FATE
Success, the mark no mortal wit,
Or surest hand, can always hit:
For whatsoe'er we perpetrate,
We do but row, we're steered by Fate,
Which in success oft disinherits,
For spurious causes, noblest merits,
Hudibras, Pt. I. Canto I. S. BUTLER.
Fate holds the strings, and men like children move
But as they're led: success is from above.
Heroic Love, Act v. Sc. 1. LORD LANSDOWNE.
Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oftenest in what least we dread;
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
A Fable: Moral. W. COWPER.
With equal pace, impartial Fate
Knocks at the palace, as the cottage gate.
Bk. I. Ode IV. HORACE. Translation of PH. FRANCIS.
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
What fates impose, that men must needs abide;
It boots not to resist both wind and tide.
King Henry VI., Pt. IV. Act iv. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate,
Essay on Man, Epistle I. A. POPE.
Let those deplore their doom,
Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn:
But lofty souls, who look beyond the tomb,
Can smile at Fate, and wonder how they mourn.
The Minstrel, Bk. I. J. BEATTIE.
No living man can send me to the shades
Before my time; no man of woman born,
Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
The Iliad, Bk. VI. HOMER. Translation of BRYANT.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
All's Well that Ends Well, Act i. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
I'll make assurance doubly sure,
And take a bond of Fate.
Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Julius Caesar, Act i. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Man is his own star, and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man
Commands all light, all influence, all fate.
Nothing to him falls early, or too late.
Upon an Honest Man's Fortune. J. FLETCHER.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
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