun shine on me to-day that I may reflect on yesterday? That I may endeavor to foresee and to control what can neither be foreseen nor controlled—the destiny of to-morrow?
The wheels of nature are not to roll backward; everything presses on toward Eternity; from the birth: of Time an impetuous current has set in, which bears all the sons of men toward that interminable ocean. Meanwhile heaven is attracting to itself whatever is congenial to its nature, is enriching itself by the spoils of earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom, whatever is pure, permanent and divine.