DESTINY

The stars incline, but do not impel.

- Robert Heinlein Ability is of little account without opportunity. - Napoleon The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. - Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 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. - Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men; but there is no gulf-stream setting forever in one direction.
        - James Russell Lowell

A man's character is his fate.

- Heraclitus Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years.
        - Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America" (1840)

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
        - Abraham Lincoln

A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
        - James Russell Lowell

All men that are ruined are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.
        - Edmund Burke

There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends.
        - James Russell Lowell

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
        - James Russell Lowell

"You can tell a lot about a persons character by how they treat people they don't have to treat well."
        - Davian to Ethan, "MI3"

"Of course I believe in luck. How otherwise to explain the success of some people you detest?"

- Jean Cocteau "Do you believe a man can change his destiny?"
"I believe a man does what he can until his destiny is revealed."

        - Katsumoto & Nathan Algren, "The Last Samurai"

"Why did you choose this life?"
"What life?"
"To be a great warrior."
"I chose nothing. I was born and this is what I am."

        - Briseis and Achilles, "Troy"

Freedom and diversity guard each other, and if a country could form the whole of one's character, Napoleon III and Victor Hugo would have been the same person... if national identity means anything, it means something that comes with you wherever you go, and stays with you no matter how long you stay away.

        - Clive James

All my life, I have had doubts about who I am, where I belong. Now I'm like the arrow that springs from the bow. No hesitation, no doubts. The path is clear.

- Sinclair, on discovering his true nature, "Babylon 5 : War Without End" SEIZE THE DAY

"No regrets then?"
"A few. But just a few. You?"
"Oh, enough to fill a lifetime. So much has been lost, so much forgotten. So much pain, so much blood. And for what, I wonder. The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible inbetween. But there is still time to seize that one last fragile moment. To choose something better, to make a difference, as you say. And I intend to do just that."
        - Centauri Emperor and Sheridan, "Babylon 5 - The Coming Of Shadows"

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
        - Dr. Robert Schuller

The edge of the world does not look far away, to that I am on my way running.
        - Papago Indian song for a young girl

I have never, as an adult: Shot an animal. Spent a night in jail. Drunk champagne from a lady’s slipper. Read more than 50 pages into any novel by Saul Bellow, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, J.D. Salinger, or William Faulkner. Won or lost more than $100 in one sitting at any game of chance. Acted as principal in any stage performance. Led men in battle, nor even been under fire. Used an ax in any effective way for any purpose. Set foot in Africa, Australasia, Oceania, Central or South America (Caribbean not counted), or Antarctica; in fact, been north of latitude 60°N or south of 5°N. Lost a moment’s sleep over the miseries of foreigners unknown to me in distant countries.
        - John Derbyshire, playing "I Never" in "National Review"

"If you build up enough tomorrows, you will have nothing but a bunch of empty yesterdays."
        - from the movie, "The Music Man"

Those who fear death most are those who enjoy life least.

- Anon The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone - Harriet Beecher Stowe Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. - William Shakespeare, "Measure For Measure", 1.1 People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future - Unknown Attack life, it's going to kill you anyway.
        - Niels Bohr

"They say time is the fire in which we burn. Right now Captain, my time is running out. We leave so many things unfinished in our lives. I know you understand."
        - Star Trek: Generations

"Let me tell you a secret, something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be more lovely than you are now. We will never be here again."
        - Achilles, "Troy"

"What is time? Swiss manufacture it. French hoard it. Italians squander it. Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook."
        - Julius O'Hara, in "Beat The Devil"

"All of the people I could be, they got fewer and fewer until finally they got reduced to only one — and that's who I am. The weather man."
        - David in "The Weatherman"

Striking up conversations with strangers is an autistic person’s version of extreme sports.
        - Kamran Nazeer, "Send in the Idiots"

"I want to be swept off my feet. I want my children to have magical powers. I am prepared for amazing things to happen. I can handle it."
        - Richard, bored with his humdrum life, "Me, You and Everyone We Know"

"People can live a hundred years without really living for a minute. You climb up here with me, it’s one less minute you haven’t lived."
        - Logan to Rory, "The Gilmore Girls"

The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will be able to correct them.

- Kimon Nicolaides Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever. - Samuel Smiles A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. - LaoTsu, The Way of LaoTsu Don't be afraid to take one large step because you can't cross a chasm in two small leaps. - David Lloyd George Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help you create the fact. - William Janer Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. - Mark Twain Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves. - Peter McArthur Men and governments must act to the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life. - John Stuart Mill You shouldn’t let all the wrong in the world bother you, because chances are you don’t know the half of it.
        - Megan Weilacher

Anything that is conceivable is possible.

- David Hume Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness. - George Santayana One cannot change the past, but one can ruin the present by worrying over the future.
        - Unknown

You'll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind.
        - Irish proverb

Live for the present, die for the future.
        - Slogan from "Reilly: Ace of Spies"

PROGRESS

In Italy under the Borgias, they had 30 years of warfare,terror,murder & bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, DaVinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love and 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The Cuckoo Clock.

- Orson Welles,"The Third Man" There is nothing constant in the universe. All ebb and flow, and every shape that's born, bears in its womb the seeds of change. - Ovid, "Metamorphous" If there is no struggle, there is no progress. - Frederick Douglass Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy torrents of the world. - Goethe Sweet are the uses of adversity. Adversity kills only where there is a weakness to be killed.
        - from The Book of Proverbs

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.
        - Joseph Addison

These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call our great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormat, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.
        - Abigail Adams, letter to her son and future President, John Quincy Adams

J'aime les sensations fortes.

A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not the thing for which ships are made. - Unknown The art of progress is to preserve order amid change. - A.N. Whitehead Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. - African Proverb Fate loves the fearless.
        - James Russell Lowell

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.
        - Irish Proverb (quoted by Sean McCann)

To a surprising degree, people are capable of what's expected of them.
        - Anon

Few things are as stimulating as other people’s calamities observed from a safe distance.
        - George Will

Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own.
        - H.L. Mencken

Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling in them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.

- Richard E. Byrd There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet.
        - William F. Halsey

The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.
        - James Russell Lowell

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

- Richard P. Feynman There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate, and man's reason has never learned to separate them. - Desmond Bernal If man were immortal he could be perfectly sure of seeing the day when everything in which he had trusted should betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery. He would break down, at last, as every good fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does. In place of this we have death. - Charles Sanders Peirce Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. - Tom Robbins, "Still Life With Woodpecker" How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,that has such people in`t! - Shakespeare, "The Tempest" Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.

It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that "The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired."

- Francis Bacon, "On Adversity" Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary. - Longfellow, The Rainy Day It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy. - Samuel Johnson *

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