“This life, my dear bird, consists of a haphazard sequence of accidental meetings and partings, very few of which can ever be anticipated, avoided or fully understood. The element of sheer Chance, my friend, conflicting as it does with the first principles of Causation, denies any premeditated plan on the part of Destiny. Destiny, therefore, may only be defined as the sum total of one’s accumulated experiences, which are themselves accidental and purposeless. ‘Purpose,’ you deduce from this, is an interpretation imposed upon a sequence of events after the fact.”

— Lin Carter , book The Wizard of Zao

Source: The Wizard of Zao (1978), Chapter 4 (p. 50)

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Lin Carter 24

American fantasy writer, editor, critic 1930–1988

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“The world of our experience consists at all times of two parts, an objective and a subjective part, of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter can never be omitted or suppressed. The objective part is the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of, the subjective part is the inner "state" in which the thinking comes to pass.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture XX, "Conclusions"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

“Steady faith is stronger than destiny. Destiny is the result of causes, mostly accidental, and therefore loosely woven. Confidence and good hope will overcome it easily.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

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Source: "I am That." P.76.

“Names have a mysterious transforming power. Like a ring on a finger, a name may at first seem merely accidental, committing you to nothing; but before you realize its magical power, it's gotten under your skin, become part of you and your destiny.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

“Truly … as accidental as my Life may be, or as that random Humour is, which governs it; I know nothing, after all, so real or substantial as My-Self. Therefore if there be that Thing you call a Substance, I take for granted I am one. But for anything further relating to this Question, you know my Sceptick Principles: I determine neither way.”

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and Earl

Vol. 2, p. 83; Part 3, Sect. 1 "Philocles to Palemon".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

“The concepts which now prove to be fundamental to our understanding of nature—a space which is finite; a space which is empty, so that one point [of our 'material' world] differs from another solely in the properties of space itself; four-dimensional, seven- and more dimensional spaces; a space which for ever expands; a sequence of events which follows the laws of probability instead of the law of causation—or alternatively, a sequence of events which can only be fully and consistently described by going outside of space and time—all these concepts seem to my mind to be structures of pure thought, incapable of realisation in any sense which would properly be described as material.”

James Jeans book The Mysterious Universe

Source: The Mysterious Universe (1930), p. 122, 1937 ed.

“Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(dg004210)) to Zabdiel Adams (21 June 1776)
1770s
Context: Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.

“We'd spent maybe ten minutes together, during which time I'd accidentally swung a sword at her, she'd saved my life, and I'd run away chased by a band of supernatural killing machines. You know, your typical chance meeting.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

“We can deduce, often, from one part of physics like the law of gravitation, a principle which turns out to be much more valid than the derivation.”

Richard Feynman book The Character of Physical Law

Source: The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 2, “ The Relation of Mathematics to Physics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9ZYEb0Vf8U” referring to the law of conservation of angular momentum
Context: Now we have a problem. We can deduce, often, from one part of physics like the law of gravitation, a principle which turns out to be much more valid than the derivation. This doesn't happen in mathematics, that the theorems come out in places where they're not supposed to be!

“You can never know about about your own destiny: are the people you meet there to play a part on your oun destiny, or do you exist just to play a role in theirs?”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine

“Life's visions are vanished, it's dreams are no more.
Dear friends of my bosom, why bathed in tears?
I go to my fathers; I welcome the shore,
which crowns all my hopes, or which buries my cares.
Then farewell my dear, my lov'd daughter, Adieu!
The last pang in life is in parting from you.
Two Seraphs await me, long shrouded in death;
I will bear them your love on my last parting breath.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

"A death-bed Adieu from Th. J. to M. R." Jefferson's poem to his eldest child, Martha "Patsy" Randolph, written during his last illness in 1826. http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/prespoetry/tj.html Two days before his death, Jefferson told Martha that in a certain drawer in an old pocket book she would find something intended for her. https://books.google.com/books?id=1F3fPa1LWVQC&pg=PA429&dq=%22in+a+certain+drawer+in+an+old+pocket+book%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NDa2VJX_OYOeNtCpg8gM&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22in%20a%20certain%20drawer%20in%20an%20old%20pocket%20book%22&f=false The "two seraphs" refer to Jefferson's deceased wife and younger daughter. His wife, Martha (nicknamed "Patty"), died in 1782; his daughter Mary (nicknamed "Polly" and also "Maria," died in 1804
1820s

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Lin Carter 24

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