Great Throughts Treasury

"No worse fate can befall a young man or woman than becoming prematurely entrenched in prudence and negation." - Knut Hamsun

"She had turned her back upon them all and no awful fate had overtaken her; instead, she had taken a firm hold upon life and made of it a fine, even glittering, success; and this is a thing which is not easily forgiven." - Louis Bromfield

"I want to seize fate by the throat. " - Ludwig van Beethoven

"Inflation can be pursued only so long as the public still does not believe it will continue. Once the people generally realize that the inflation will be continued on and on and that the value of the monetary unit will decline more and more, then the fate of the money is sealed. Only the belief, that the inflation will come to a stop, maintains the value of the notes." - Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises

"If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States." - Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao

"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart." - Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

"In the century now dawning, spirituality, visionary consciousness, and the ability to build and mend human relationships will be more important for the fate and safety of this nation than our capacity to forcefully subdue an enemy. Creating the world we want is a much more subtle but more powerful mode of operation than destroying the one we don't want." - Marianne Williamson

"I don't trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them." - Mario Puzo, fully Mario Gianluigi Puzo

"That I discovered the deed that intends me, that, this movement of my freedom, reveals the mystery to me. But this, too, that I cannot accomplish it the way I intended it, this resistance also reveals the mystery to me. He that forgets all being caused as he decides from the depths, he that puts aside possessions and cloak and steps bare before the countenance--this free human being encounters fate as the counter-image of his freedom. It is not his limit but his completion; freedom and fate embrace each other to form meaning; and given meaning, fate--with its eyes, hitherto severe, suddenly full of light--looks like grace itself." - Martin Buber

"Why is love beyond all measure of other human possibilities so rich and such a sweet burden for the one who has been struck by it? Because we change ourselves into that which we love, and yet remain ourselves. Then we would like to thank the beloved, but find nothing that would do it adequately. We can only be thankful to ourselves. Love transforms gratitude into faithfulness to ourselves and into an unconditional faith in the Other. Thus love steadily expands its most intimate secret. Closeness here is existence in the greatest distance from the other- the distance that allows nothing to dissolve - but rather presents the “thou” in the transparent, but “incomprehensible” revelation of the “just there”. That the presence of the other breaks into our own life - this is what no feeling can fully encompass. Human fate gives itself to human fate, and it is the task of pure love to keep this self-surrender as vital as on the first day." - Martin Heidegger

"When we begin to observe ourselves sincerely our whole fate begins to change. But this means noticing, over a long period, the way we talk, the way we think, the criticisms we make, the resentment of what is said to us, the way we react to others, the opinions from which we argue, the way we are flattered, how we judge others, our vanity, cruelty, moods, emotions. Unless we detach ourselves from these things, we remain mechanical. We have to have an observing part and an observed part. When the observing I is established in us, it is from this I that everything else follows. Small to begin with, it is like a window to let in the light." - Maurice Nicoll

"Science has become an integral and most important part of our civilization, and scientific work means contributing to its development. Science in our technical age has social, economic, and political functions, and however remote one's own work is from technical application it is a link in the chain of actions and decisions which determine the fate of the human race." - Max Born

"It is truly not the merit of the school if we do not come out selfish. Each sort of corresponding pride and every wind of covetousness, eagerness for office, mechanical and servile officiousness, hypocrisy, etc., is bound as much with extensive knowledge as with elegant, classical education, and since this whole instruction exercises no influence of any sort on our ethical behavior, it thus frequently falls to the fate of being forgotten in the same measure as it is not used: one shakes off the dust of the school." -

"The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the ''disenchantment of the world.'' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental." - Max Weber, formally Maximilian Carl Emil Weber

"Failure feelings – fear, anxiety, lack of self-confidence – do not spring from some heavenly oracle. They are not written in the stars. They are not holy gospel. Nor are they intimations of a set and decided fate which means that failure is decreed and decided. They originate from your own mind." - Maxwell Maltz

