fate

Fantastic fortune thou deceitful light,That cheats the weary traveler by night,Though on a precipice each step you tread,I am resolved to follow where you lead.

Words of the hero: "I am my fate.

We gallop through our lives like circus performers balancing on two speeding side-by-side horses--one foot is on the horse called "fate," the other on the horse called "free will." And the question you have to ask every day is--which horse is which? Which horse do I need to stop worrying about because it's not under my control, and which do I need to steer with concentrated effort?

It was strange even after suffering from fate, a person in love would choose the same fate over his life.

Anna Petrovna: I am beginning to think, doctor, that fate has cheated me. The majority of people, who maybe are no better than I am, are happy and pay nothing for that happiness. I have paid for everything, absolutely everything! And how dearly! Why have I paid such terrible interest?

Perhaps fate brought us together,And the incidents in between made us close,Falling in love was a simple choice,But breaking my heart, that was yours.

I felt a little guilty about jangling the poor bugger's brains with that evil fantasy. But what the hell? Anybody who wanders around the world saying, "Hell yes, I'm from Texas," deserves whatever happens to him.

Things take care of themselves _as long as you trust and don't try to control too much. Things will happen. Things tend to occur. Why resist what's inevitable? That's like swimming against the current, salmon notwithstanding. Go with the flow, you know? Glide with the glow, man. It's easier.

But in high school the business of irrevocable choices began. Doors slipped shut with a faint locking click that was only heared clearly in the dreams of later years.

You know what I think? Fate! That's what it is fate! There's a thing that comes after a fellow:got a name,but I forgot what it is. Creeps up behind him, and puts him in the basket when he ain't expecting it.

Maybe it was fate that I sat next to her that day, or serendipity, divine intervention, who knows? However you look at, I got seated next to the first girl to ever really steal my heart. I was in love from that moment on.

We might not know we are seeking people who best enrich our lives, but somehow on a deep subconscious level we absolutely are. Whether the bond is temporary or permanent, whether it succeeds or fails, fate is simply a configuration of choices that combine with others to shape the relationships that surround us. We cannot choose our family, but we can choose our friends, and we sometimes, before we even meet them.

Sometimes our fate is different from the one we imagined for ourselves.

And I still say it was just a coincidence;' he muttered pugnaciously. 'You say it too! Look at me and say it! It was just a coincidence. That happened to be the nearest place on the dial where they both met exactly, those two hands. My blows dented them. They got stuck there just as the works died, that was all. Stay sane whatever you do. Say it over and over. It was just a coincidence!'Outside the tall French windows, in the velvety night-sky, the stars in all their glory twinkled derisively in at them. ("Speak To Me Of Death")

Habent sua fata libelli et balli [Books and bullets have their own destinies]

If there is no fate and our interactions depend on such a complex system of chance encounters, what potentially important connections do we fail to make? What life changing relationships or passionate and lasting love affairs are lost to chance?

(..)Fate has al­ways been a po­tent force in Rus­sia, where, for gen­er­ations, cit­izens have had lit­tle con­trol over their own des­tinies. Fate can be a bitch, but, as Za­it­sev, Dvornik, and Onofre­cuk had dis­cov­ered, it can al­so be a tiger.

He is where he is supposed to be. And yet the place he has found is also of his own choosing. That is a piece of luck not to be despised.