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Fatalism Quotes

Browse 82 quotes about Fatalism.

Fatalism Quotes

“From Orient Point The art of living isn't hard to muster: Enjoy the hour, not what it might portend. When someone makes you promises, don't trust her unless they're in the here and now, and just her willing largesse free-handed to a friend. The art of living isn't hard to muster: groom the old dog, her coat gets back its luster; take brisk walks so you're hungry at the end. When someone makes you promises, don't trust her to know she can afford what they will cost her to keep until they're kept. Till then, pretend the art of living isn't hard to muster. Cooking, eating and drinking are a cluster of pleasures. Next time, don't go round the bend when someone makes you promises. Don't trust her past where you'd trust yourself, and don't adjust her words to mean more to you than she'd intend. The art of living isn't hard to muster. You never had her, so you haven't lost her like spare house keys. Whatever she opens, when someone makes you promises, don't. Trust your art; go on living: that's not hard to muster.”

LoveLossGriefStrengthTrustPerseveranceBetrayalMourningWillPromisesFatalism
Author:Marilyn Hacker
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“When I was up there, stranded by myself, did I think I was going to die? Yes. Absolutely, and that’s what you need to know going in because it’s going to happen to you. This is space. It does not cooperate. At some point everything is going to go south on you. Everything is going to go south and you’re going to say 'This is it. This is how I end.' Now you can either accept that or you can get to work. That’s all it is. You just begin. You do the math, you solve one problem. Then you solve the next one, and then the next and if you solve enough problems you get to come home.”

SpaceDyingPerseveranceProblem SolvingBeginningFatalism
Book:The Martian: A Screenplay
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“Death for a noble cause, I understand, but...death for its own sake? Death as the...as the noble cause? That's not a good answer, either. It's not as bad as theirs, not as bad as those who are marching against you out there, but that...the fact that it's the worst answer doesn't make it a good answer. Isn't...isn't worshiping the inevitability of death just, like, just another bullshit way of trying to have the illusion of control over it?”

WarDespairFatalism
Book:Monsters in a Mirror: Strange Tales from the Chapel Perilous
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“Seeing the mud around a lotus is pessimism, seeing a lotus in the mud is optimism.”

InspirationalWritingPhilosophyWisdomMotivationalQuotesHopeKnowledgeDoubtFlowerConfidenceSpeechDespairDepressionOptimismRoseWittyWitOptimisticPositive AttitudeMovieStoryMelancholyPessimismCheerCynicismNegativityRhetoricMudDistrustSayingsCreative WritingSlogansAmit KalantriAmit Kalantri QuotesAngstPublic SpeakingProverbsGloomCheerfulnessPessimisticSocial NetworkingBloggingCharactersAmit Kalantri WriterAdageNovel WritingBook WritingEssayScriptAdvertisementBlogMovie DialogueScript WritingCatchphrasesAlliterationsNegative ThinkingTag LinesScriptwritingCatch LinesSpeechwritingHopefulnessPunchlineFatalismGood CheerDespondencyBuoyancyLotus FlowerLotusDoom And GloomPositivenessDejectionDefeatismExpecting The WorstGloominess HopelessnessLack Of HopeSanguineness
Book:Wealth of Words
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“It ended by my almost believing (perhaps actually believing) that this was perhaps my normal condition. But at first, in the beginning, what agonies I endured in that struggle! I did not believe it was the same with other people, and all my life I hid this fact about myself as a secret. I was ashamed (even now, perhaps, I am ashamed): I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret abnormal, despicable enjoyment in returning home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night, acutely conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome action again, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing, gnawing at myself for it, tearing and consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and at last—into positive real enjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! I insist upon that. I have spoken of this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment? I will explain; the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one’s own degradation; it was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into. And the worst of it was, and the root of it all, that it was all in accord with the normal fundamental laws of over-acute consciousness, and with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws, and that consequently one was not only unable to change but could do absolutely nothing. Thus it would follow, as the result of acute consciousness, that one is not to blame in being a scoundrel; as though that were any consolation to the scoundrel once he has come to realise that he actually is a scoundrel.”

StruggleDespairDepressionShameAgonyActionsHopelessnessFatalismInevitabilities
Book:Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
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“[T]his readiness to assume the guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, it all depends on us. We pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives. What is really hard for us (at least in the West) to accept is that we are reduced to the role of a passive observer who sits and watches what our fate will be. To avoid this impotence, we engage in frantic, obsessive activities. We recycle old paper, we buy organic food, we install long-lasting light bulbs—whatever—just so we can be sure that we are doing something. We make our individual contribution like the soccer fan who supports his team in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from his seat, in the belief that this will somehow influence the game's outcome.”

