59 Thought-Provoking Fate Quotes

In the intricate tapestry of life, the notion of fate has long captivated human imagination, weaving itself through the stories and philosophies of countless cultures. Whether seen as a guiding hand or a mysterious force beyond our comprehension, fate challenges us to ponder the extent of our control over our destinies. In this collection of 59 thought-provoking fate quotes, we explore the wisdom and insights of thinkers, poets, and sages who have grappled with these timeless questions. Join us as we delve into the poignant words that reflect on the balance between destiny and free will, and perhaps find inspiration in the journey that fate charts for us all.

1. “Oh, I am fortune's fool!” - William Shakespeare

2. “Fate loves the fearless.” - James Russell Lowell

3. “All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.” - Seán O'Casey

4. “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. “I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

6. “Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.” - kate dicamillo

7. “I'm not absolutely certain of the facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare who says that it's always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping.” - P. G. Wodehouse

8. “When an inner situation is not made conscious it appears outside as fate.” - Carl Gustav Jung

9. “Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person's name suddenly pops up everywhere you go? My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace. He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and "fruitfulness" is drawn in. ” - Mary Ann Shaffer

10. “So what is love then is it dictated or chosen (handed down and made by hand)Does it sing like the hymns of a thousand yearsOr is it just pop emotion (handed down and made by hand)And if it ever was there and it leftDoes it mean it was never trueAnd to exist it must eludeIs that why I think these things of you?” - Emily Saliers

11. “When the time is ripe for certain things, these things appear in different places in the manner of violets coming to light in early spring.” - Farkas Bolyai

12. “When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

13. “Fate is by far the greatest mystery of all.” - Deanna Raybourn

14. “Sometimes you imagine that everything could have been different for you, that if only you had gone right one day when you chose to go left, you would be living a life you could never have anticipated. But at other times you think there was no other way forward--that you were always bound to end up exactly where you have.” - Kevin Brockmeier

15. “Then we’re just sitting there, staring at each other. Which has been happening a lot lately. It’s likewhatever wall there was between us, however she was holding herself back from me . . . all of thatpretense is gone.“And when you find a soul mate,” Sara says, “it’s undeniable. You have to be together.”“That’s my philosophy.” I look back at her. “You have to go with the flow.”“Exactly. I think the universe guides you to make the right choices.”“Do you believe in fate?”“I guess, but . . . it’s more about creating the life you want so you can make that fate a reality. Youknow?” - Susane Colasanti

16. “Archer had always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a small part in shaping people's lots compared with their innate tendency to have things happen to them.” - Edith Wharton

17. “The future was with Fate. The present was our own.~ The Poison Belt” - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

18. “The stage is a magic circle where only the most real things happen, a neutral territory outside the jurisdiction of Fate where stars may be crossed with impunity. A truer and more real place does not exist in all the universe.” - P.S. Baber

19. “Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I.” - Herman Melville

20. “Life calls the tune, we dance.” - John Galsworthy

21. “Above all, mine is a love story. Unlike most love stories, this one involves chance, gravity, a dash of head trauma. It began with a coin toss. The coin came up tails. I was heads. Had it gone my way, there might not be a story at all. Just a chapter, or a sentence in a book whose greater theme had yet to be determined. Maybe this chapter would've had the faintest whisper of love about it. But maybe not. Sometimes, a girl needs to lose.” - Gabrielle Zevin

22. “Fate is never fair. You are caught in a current much stronger than you are; struggle against it and you'll drown not just yourself but those who try to save you. Swim with it. and you'll survive” - Cassandra Clare

23. “Many men would take the death-sentence without a whimper, to escape the life-sentence which fate carries in her other hand.” - T.E. Lawrence

24. “Єсть на світі доля, А хто її знає? Єсть на світі воля, А хто її має? Єсть люде на світі — Сріблом-злотом сяють, Здається, панують, А долі не знають,— Ні долі, ні волі! З нудьгою та з горем Жупан надівають, А плакати — сором. Возьміть срібло-злото Та будьте багаті, А я візьму сльози — Лихо виливати; Затоплю недолю Дрібними сльозами, Затопчу неволю Босими ногами! Тоді я веселий, Тоді я багатий, Як буде серденько По волі гуляти!” - Taras Shevchenko

25. “if the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right.” - Charles Dickens

26. “Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant, I act under orders.” - Herman Melville

27. “Protestors? At a funeral?” - V.C. King

28. “An cinniúnt, is dócha: féach an féileacán úd thall atá ag foluain os cionn mo choinnle. Ní fada go loiscfear a sciatháin mhaiseacha: cá bhfios dúinne nach bhfuil a fhios sin aige, freisin?” - Pádraic Ó Conaire

29. “You go into the office and take a book or two from the shelves. You read a few lines, like your life depended on reading 'em right. But you know your life doesn't depend on anything that makes sense, and you wonder where in the hell you got the idea it did; and you begin to get sore.” - Jim Thompson

30. “Happiness, you see, its just an illusion of Fate, a heavenly sleight of hand designed to make you believe in fairy tales. But there's no happily ever after. You'll only find happy endings in books. Some books.” - Ellen Hopkins

31. “Destiny is a worrying concept. I don't want to be fated, I want to choose.” - Jeanette Winterson

32. “Our destiny is aligned with our heart's innermost longing, a longing embedded within our soul before birth. This longing is a unique pattern or configuration reminiscent of the constellations in the night sky. When we express (press out) our unique configuration, it shines through us with an otherworldly luminosity, manifesting abundance in our lives and the lives of others. Our sole task is to yoke our inner destiny, thread it through our lives and weave it into the world. All else is just shadows and dust.” - Thea Euryphaessa

