“Our roles are chose for us in this world by the stern dictates of an unrelenting Fate; and many a man who thought to play the emperor on Life’s stage found himself cast for a corpse instead.”
Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 26 (p. 124)
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Robert Sheckley 114
American writer 1928–2005Related quotes

Jidderee vun eis ass, an der Mooss vun sengen Mëttelen, dozou opgeruff selwer Akteur ze sinn, an dem e säi Liewen an d’Hand hëlt, mee och an dem en sech fir déi aner engagéiert...eng profund Wourecht, an zwar dass Jiddereen an der Gesellschaft eng Roll ze spillen huet, déi säin eegent Schicksal iwwertrëfft.
Christmas message http://www.monarchie.lu/fr/actualites/discours/2014/12/discours-noel-lu/index.html (25 December 2014)
Society
Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book III, p. 96

“May you live happy, you whose Woes are done.
Stern Fates, to Fates more cruel, us constrain.”
The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

[Ed Bradley, Werner Erhard, 60 Minutes, CBS News ; Producer: David Gelber, March 3, 1991]

Song lyrics, John Wesley Harding (1967), All Along the Watchtower
Context: "No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"

Aeneis, Book I, lines 1–4.
The Works of Virgil (1697)