EnvironmentFateTelevisionFootballGuiltGlobal WarmingCatastropheEnvironmentalismRecyclingImpotenceReassuranceFatalismOrganic Food20102010 Fifa World Cup2010 Eruptions EyjafjallajokulPaper Recycling
Author:Slavoj Žižek
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“CheckFate by Stewart Stafford Now hear this about Fate! Its coils squeezing around you, Directing your every move, It is your second skin glue. Scream unilateral lockdown, As in Covid fever dream years, Fate is your silent partner, Lifer cellmate chained to all your fears. As you hide in a shack in the Andes, Fate's squatter gatecrashes to stay, Tracked by a big cat in the Pampas, Jaguar-spotted stalker in your DNA. Fate deals its stacked tarot cards, Catch-22's lotto winners - broke and few, A drill sergeant drones' whipped parade In lockstep as one of Fate's crew. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

DestinyFateAnxietyExistentialismHuman ConditionDark HumorFatalismContemporary PoetryDark PoetryLack Of Agency
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“It's politics. You are angry with politics. I understand that. Truly, I do. As powerful as I am, where I come from I am considered a third-tier being. The lords and the royals—some of whom know nothing of the horrors and hardships of war—reign over me. It angers me to no end, and yet I continue. I follow. I do what I must. I do what I have to. I follow the path laid out in front of me. I do my duty.” “Then how are you any different from the slaves?” “We are all slaves, whether we want to accept it or not. It's finding higher meaning in the process of servitude where we find relief.”

PurposeFreedomDestinyFateDestiny QuotesServitudeDeterminismFate QuotesFatalism
Book:The Destroyer of Worlds: An Answer to Every Question
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“But the attitude that Viking society held up as the ideal one was a heroic stoicism. In the words of archaeologist Neil Price, "The outcome of our actions, our fate, is already decided and therefore does not matter. What is important is the manner of our conduct as we go to meet it." You couldn't change what was going to happen to you, but you could at least face it with honor and dignity. The best death was to go down fighting, preferably with a smile on your lips. Life is precarious by nature, but this was especially true in the Viking Age, which made this fatalism, and stoicism in the face of it, especially poignant. The model of this ideal was Odin's amassing an army in Valhalla in preparation for Ragnarok. He knew that Fenrir, "the wolf", was going to murder him one way or another. Perhaps on some level he hoped that by gathering all of the best warriors to fight alongside him, he could prevent the inevitable. But deep down he knew that his struggle was hopeless - yet he determined to struggle just the same, and to die in the most radiant blaze of glory he could muster.”

FatePaganFatalismVikingHeathenryAsatru
Book:The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion
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“Then the prophetess said to the witcher: "I shall give you this advice: wear boots made of iron, take in hand a staff of steel. Then walk until the end of the world. Help yourself with your staff to break the land before you and wet it with your tears. Go through fire and water, do not stop along the way, do not look behind you. And when the boots are worn, when your staff is blunt, once the wind and the heat has dried your eyes so that your tears no longer flow, then at the end of the world you may find what you are looking for and what you love... The witcher went through fire and water, he did not look back. He did not take iron boots or a staff of steel. He took only his sword. He did not listen to the words of prophets. And he did well because she was a bad prophet.”

DestinyFateFatalismWitcherProphey
Book:Czas pogardy
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“You can make no distinction between what he is and what he does. And what he does is kill. We of course are another matter. I suspect that we are ill-formed for the path we have chosen. Ill-formed and ill-prepared. We would like to draw a veil over all that blood and terror. That have brought us to this place. It is our faintness of heart that would close our eyes to all of that, but in so doing it makes of it our destiny. Perhaps you would not agree. I dont know. But nothing is crueller than a coward, and the slaughter to come is probably beyond our imagining.”

RealityTruthDeathViolenceHuman NaturePessimismNihilismMisanthropyFatalismEnd Of Days
Book:The Counselor: A Screenplay
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“One of the most agonizing problems of human experience is how to deal with disappointment. In our individual lives we all too often distill our frustrations into an essence of bitterness, or drown ourselves in the deep waters of self-pity, or adopt a fatalistic philosophy that whatever happens must happen and all events are determined by necessity. These reactions poison the soul and scar the personality, always harming the person who harbors them more than anyone else. The only healthy answer lies in one’s honest recognition of disappointment even as he still clings to hope, one’s acceptance of finite disappointment even while clinging to infinite hope.”

HopeDisappointmentFrustrationBitternessSelf PityFatalism
Book:Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
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“Peopleare sometimes largely powerless, politically, or even psychologically (because we are not flexible, but are indeed brainwashed, or in the grip of strange obsessions that we cannot shake). When we are powerless, fatalism may be a natural frame of mind into which to relapse. If our best efforts come to nothing often enough, we need consolation, and thoughts of unfolding, infinite destiny, or karma, are sometimes consoling.”

