“I want to seize fate by the throat.”
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer
Letter to F.G. Wegeler, 16 November, 1801.
Source: General sources, Lines from Homer's Iliad which Julian recited upon his elevation to Caesar by Constantius II, as recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus in book XV of his history; such elevations had often proven fatal to others.
“I want to seize fate by the throat.”
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer
Letter to F.G. Wegeler, 16 November, 1801.
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
“Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate.
Love, Work, and Faith — these three alone are great.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet
Three Things.
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)
Context: Divine the Powers that on this trio wait.
Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate.
Love, Work, and Faith — these three alone are great.
“And doomed to death, though fated not to die.”
John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther
Pt. I, line 8.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)
“Tis come, our fated day of death.”
John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar
Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 53
“Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.”
Variant translation: Death is softer by far than tyranny.
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1364
“I am not a fate worse than death, dammit!”
Lois McMaster Bujold Captain Vorpatril's Alliance
Source: Captain Vorpatril's Alliance
“Prayed for so oft, the dawn of fight is come.
No more entreat the gods: with sword in hand
Seize on our fates; and Caesar in your deeds
This day is great or little.”
Nil opus est uotis, iam fatum accersite ferro.
in manibus uestris, quantus sit Caesar, habetis.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia
Book VII, line 252 (tr. E. Ridley).
Pharsalia