"The pleasure and the pain, experienced in the life on earth, the success or failure, which attend it, the attainments and obstacles, with which it is strewed, the friends and foes, which make their appearance in it, are all deter-mined by the Karma of past lives. Karmic deter-mination is popularly designated as fate. Fate however is not some foreign and oppressive principle. Fate is man's own creation pursuing him from past lives: and just as it has been shaped by past Karma, it can also be modified, remoulded and even undone, through Karma in the present life." - Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani

"The hour of decision has arrived. You know what I have done, and what all of us have done. to prevent war and bereavement. But our fate is that in the Land of Israel there is no escape from fighting in the spirit of self-sacrifice. Believe me, the alternative to fighting is Treblinka, and we have resolved that there would be no Treblinkas. This is the moment in which courageous choice has to be made. The criminal terrorists and the world must know that the Jewish people have a right to self-defense, just like any other people." - Menachem Begin

"No fate is worse than a life without a love." - Mexican Proverbs

"Ecology's implications for capitalism are too momentous for the capitalist to contemplate. [The plutocrats] are more wedded to their wealth than to the Earth upon which they live, more concerned with the fate of their fortunes than with the fate of humanity. The present ecological crisis has been created by the few at the expense of the many. In other words, the struggle over environmentalism is part of the class struggle itself, a fact that seems to have escaped many environmentalists but is well understood by the plutocrats---which is why they are unsparing in their derision and denunciations of the 'eco-terrorists' and 'tree huggers.' " - Michael Parenti

"Within the child lies the fate of the future." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"Ideas are powerful things, requiring not a studious contemplation but an action, even if it is only an inner action. Their acquisition obligates each man in some way to change his life, even if it is only his inner life. They demand to be stood for. They dictate where a man must concentrate his vision. They determine his moral and intellectual priorities. They provide him with allies and make him enemies. In short, ideas impose an interest in their ultimate fate which goes far beyond the realm of the merely reasonable." - Midge Decter, fully Midge Rosenthal Decter

"The fate of a woman solves her always "yes", but the fate of man - his "no." " - Milorad Pavić

" I have freed myself from each and every restraint of religion, ethics, and social responsibility and the result is that I have made myself into a question mark. I cannot accept the old order. I cannot make a new order for myself. I wish I could be a plain and simple Socialist or Progressive. People generally take me to be a Progressive, and I call myself one too. But I am truly a decadent. The bitterness, despair, reclusiveness and extreme individuation in my story “ƒar≥mj≥dµ” is an example of that. I want to infuse my stories with a spirit that will create hope for a new world and a new life for humanity. But my stories are severing even the threads of hope that remain. I cannot grasp the spirit of unity. I am bonded with the spirit of disunity. So aren’t my stories harmful and poisonous for the new life? Aren’t sick temperaments my examples? Is it justifiable that I write such stories at a time when there is a battle going on for the fate of humanity? That I should write stories about the illusions and imagined narcissistic fancies of an utterly personal nature? […] I too have no “character.” My opinions and thoughts change with the wind. Only despair is my constant feeling." - Muhammad Hussan Askari

"What a sad fate for a painter who loves blondes, but who refrains from putting them in his picture because they don’t go with the basket of fruit! What misery for a painter who hates apples to be obliged to use them all the time because they go with the cloth! I put everything I love in my pictures. So much the worse for the things, they have only to arrange themselves with one another." - Pablo Picasso, fully Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso

"What saved me from moral and emotional paralysis in this pseudo-philosophy was, I think, a deep-seated interest in humanity. I could not reason myself into believing that men are only machines; I could not smother in logic the sense of mystery that broods upon the world, not find any place in the network of blind chance and fate for the human will. What is the nature of this thing we call life, this irrational power which by its own initiative expands into endless activities, and finally creates for itself a conscious soul of suffering and joy?" - Paul Elmer More

"In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel… In the first place, you shouldn’t believe in promises. The world is full of them: promises of riches, of eternal salvation, of infinite love. Some people think they can promise anything, others accept whatever seems to guarantee better days ahead. Those who make promises they don’t keep end up powerless and frustrated, and exactly the same fate awaits those who believe those promises." - Paulo Coelho

