destiny

DieAnatomie ist das Schicksal. Anatomy is destiny.

—Freud, Sigmund

We in this country, in this generation, areöby destiny, rather than choiceöthe watchmen on the walls of the world.

—Kennedy,John F(itzgerald)

   On n'e¤  chappe pas a'   son sort. One cannot escape destiny.

—Robbe-Grillet, Alain

'Character'says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms,'character is destiny.'

—Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans

Wisdom and policy dictate that we must do as destiny demands and keep peace with the irresistible march of events.

—Napoleon I

I am perfectly aware that the mosquito and sandfly have a purpose in this world, but why don't they attend to it? Their destiny is to keep down microscopic insects†but their sphere of useiswhentheyareinthegrub state.Why don't they stick at that and not trouble innocent unoffending prospectors who can't carry a curtain?

—Douglas, Charles

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour, The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

—Gray,Thomas

   It's my manifest destiny to wear a skirt in all countries.

—Izzard, Eddie

No one can escape his destiny.

—Plato

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, öDrawing no dividend from time's to-morrows. In the great hour of destiny they stand, öEach with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows. Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win öSome flaming, fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin öThey think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

—Sassoon, Siegfried Louvain

Hanging and marriage, you know, go by destiny.

—Farquhar, George

The historic destiny of the Irish is being fulfilled on the other side of the Atlantic, where they have settled in their millions, bringing with them all their ancient grudges and the melancholy of the bogs, but also their hard, ancient wisdom. Theyalone of the newcomers are never fora moment taken in by themultifarious frauds of modernity. They have been changed from peasants and soldiers into townsmen. They have learned some of the superficial habits of 'good citizenship', but at heart they remain the same adroit and joyless race that broke the hearts of all who ever tried to help them.

—Waugh, Evelyn Arthur StJohn

To be an American (unlike being English or French or whatever) is precisely to imagine a destiny rather than to inherit one; since we have always been, insofaras we are Americans at all, inhabitants of myth rather than history.

—Fiedler, Leslie A(aron)

Car l'homme, je te le dis, cherche sa propre destine¤  e et non pas son bonheur. Becauseman,Itell you, islooking forhis owndestiny, not his own happiness.

—Saint-Exupe¤  ry, Antoine de

Je connais gens de toutes sortes Ils n'e¤  galent pas leur destin. I know people of all sorts They do not measure up to their destiny.

—Kostrowitzki

Le mal se fait sans effort, naturellement, par fatalite¤  ; le bien est toujours le produit d'un art. Evil is done without effort, naturally, it's destiny; good is always a product of art.

—Baudelaire, Charles

It is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave offeating animals, assurelyas the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they come in contact with the more civilized.

—Thoreau, Henry David

The knowledge that you can have is inexhaustible, and what is inexhaustible is benevolent. The knowledge that you cannot have is of the riddles of birth and death, of our future destinyand the purposes of God. Here there is no knowledge, but illusions that restrict freedom and limit hope. Accept the mystery behind knowledge: It is not darkness but shadow.

—Frye, Northrop

But who can turn the stream of destiny, Or break the chain of strong necessity?

—Spenser, Edmund

'Tis my destiny That you must either love, or I must die.

—Ford,John

I remember summing up what I took to be ourdestiny, in conversation with my best friend at Chartres, by the formula,'Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die.'

—Lewis, C(live) S(taples)

But ah, who can deceive his destiny, Or ween by warning to avoid his fate?

—Spenser, Edmund