DestinyPowerKarmaFatalism
Book:Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy
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“Working like automatons, the team of doomed spacetroopers attached themselves to the breached wall of the Death Star’s power core. Intense radiation spewed out, darkening their faceplates so they could barely see, slowly frying their life-support systems. Moving sluggishly as they weakened under the invisible onslaught, they wrestled thick sheets of plating in the low gravity. They used rapid laser welders to slap patches over the breach, reinforcing it to withstand an energy buildup. One of the spacetroopers, his control pack sparking with blue lightning as the suit’s circuits all broke down, thrashed about in eerie silence; his arm movements gradually slowed until he drifted free. One of the others took his place, ignoring the lost companion. Every one of them had already received a lethal dose of radiation. They knew it, but their training had been thorough: they lived to serve the Empire. One of the troopers completed a last weld at the hottest point of the breach. His skin blistered. His nerves were deadened. His eyes and lungs hemorrhaged blood. But he forced himself to finish his task. The cold vacuum of space solidified the welds instantly. With a gurgling voice filled with fluid, the spacetrooper gasped into his helmet radio, “Mission accomplished.” Then the remaining troopers, with failing life-support systems and bodies already savaged by the fatal radiation, released their hold on the power core in unison. They drifted free, dropping toward the brilliant energy discharge like shooting stars.”

WarDoomStar WarsFatalism
Author:Kevin J. Anderson
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“First, all I could see was this beautiful face, this beautiful girl's face; like a white, slightly luminous mask, swimming detachedly against enfolding darkness. As if a little private spotlight of its own was trained on it from below. It was so beautiful and so false, and I seemed to know it so well, and my heart was wrung. There was no danger yet, just this separate, shell-like face mask standing out. But there was danger somewhere around, I knew that already; and I knew that I couldn't escape it. I knew that everything [ was about to do, I had to do, I couldn't avoid doing. And yet, oh, I didn't want to do it. I wanted to turn and flee, I wanted to get out of wherever this was. ("Nightmare")”

NightmareFemme FataleFatalism
Book:Baker's Dozen: 13 Short Mystery Novels
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“Quinn seemed to have become one of a jaded philosophical society, a group of arcane deviates. Their raison d'etre was a kind of mystical masochism, forcing initiates toward feats of occult daredevilry - "glimpsing the inferno with eyes of ice", to take from the notebook a phrase that was repeated often and seemed a sort of chant of power. As I suspected, hallucinogenic drugs were used by the sect, and there was no doubt that they believed themselves communing with strange metaphysical venues. Their chief aim, in true mystical fashion, was to transcend common reality in the search for higher states of being, but their stratagem was highly unorthodox, a strange detour along the usual path toward positive illumination. Instead, they maintained a kind of blasphemous fatalism, a doomed determinism which brought them face to face with realms of obscure horror. Perhaps it was this very obscurity that allowed them the excitement of their central purpose, which seemed to be a precarious flirting with personal apocalypse, the striving for horrific dominion over horror itself. ("The Dreaming In Nortown")”

FearHorrorTerrorMysticismMysticalApocalypseMetaphysicalOccultSectsBlasphemyHigher ConsciousnessMagickFatalismArcaneTranscendOccultismMysticsOccult HorrorHallucinogenic DrugsSectHallucinogenicMystical EncounterPhilosophical InquiryBlasphemous
Book:The nightmare factory
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“It was highly fatalistic, but its fatalism was not one of complacency. It saw life as being ultimately doomed to tragedy, but with the opportunity for grand and noble heroism along the way. The Vikings sought to seize that opportunity, to accomplish as much as they could - and be remembered for it - despite the certainty of the grave and "the wolf." How one met one's fate, whatever that fate happened to be, was what separated honorable and worthy people from the dishonorable and the unworthy. Norse religion and mythology were thoroughly infused with this view. The gods, the "pillars" who held the cosmos together, fought for themselves and their world tirelessly and unflinchingly, even though they knew that in the end the struggle was hopeless, and that the forces Of chaos and entropy would prevail. They went out not with a whimper, but with a bang. This attitude is what made the Vikings the Vikings.”

PaganVikingsFatalismHeathenryAsatru
Book:The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion
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“Frustration of my plans to lighten the disaster will convince people that the future holds no promise for them. Already they recall the lives of their grandfathers with envy. They will see that political revolutions and trade stagnations will increase. The feeling will pervade the Galaxy that only what a man can grasp for himself at that moment will be of any account. Ambitious men will not wait and unscrupulous men will not hang back. By their every action they will hasten the decay of the worlds.”

PoliticsFutureAmbitionFatalismRevolutionsPsychohistoryStagnations
Book:The Foundation Trilogy
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