John Conington: Quotes about destiny

John Conington was British classical scholar. Explore interesting quotes on fate.

John Conington: 170 quotes0 likes

“Live and be blest! 'tis sweet to feel
Fate's book is closed and under seal.
For us, alas! that volume stern
Has many another page to turn.”

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book III, p. 96

“No longer dream that human prayer
The will of Fate can overbear.”

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 202

“O impotence of man's frail mind
To fate and to the future blind,
Presumptuous and o'erweening still
When Fortune follows at its will!”

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book X, p. 369

“Ah son! compel me not to speak
The sorrows of our race!
That youth the Fates but just display
To earth, nor let him longer stay:
With gifts like these for aye to hold,
Rome's heart had e'en been overbold.
Ah! what a groan from Mars's plain
Shall o'er the city sound!
How wilt thou gaze on that long train,
Old Tiber, rolling to the main
Beside his new-raised mound!
No youth of Ilium's seed inspires
With hope as fair his Latian sires:
Nor Rome shall dandle on her knee
A nursling so adored as he.
O piety! O ancient faith!
O hand untamed in battle scathe!
No foe had lived before his sword,
Stemmed he on foot the war's red tide
Or with relentless rowel gored
His foaming charger's side.
Dear child of pity! shouldst thou burst
The dungeon-bars of Fate accurst,
Our own Marcellus thou!”

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, pp. 226–227

“Tis come, our fated day of death.”

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 53

“My chief, let Fate cry on or back,
'Tis ours to follow, nothing slack:
Whate'er betide, he only cures
The stroke of Fortune who endures.”

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book V, p. 175