Quotes About Destiny

What a lamentable thing it is that men should blame the gods and regard us as the source of their troubles, when it is their own transgressions which bring them suffering that was not their destiny.

All things are in the hand of heaven, and Folly, eldest of Jove's daughters, shuts men's eyes to their destruction. She walks delicately, not on the solid earth, but hovers over the heads of men to make them stumble or to ensnare them.

and they limp and halt, they're all wrinkled, drawn, they squint to the side, can't look you in the eyes, and always bent on duty, trudging after Ruin, maddening, blinding Ruin. But Ruin is strong and swift—She outstrips them all by far, stealing a march, leaping over the whole wide earth to bring mankind to grief.

My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet my end. If I stay here and fight, I will not return alive but my name will live forever: whereas if I go home my name will die, but it will be long ere death shall take me.

And when long years and seasons wheeling brought around that point of time ordained for him to make his passage homeward, trials and dangers, even so, attended him even in Ithaca, near those he loved.

For my part I have no joy in tears after dinnertime. There will always be a new dawn tomorrow. Yet I can have no objection to tears for any mortal who dies and goes to his destiny. And this is the only consolation we wretched mortals can give, to cut our hair and let the tears roll down our faces.

What a lamentable thing it is that men should blame the gods and regard us as the source of their troubles, when it is their own wickedness that brings them sufferings worse than any which destiny allots them.

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.

That is the god's work, spinning threads of death through the lives of mortal men, and all to make a song for those to come...

No man is going to hurl me to Hades, unless it is fated, but as for fate, I think that no man yet has escaped it once it has taken its first form, neither brave man nor coward.

But death is a thing that comes to all alike. Not even the gods can fend it away from a man they love, when once the destructive doom of leveling death has fastened upon him.

Did fate, or we, when great Atrides died, Urge the bold traitor to the regicide?

Mirst?giem ?aud?m virs zemes maz dienu ir dz?v?bai lemtu. Ja k?dam ir cietsird?gs raksturs un cietsird?gs ir bijis pret citiem, Visi tam nov?l tik ?aunu, kam?r tas dz?vo virs zemes, Bet, ja kam krietna ir sirds, ja ar? t? domas ir krietnas, Teicamo slavu pa pasauli plašo starp mirst?giem ?aud?m Svešinieki aiznes un visi to d?v? par cildenu v?ru.

Poor Andromache! Why does your heart sorrow so much for me? No man is going to hurl me to Hades, unless it is fated, but as for fate, I think no man has yet escaped it once it has taken its first form, neither brave man nor coward.

Oh, mother! since thy son To early death by destiny is doom'd, I might have hop'd the Thunderer on high, Olympian Jove, with honour would have crown'd My little space; but now disgrace is mine; Since Agamemnon, the wide-ruling King, Hath wrested from me, and still holds, my prize. Weeping, he spoke; his Goddess-mother heard, Beside her aged father where she sat In the deep ocean-caves: ascending quick Through the dark waves, like to a misty cloud, Beside her son she stood; and as he wept, She

So the immortals spun our lives that we, we wretched men live on to bear such torments-the gods live free of sorrows. There are two great jars that stand on the floor of Zeus's halls and hold his gifts, our miseries one, the other blessings. When Zeus who loves the lightning mixes gifts for a man, now he meets with misfortune, now good times in turn.

A double chance of destiny impends: If here remaining, round the walls of Troy I wage the war, I ne'er shall see my home, But then undying glory shall be mine: If I return, and see my native land, 490 My glory all is gone; but length of life Shall then be mine, and death be long deferr'd.

The Spinners (Klothes) are imagined in Greek mythology as three old female figures who construct the thread of human destiny—

But humans cannot stay awake forever; immortal gods have set a proper time for everything that mortals do on earth.

So the immortals spun our lives that we, we wretched men live on to bear such torments - the gods live free of sorrows. -Achilles to Priam

One and the same lot for the man who hangs back and the man who battles hard. The same honor waits for the coward and the brave. They both go down to Death

Patroclus equal of Ares came out; and that was the beginning of his end.

for when the gods have made up their minds they do not change them lightly.

O old friend, if we two escaping this war were destined to be ageless and deathless always, I myself would not fight in the frontlines, nor would I send you into battle where men win glory; but now, since the fates of death stand by us in their thousands, which a mortal man cannot escape nor flee, let us go—either we will give the right to vaunt to someone else or he to us.