“I was never a beauty,” said the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. “There was a time when I was sorry about that, when I was old enough to understand the importance of it and, looking in any mirror, realized it was something I was never going to have. Then I found what I wanted to do in life, and being called pretty no longer had any importance. It was only much later that I realized that not being beautiful was a blessing in disguise. It forced me to develop my inner resources. I came to understand that women who cannot lean on their beauty and need to make something on their own have the advantage. I cannot think of anything more terrible than looking back at the end and feeling that you have not written well in the Book of Life.” –Charlotte Chandler
The flexible muscles growing daily more rigid give character to the countenance ; that is, they trace the operations of the mind with the iron pen of fate, and tell us not only what powers are within, but how they have been employed. — Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
Fate is nonawareness. – Jan Kott
What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity. – Arthur Schopenhauer
Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never believe fate is more than the condensation of childhood. – Rainer Maria Rilke
Fate is a great accident. – Arvo Ylppö, Finnish pediatrician, Archiater
Destiny is that which we are drawn towards and Fate is that which we run into. – Wyatt Earp
Fate is the raw materials of experience. They come uninvited and often unanticipated. Destiny is what a man does with these raw materials. – Howard Thurman
Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat. – Elizabeth Bowen
I have found that fate is as liquid and elusive a word as love. Plato thought they were the same … Novalis wrote that fate and soul are two names for the same principle. – Liz Greene
Destiny is that which we are drawn towards and Fate is that which we run into. – Wyatt Earp
Actions are the seed of Fate.
Deeds grow into Destiny. – A.L. Linall, Jr.
Destiny is what you are supposed to do in life. Fate is what kicks you in the ass to do it. – Henry Miller
Fate is the raw materials of experience. They come uninvited and often unanticipated. Destiny is what a man does with these raw materials. – Howard Thurman
No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. – Agnes de Mille
Man’s destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty. – Jacques Monod
Thy destiny is only that of man, but thy aspirations may be those of a god. – Ovid
Destiny is something men select; women achieve it only by default or stupendous suffering. — Harriet Rosenstein
Destiny is something we’ve invented because we can’t stand the fact that Everything that happens is accidental – Meg Ryan as Annie Reed in Sleepless In Seattle
Destiny is an invention of the cowardly and the resigned. – Ignazio Silone
Your destiny is that of a man, your vows those of a god. – Voltaire
Transcending your fate
It is possible to modify the Karma or psychological reward and punishment, accrued in early life and in previous lives. … so that the individual does not have to necessarily be immersed in the physical and psychological events of his fate, but be as an impartial observer looking and learning from the play of his or her life.
Such a viewpoint is often spoken by various spiritual sages. As one said, ‘You must see stone and gold, failure and success in much the same manner. Treat such things as phenomena of the physical and psychological worlds – to be used, but not to be attached to.’ This indifference is not an uncaring one, but the viewpoint of someone who has risen above his physical and psychological fate, although he might well pass through events that would cripple or destroy most people. The ability to do this is based upon not only the moment-by-moment choice to take the view of the superior person, but on a vision rooted in the highest aspect of the Sun that has direct access to the World of the Spirit.
The movement of the Universe impels everything to continually change and so happenings occur, but under very definite laws and with great precision. … This does not mean to say that there is not free will. This privilege, however, belongs to the area of inner consciousness and not to external events. Everything that happens in the outside world is more or less fixed. …
There are individuals who can pass untouched through the most dreadful events. These are people operating under the laws of the spirit and destiny. Such examples are found in the saints who walk through plague- or war-ridden areas and are protected. People such as this are obviously very rare, but they do exist.
– Warren Kenton, The Anatomy of Fate, Kabbalistic Astrology
WOMEN’S FATE
Woman submits to her fate; man makes his. – Emile Gaboriau
Women accept their destiny more readily than men. – Thomas Hardy
The fate of a woman is to be a woman. – Iris Kähäri, Finnish writer
Destiny is something men select; women achieve it only by default or stupendous suffering. — Harriet Rosenstein
Most men experience getting older with regret, apprehension. But most women experience it even more painfully; with shame. Aging is man’s destiny, something that must happen because he’s a human being. For a woman aging is not only her destiny – it is also her vulnerability. – Susan Sontag
To a woman who complained about her destiny the Master said, “It is you who make your destiny.”
– But surely I am not responsible for being born a woman?
– Being born a woman isn’t destiny. That is fate. Destiny is how you accept your womanhood and what you make of it.
– Anthony de Mello