“The life of a savage is beset by glowering terrors: from birth to death he lives in an animated world; where the sun and the stars, sticks, stones, and rivers are obsessed with his fate. He is busy all the time in a ritual designed to propitiate the abounding jealousies of nature. For his world is magical and capricious, the simplest thing is occult.” WorldStarsSunFateBirthRiversStonesSticksBusyTerrorObsessedRitualSavagesSimplestAnimatedOccultCapricious Book:The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy Source: The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy
“See thou, whatsoever be thy name -- whether Fate, Life, or Devil! I cast thee down my gauntlet, I challenge thee to battle! Men of faint heart may bow before thy mysterious power, thy face of stone may inspire them with dread, in thy unbroken silence they may discern the birth of calamity and an impending avalanche of woe. But I am daring and strong, and I challenge thee to battle! Let us draw our swords, and join our bucklers, and rain such blows upon each other's crests as shall cause the very earth to shake again! Ha! Come forth and fight with me!” MenHeartMayEarthFacesFightingNamesStrongCausesChallengesSilenceFateInspireBirthBattleDrawsDevilRainStonesCastsBlowMysteriousTheeShakesDaringBowsDreadWoeCalamityUnbrokenAvalanchesGauntlet Author:Leonid Andreyev
“Life flows on over death as water closes over a stone dropped into a pool. ... Fate is certain; death is certain; but the courage and nobility of men and women matter more than these.” MenMatterCertainWaterFateMen And WomenFlowStonesLife And DeathPoolNobilityCertain Death Author:Winifred Holtby
“At noon, you walk across a river. It is dry, with not this much water: it is just stones and pebbles. But it rains cats and dogs in the mountains, and towards afternoon, the water descends wildly and she ravages all in its path, the madwoman. That is how death comes. Without our expecting it, and we cannot do a thing against it, brothers.” WaterWalksPathFateDogBrotherMountainRainRiversStonesCatDryAfternoonExpectingNoonPebblesCat And Dog Author:Jacques Roumain
“Chiromancy is a stupidity! No man's fate is ever written on nowhere! In this universe, all the roads are our fate; all the stones and all the flowers are waiting for us! All the pages and all the days of the future are empty! On the roads to future, no one has footprints; we create them through walking!” MenUniverseWaitingFateWrittenFlowerWalkingPagesStonesEmptyStupidityFootprint Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan
“A man seeks his own destiny and no other, said the judge. Wil or nill. Any man who could discover his own fate and elect therefore some opposite course could only come at last to that selfsame reckoning at the same appointed time, for each man's destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well. The desert upon which so many have been broken is vast and calls for largeness of heart but it is also ultimately empty. It is hard, it is barren. Its very nature is stone.” MenWorldWellsHeartHas BeensSaidHardLastsCoursesDestinyFateJudgingBrokenStonesEmptyOppositesDesertBarrenReckoning Author:Cormac McCarthy
“And now my old dog is dead, and another I had after him, and my parents are dead, and that first world, that old house, is sold and lost, and the books I gathered there lost, or sold- but more books bought, and in another place, board by board and stone by stone, like a house, a true life built, and all because I was steadfast about one or two things: loving foxes, and poems, the blank piece of paper, and my own energy- and mostly the shimmering shoulders of the world that shrug carelessly over the fate of any individual that they may, the better, keep the Niles and Amazons flowing.” WorldFirstsMayTwoBookHouseIndividualEnergyLostParentMy OwnPiecesFateDogPaperBuiltStonesShouldersBoardsTwo ThingsBlankFoxesSteadfastTrue LifeOld DogOld Houses Book:Upstream: Selected Essays Source: Upstream: Selected Essays
“I believe that we have free will. I believe we get the chance to make choices in our lives. Not everything is set in stone from the moment we're born. We choose our destiny, our ultimate fate. But I also think that we don't realize the choices we've made until after we make them. We're racing down a freeway, only to realize we've missed all the exits, and the only direction we can go is dead ahead.” ThinkingBelieveMadeMomentsChoicesI BelieveRealizingBornChanceDestinyOur LivesFateStonesUltimateFree WillRacingOur DestinyExitFreeways Author:Neal Shusterman