"Life attracts life… Life can seem either very long or very short, according to how you live it… Life does not play with marked cards. Winning or losing is part of it… Life has many ways of testing a person's will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once… Life is a constant risk, and anyone who forgets this will be unprepared for the challenges that fate may have in store… Life is a game that is spinning faster to dizziness; life is a skydiving game; it gives us the opportunity, we flying and soaring up again; life is a hiking trip; it wants to climb to the pinnacle of your best and feeling angry, upset when you do not control it… Life is an act of faith… Life is falling down 7 times and getting up 8… Life is like a garden, you reap what you sow… Life is like cooking: before choosing what you love, try everything… Life is made of our attitudes. And there are certain things that the gods oblige us to live through. Their reason for this does not matter, and there is no action we can take to make them pass us by… Life is one long training session, in preparation for what will come. Life and death lose their meaning, there are only challenges to be met with joy and overcome with tranquility… Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly… Life is too short to waste time complaining… Life is the moment we're living right now… Life sometimes separates people so that they can realize how much they mean to each other… Life without cause is a life without effect. " - Paulo Coelho

"I could. Never will be able to understand what that means. Because at every moment of our lives there is something that could happen, but ultimately did not happen. There are magical moments that fly without them noticing, and suddenly the hand of fate altered our lives… I think that, with age, people come to realize that death is inevitable. And we need to learn to face it with serenity, wisdom and resignation. Death often frees us from a lot of senseless sufferings… I think that, with age, people come to realize that death is inevitable. And we need to learn to face it with serenity, wisdom and resignation. Death often frees us from a lot of senseless sufferings." - Paulo Coelho

"The indignity of your fate is the will of one more powerful. " - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"I have become so accustomed to think scientifically that I am afraid even to imagine that there may be something else beyond the outer covering of life. I feel like a man condemned to death, whose companions have been hanged and who has already become reconciled to the thought that the same fate awaits him. " - P.D. Ouspensky, fully Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, also Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii, also Uspenskii or Uspensky

"Possibly the most interesting first impression of my life came from the world of dreams… Suddenly I began to find a strange meaning in old fairy-tales; woods, rivers, mountains, became living beings; mysterious life filled the night; with new interests and new expectations I began to dream again of distant travels; and I remembered many extraordinary things that I had heard about old monasteries. Ideas and feelings which had long since ceased to interest me suddenly began to assume significance and interest. A deep meaning and many subtle allegories appeared in what only yesterday had seemed to be naive popular fantasy or crude superstition. And the greatest mystery and the greatest miracle was that the thought became possible that death may not exist, that those who have gone may not have vanished altogether, but exist somewhere and somehow, and that perhaps I may see them again. I have become so accustomed to think scientifically that I am afraid even to imagine that there may be something else beyond the outer covering of life. I feel like a man condemned to death, whose companions have been hanged and who has already become reconciled to the thought that the same fate awaits him; and suddenly he hears that his companions are alive, that they have escaped and that there is hope also for him. And he fears to believe this, because it would be so terrible if it proved to be false, and nothing would remain but prison and the expectation of execution. " - P.D. Ouspensky, fully Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, also Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii, also Uspenskii or Uspensky

"The fate of love is that it always seems too little or too much. " - Philip James Bailey

"Oh, how sweet it is to pity the fate of an enemy who can no longer threaten us!" - Pierre Cornielle

"To be envied is a nobler fate than to be pitied. " - Pindar NULL

"Whilst some Stoics condemned wealth and the acquisitions of goods as inherently evil, just as they shunned political and social life as an irresistible invitation to moral corruption, Posidonius held that these things were neither good nor evil in themselves. As an active participant in the organization of kosmos, the individual should not fear either material goods or the life of the polis. Rather, he should be vigilant in the use to which he puts his resources and energies. Simple withdrawal from the world is too passive for the Posidonian man: correct participation in all things is the cosmopolitan ideal which signals inner withdrawal from the inferior daimon in the soul. It is not enough, then, to recognize wise men and immoral men – one must know the soul-characteristics of the wise man so that one can through emulation of them make moral progress. By separating Fate from Zeus, Posidonius firmly renounced rigid determinism while being fully aware of the forces at work in the world. Moral progress is possible because man, as a participant in the divine and informing governance of kosmos, can work to adjust, over the long term, Fate itself. Although kosmos cannot be understood in terms of some fantastic eschatology, moral progress (and therefore a movement towards authentic philosophical happiness) is possible because the organization of kosmos is capable of degrees of improvement. Change occurs as man learns to participate in cosmic activity – becoming cosmopolitan in a transcendental sense – by turning from the lower and embracing the rational daimon in himself. He achieves this through the selfless and assiduous performance of his duties. [paraphrased]" - Posidonius, aka Posidonius of Rhodes or Posidonius of Apameia (meaning "of Poseidon") NULL