33. “I believe in signs....what we need to learn is always there before us, we just have to look around us with respect & attention to discover where God is leading us and which step we should take. When we are on the right path, we follow the signs, and if we occasionally stumble, the Divine comes to our aid, preventing us from making mistakes.” - Paulo Coelho

34. “That was how the heroine of a book would play it and Diana was still writing her own story the best heroines she'd always believed took their fate into their own hands.” - Anna Godbersen

35. “Whatever is, is in its causes just;But purblind manSees but a part o' th' chain; the nearest link;His eyes not carrying to that equal beamThat poises all above.” - John Dryden

36. “I use this as a paradigm for our whole attitude toward life, what you did was you worked very hard, you try to understand and try to direct these complicated, powerful forces and at the very end of the struggle you've made no progress at all. That upon discovering that, you've raised to a lofty moral height, and you've accepted your fate, and somehow went on.” - Philip K. Dick

37. “Prisjetio se događaja koji su ih spojili i cijelim srcem je vjerovao kako ih neka nevidljiva ruka pokreće,i nju i njega,kao malene komade drveta,namještajući njihov položaj,manipulira događajima dovodeći ih do trenutka kada će se upoznati.Sudbina?Svevišnji?Alex nije znao, i nije se trudio pogađati.Sve što je bilo važno u ovom trenutku je osjećaj koji se činio predivno i savršeno ispravan.” - Catherine Anderson

38. “You cannot outwit fate by placing little sidebets on the outcome of life. It's either you wade in and play in order to win or you don't play at all." - Matthew Farrell” - Judith McNaught

39. “Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.” - Helen Keller

40. “You don't choose what to believe. Belief chooses you.” - Steven Galloway

41. “The lines of fate on my hand, once so bright, faded into echo.The memory of his face in my dreams, once so luminous passed into shadow.” - Farrah Naseem

42. “Men plan. Fate Laughs.” - Jim Butcher

43. “The banana flavour of his accidental conception, and the banana theme of his accidental death, now all seemed to conspire against him and rather suggest the universe, Mr Fate or whoever did have some sort of master plan after all. Despite all his earlier conjecturing, maybe the universe, Mr Fate or whoever was laughing its fat and meddling head at him. The outlandish evidence did seem to speak for itself, truly suggesting a mocking narrative devised by some mischievous author because quite simply a banana condom had brought Midnight into the world and a banana skin had seen him out. Putting those two seeming truths together, Midnight was once again forced to ask such confused and searching questions like:What is this place, where am I heading? And what’s the deal with all the ruddy bananas?” - Tom Conrad

44. “I too saw the wooden horse blocking the stars.” - Derek Walcott

45. “A man is deficient in understanding until he perceives that there is a whole cycle of evolution possible within himself: repeating endlessly, offering opportunities for personal development.” - Idries Shah

46. “Life is indeed a gamble, the ultimate game of chance, based purely upon having the ability to make the right choices at the right time. You never win or lose in life if you realise it is all just for the experience. Learn to create your own destiny, don't wait to see what fate throws your way.” - Steven Redhead

47. “Fate will unwind as it must!” - Burton Raffel

48. “Children—their untroubled, idyllic vision of the future is almost always shattered. Sooner or later they learn what all youth must—that life is the cruel fate that awaits them while they make plans for a tomorrow that will never be.” - Andrew Levkoff

49. “She had to go on this quest. The fate of the world might depend on it. But part of him wanted to say: Forget the world. He didn’t want to be without her.” - Rick Riordan

50. “The portieres were drawn across the French windows now, veiling the stars outside - that were there nevertheless. ("Speak To Me Of Death")” - Cornell Woolrich

51. “With riddles as black as coals, and answers as invisible as our past, I can only depend upon the crest of the rolling wave I now traversed; a romance worshiped only by the dreamer in us all, a psithurism of trust making its way through the years of our ascension to one day climb above the kaleidoscopic canopy of this mortal coil.” - Dave Matthes

52. “Luck Doesn't Exist in one's world, its the unexplainable and the unexpected that makes some question fate” - Elliot Kesebonye

53. “Fate has carried me'Mid the thick arrows: I will keep my stand--Not shrink and let the shaft pass by my breastTo pierce another.” - George Eliot

54. “The best luck always happens to people who don't need it.” - Robert Penn Warren

55. “How fate is stubborn and holds to habit.” - Susan Abulhawa

56. “It was as simple as that - they met. As simple as only beautiful things can be beautiful, as only life-changing things, turning-point things, can be simple.("For The Rest Of Her Life")” - Cornell Woolrich

57. “The gene contains a single 'word', repeated over and over again: CAG, CAG, CAG, CAG ... The repetition continues sometimes just six times, sometimes thirty, sometimes more than a hundred times. Your destiny, your sanity and your life hang by the thread of this repetition. If the 'word' is repeated thirty-five times or fewer, you will be fine.Most of us have about ten to fifteen repeats. If the 'word' is repeated thirty-nine times or more, you will in mid-life slowly start to lose your balance, grow steadily more incapable of looking after yourself and die prematurely.” - Matt Ridley

58. “Smile at the Fates and you will feel less their Slave.” - Denise Sevier Fries

59. “What our contempt often hurls from us,We wish it our again; the present pleasure,By revolution lowering, does becomeThe opposite of itself” - William Shakespeare