“Character is fate.”

— Sylvia Plath

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Character is fate." by Sylvia Plath?

Sylvia Plath 342

American poet, novelist and short story writer 1932–1963

Related quotes

“Old maids who have never yielded in their habits of life or in their characters to other lives and other characters, as the fate of woman exacts, have, as a general thing, a mania for making others give way to them.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Les vieilles filles n'ayant pas fait plier leur caractère et leur vie à une autre vie ni à d'autres caractères, comme l'exige la destinée de la femme, ont, pour la plupart, la manie de vouloir tout faire plier autour d'elles.
Source: The Vicar of Tours (1832), Ch. I.

“Unlike most wars, which make rotten fiction in themselves — all plot and no characters, or made-up characters — Vietnam seems to be the perfect mix: the characters make the war, and the war unmakes the characters. The gods, fates, furies had a relatively small hand in it. The mess was man-made, a synthetic, by think tank out of briefing session.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

"A Fun-House Mirror" (1972), pp. 107-108
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

“The universe is indifferent to our fates. This was the crushing burden that the character took with him as he struggled through the surf toward survival or extinction. The universe just does not give a shit.”

Dan Simmons book Endymion

Source: Endymion (1996), Chapter 34 (p. 344)

“O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”

Albert Camus (1913–1960) French author and journalist

Return to Tipasa (1954)
Variant translation: In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
As translated in Lyrical and Critical Essays (1968), p. 169; also in The Unquiet Vision : Mirrors of Man in Existentialism (1969) by Nathan A. Scott, p. 116

“Hitler was the fate of Germany and this fate could not be stayed.”

Walther von Brauchitsch (1881–1948) German field marshal

Quoted in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" - Page I - by William L. Shirer - 1960

“It was fate, and being angry at fate was as futile as being angry at the weather.”

Ian McDonald book Desolation Road

Source: Desolation Road (1988), Chapter 23 (p. 116).

“if someone has a fate, then it's a man, if someone gets a fate, then it's a woman.”

Elfriede Jelinek (1946) Austrian writer

p 3
Women As Lovers (1994)

“It is an exciting and dangerous time, for this generation of Americans has the opportunity so rarely granted to others by fate and history. We literally have the chance to shape the future - to put our own stamp on the face and character of America, to bend history just a little bit.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

On the national debate, Speech http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/10/us/biden-joins-campaign-for-the-presidency.html announcing entry into 1988 presidential race, Wilmington, Delaware (June 10, 1987)
1980s

“Fate [is] the supreme order to which even gods are subject. And what of men, what is their function. To challenge order, to change fate. For the better. For better or for worse, it makes no difference, the point is to keep fate from being fate.”

José Saramago book The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

O destino é a ordem suprema, a que os próprios deuses aspiram, E os homens, que papel vem a ser o dos homens, Perturbar a ordem, corrigir o destino, Para melhor, Para melhor ou para pior, tanto faz, o que é preciso é impedir que o destino seja destino.
Source: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1993), p. 288

“I don't intend to share fate,
Fate which is a universal loneliness.”

Chairil Anwar (1922–1949) Indonesian poet

"Pemberian Tahu" ["A Proclamation"] (1946), p. 184
The Complete Poetry and Prose of Chairil Anwar (trans. Burton Raffel)

“Character is fate.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Sylvia Plath 342

Related quotes

Related topics