"We achieve everything by our efforts alone. Our fate is not decided by an almighty God. We decide our own fate by our actions. You have to gain mastery over yourself. . . . It is not a matter of sitting back and accepting." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

"Taking a closer look, we no longer find the meaning of the word egoism so clear-cut and unequivocal. It will be much the same when we examine respect for others, which is often said to be missing in self-centered people. If a mother respects both herself and her child from his very first day onward, she will never need to teach him respect for others. He will, of course, take both himself and others seriously-he couldn't do otherwise. But a mother who, as a child, was herself not taken seriously by her mother as the person she really was will try to get it by training him to give it to her. The tragic fate that is the result of such training and such respect is described in this book." - Alice Miller, née Rostovski

"As punishment for my contempt for authority, Fate has made me an authority myself. " - Albert Einstein

"For rebelling against every form of authority fate has punished me by making me an authority. " - Albert Einstein

"From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. " - Albert Einstein

"It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that your work may increase man's blessings. Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors... in order that the creations of our minds shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations." - Albert Einstein

"HAST thou no right to joy, O youth grown old! who palest with the thought Of the measureless annoy, The pain and havoc wrought By Fate on man: and of the many men, The unfed, the untaught, Who groan beneath that adamantine chain Whose tightness kills, whose slackness whips the flow Of waves of futile woe: Hast thou no right to joy? Thou thinkest in thy mind In thee it were unkind To revel in the liquid Hyblian store, While more and more the horror and the shame, The pity and the woe grow more and more, Persistent still to claim The filling of thy mind." - R. W. Dixon, fully Richard Watson Dixon

"Know that death comes to everyone, and that wealth will sometimes be acquired, sometimes lost. Whatever griefs mortals suffer by divine chance, whatever destiny you have, endure it and do not complain. But it is right to improve it as much as you can, and remember this: Fate does not give very many of these griefs to good people." - Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL

"You will know that wretched men are the cause of their own suffering, who neither see nor hear the good that is near them, and few are the ones who know how to secure release from their troubles. Such is the fate that harms their minds; like pebbles they are tossed about from one thing to another with cares unceasing. For the dread companion Strife harms them unawares, whom one must not walk behind, but withdraw from and flee." - Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL

"The individual must not merely wait and criticize, he must defend the cause the best he can. The fate of the world will be such as the world deserves." - Albert Einstein

"The situation of children left strange land we do! Each of us came here as a short visit. I do not know what to do, but sometimes we feel we believe that. Song, from daily life that does not go deeper, we know that we are here for other people - first of all because the people of our own happiness depends entirely on the smile and calm their next one is because many people do not know that their fate was connected by strings of compassion. " - Albert Einstein

"To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself." - Albert Einstein

"According to Hilberg, 2.67 million out of the total 5.1 million Jewish victims were murdered in six camps which the orthodox historians call "extermination camps", a term found in no German wartime document. This means that 2.43 million Holocaust victims must have met their fate outside these "extermination centers"." - Raul Hilberg

"For him, there were no empty hours, no hours that were mere bridges spanning to richer ones ahead, and nothing that lay worthless along his path, nothing he could pass by as a stranger. All things had turned their countenances towards him, were there for his sake, and he was incapable of detaching their fate from his own. And more than that, he had only sought himself in all things and in all things only found himself." - Richard Beer-Hoffmann

"No experience has been too unimportant, and the smallest event unfolds like a fate, and fate itself is like a wonderful, wide fabric in which every thread is guided by an infinitely tender hand and laid alongside another thread and is held and supported by a hundred others." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke