Quotes about circumstance
page 3

“Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept?”

Bernhard Schlink book The Reader

Source: The Reader

Happiness, Sadness, Beauty, Memory

“Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances."
Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?”

Megan Whalen Turner book A Conspiracy of Kings

Source: A Conspiracy of Kings

Thinking

“No matter where we live on the planet or how difficult our situation seems to be, we have the ability to overcome and transcend our circumstances.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

“Do not, under any circumstances belittle a works of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)

Life, Truth, Search, Reality

“Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Pain, Heart

“We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstacies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

Page 159
The Doors of Perception (1954)

Lovers, Nature, Solitude, Suffering

“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Beyond the Black River" (1935)

Nature

“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Source: Mrs. Warren's Profession & Others

People, World

“If circumstances change, your decisions can change. Decisions are temporary.”

Jason Fried software entrepreneur

Source: Rework

Decision, Change

“America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.”

James Ellroy (1948) Novelist, short story writer, essayist, memoirist

“There must be a stronger foundation than mere friendship or sexual attraction. Unconditional love, agape love, will not be swayed by time or circumstances.”

Stephen Kendrick book The Love Dare

Source: The Love Dare

Love, Friendship, Time

“Most men are a little better than their circumstances give them a chance to be.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Men, Chance

“He is happy, whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent, who can suit his temper to any circumstances.”

David Hume book An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

§ 6.9 : Of Qualities Useful to Ourselves, Pt. 1
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751)

Happiness

“Our joy does not have to be based on our circumstances.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Joy

“The beauty of our system is that it isolates everybody. Each person is sitting alone in front of the tube, you know. It's very hard to have ideas or thoughts under those circumstances. You can't fight the world alone.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

World, Beauty, Idea, Fight

“You can't always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can under the circumstances.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Perfection

“How we live our lives does not, unfortunately depend on us alone. Circumstances, good or bad, constantly intervene. A person close to us die. A person not so close to us carries on living. All these things affect how we live.”

Tariq Ali (1943) British Pakistani writer, journalist, and historian

Source: The Stone Woman

Dependency, Personality

“For each of us destiny is a blend of potential, circumstances, and choices.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: A World Without Heroes

“Almost all people have this potential for evil, which would be unleashed only under certain dangerous social circumstances.”

Iris Chang book The Rape of Nanking

Source: The Rape of Nanking

People, Evil

“Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, 'This isn't supposed to be happening this way,' and trying harder to make it happen some other way.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

Way, Time

“Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance.”

Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Depressing

“Life is not about negative circumstances that happen to you, it's about what you do with the golden opportunities hidden within!”

Rhonda Byrne (1951) Australian writer and producer

Source: Hero

Life

“Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

"Gzowski on FM".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)

People, Courageous

“The right circumstances sometimes happen of their own accord, slyly, without fanfare, without warning. Layman's alchemy…. The magic of everyday things.”

Joanne Harris book Blackberry Wine

Source: Blackberry Wine

“Note to self:
Do not under any circumstances fall in love again.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Where Rainbows End

Love

“He was dead. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances.”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

Dead

“I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am, also, much more than that. So are we all.”

James Baldwin book Notes of a Native Son

Variant: I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all.
Source: Notes of a Native Son

History, Time

“Oh, we are but soft and squishy bags of mortality rolling in a bin of sharp circumstance, leaking life until we collapse, flaccid, into our own despair..”

Christopher Moore book Fool

Source: Fool

Life, Despair

“You make some big grandoise decision about what you need to do, or who you need to be, and then circumstances arise that immediately reveal to you how little you understood about yourself.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Decision

“What's madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?”

Theodore Roethke book The Far Field

Source: The Far Field

Soul, Madness

“understanding the true nature of instinctive decision making requires us to be forgiving of those people trapped in circumstances where good judgment is imperiled.”

Malcolm Gladwell book Blink

Source: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

People, Forgiveness, Understanding, Nature

“Youth is a circumstance you can't do anything about. The trick is to grow up without getting old.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

Youth

“And remember: you must never, under any circumstances, despair. To hope and to act, these are our duties in misfortune.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago

Hope, Despair

“And there I am, blushing and confused, made beautiful by Cinna’s hands, desirable by Peeta’s confession, tragic by circumstance, and by all accounts, unforgettable.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Beauty

“Even though we often mess up, most of us are doing the best that we know how with the circumstances that surround us.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

“I'm naive enough to think that love is always good no matter how long ago, no matter the circumstances.”

Anne Michaels book Fugitive Pieces

Source: Fugitive Pieces

Love, Thinking

“Here was a boy who liked flaws, who saw them not as failings but as strengths. Who knew such a person could exist, or what would have happened if we'd found each other under different circumstances? Maybe in a perfect world. But not in this one.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

World, Boy, Personality, Perfection

“Perhaps loneliness had nothing to do with place or circumstance; perhaps it was in you; yourself. Perhaps, wherever you were, you took your little circle of loneliness with you…”

Mary Stewart book Nine Coaches Waiting

Source: Nine Coaches Waiting

Loneliness

“None of us truly knows what we'll do when the circumstances become so overwhelming and complex that we can't even tell right from wrong.”

Lurlene McDaniel (1944) American writer

Source: Breathless

“But let no person say what they would or would not do, since we are not judges for ourselves until circumstances call us to act.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Personality

“Certainly there are times in all of our lives when bad things happen, or things don’t turn out as we had hoped. But that’s when we we must a decision that we’re going to be happy inspite of our circumstances.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Happiness, Hope, Decision, Time

“It's strange, I think, the way our lives turn out. Moments of circumstance, when later combined with conscious decisions and actions and a boatload of hope, can eventually forge a future that seems predestined.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

Hope, Way, Thinking, Decision

“And even, if circumstances required, a contingency plan for his contingency plan's contingency plan.”

Frank Beddor Seeing Redd

Source: Seeing Redd

“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”

James C. Collins (1958) American business consultant and writer

Source: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes….”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Tear, Suffering, Joy

“When we are being compassionate, we consider another's circumstance with love rather than judgement… To be compassionate is to move into the right here, right now with an open heart consciousness and a willingness to be supportive.”

Jill Bolte Taylor (1959) American neuroscientist

Source: My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

Love, Support, Heart

“they walked with a pedatory grace…. one of them ripped off their hood and said, "my name is Tally Youngblood and is a special circumstance"….”

Scott Westerfeld (1963) American science fiction writer

“Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Men, Idea

“You may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.”

Atul Gawande book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Source: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Life

“When you love someone, it doesn't really matter if they love you back or not. Having love in your heart for someone is its own reward. or punishment, depending on the circumstances.”

Lisa Unger book Beautiful Lies

Source: Beautiful Lies

Love, Heart, Dependency

“Peeta actually is charming and then utterly winning as the boy in love. And there I am, blushing and confused, made beautiful by Cinna’s hands, desirable by Peeta’s confession, tragic by circumstance, and by all accounts, unforgettable.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Love, Beauty, Boy

“The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Keep a Quiet Heart

Secret, Christ

“What one means one day, you know, one may not mean the next. Circumstances change, opinions alter.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Change

“If I cling to circumstances I could feel
not responsible. Only she who says
she did not choose, is the loser in the end.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Feeling

“Ideology knows the answer before the question has been asked.

Principles are something different: a set of values that have to be adapted to circumstances but not compromised away.”

George Packer (1960) American journalist and writer

Question

“Are some people destined for a great fate, or to do great things? Or is it only that they're born somehow with that great passion -- and if they find themselves in the right circumstances, then things happen? It's the sort of thing you wonder…”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

Fate, People, Passion

“Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily coloured by the circumstances in which one remembers.”

Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) Japanese-born British author

Memory

“Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Money, People, Education, Appearance

“It was strange, I reflected, as we went out into the golden evening of the Byzantine streets, that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one’s life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Historian

Source: The Historian (2005), Ch. 37

Life, Home, Joy

“To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Soul, Perfection, Sincerity

“Your Father in heaven knows your name and knows your circumstance. He hears your prayers. He knows your hopes and dreams, including your fears and frustrations. And He knows what you can become through faith in Him.”

Jeffrey R. Holland (1940) Mormon leader

Source: Created for Greater Things

Fear, Faith, Dreams, Hope

“Structural dissatisfaction: Returning to circumstances that once pleased you, after having experienced a more thrilling or opulent way of life, and finding that you can no longer tolerate them.”

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Life, Way

“He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Time

“About the nature of human beings. I discovered that confronted by temptation, we will always fall. Given the right circumstances, every human being on this earth would be willing to commit evil.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Nature, Evil

“There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Way

“Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

“No change in circumstances can repair a defect of character.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Change

“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“No matter what challenging situation you may find yourself in, imagine the best outcome of it and feel it! When you do, you will change the circumstances, and you will change the situation into what you want!”

Rhonda Byrne (1951) Australian writer and producer

Feeling, Imagination, Change

“Happiness is not a feeling, it is a choice. To be happy, one must choose to be happy, not respond to a circumstance that now controls your happiness.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Happiness, Feeling

“With you, my life felt indeed like a fantastic adventure - despite our ordinary circumstances, your love imbued everything we did with secret riches.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

Love, Life, Secret

“There is no such thing as a hopeless situation. Every single circumstances of your life can change!”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

Life, Change

“It is true of course, that I have a will of iron, but it can be switched off if the circumstances seem to demand it.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Source: Jeeves in the Morning

“One should make the best choice possible given the circumstances, and then avoid second-guessing for the sake of one's own sanity.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Again the Magic

“Mental acuity was never born from comfortable circumstances.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: 1Q84 BOOK 1

“The threads of circumstance that lead to tomorrow are so tenuous that all the fussing and worrying about decisions is futile compared to the pure randomness of existence.”

Nick Bantock (1949) British artist

Decision

“If you look at your circumstances you will put off doing what God is telling you to do. It can seem like the worst time to do whatever God says to do. BUT there is an anointing on "now" if God has told you to act.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Beauty for Ashes: Receiving Emotional Healing

God, Time

“People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.”

George Bernard Shaw Mrs. Warren's Profession

Vivie, Act II
Source: 1890s, Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893)

People, World

“All children should be loved, protected, nurtured --emotionally and intellectually-- respected, and never, under any circumstances, underestimated.”

Augusten Burroughs (1965) American writer

Source: This Is How: Surviving What You Think You Can't

Love, Children

“I dance for no reason, for reasons you can't dance,
Call me an activist of intellectualized circumstance
You can't learn my steps until you unlearn your thoughts Spirit, soul, can't be store-bought.”

Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

Soul, Learning, Dance

“But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Girl, Heart

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

Life, Deep, Powerful

“Even under the best of circumstances, there's just something so damn tragic about growing up.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

“I've come to believe that in everyone's life, there's one undeniable moment of change, a set of circumstances that suddenly alters everything.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Life, Change

“We should be inspired by people… who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong-even in the most difficult circumstances.”

Rachel Corrie (1979–2003) American anti-war and human rights activist

People, Beauty, Strong

“Contentment… has an internal quietness of heart that gladly submits to God in all circumstances.”

Joni Eareckson Tada (1949) American artist

Source: When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty

God, Heart

“But he knew well enough that any man in the right circumstances could be dehumanised by panic.”

Arthur C. Clarke book 2001: A Space Odyssey

Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey

“Without his mate to share his life, he was but a screen for events and circumstances to pass through. He was npt even empty, for he was no vessel to hold even the thinnest of air.
He lived, though was not truly alive”

Jessica Bird book Lover Revealed

Source: Lover Revealed

Life

“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”

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

Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Personality, Peaceful

“Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstance require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about.”

Harry G. Frankfurt book On Bullshit

Source: On Bullshit

“More is happening out there than we are aware of.
It is possibly due to some unknown direful circumstance.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

“I just do the best I can under the circumstances.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“Under normal circumstances, you inviting me to the bedroom would be the highlight of my day.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Cute

“Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Success

“Annabeth’s hand slipped into mine. Under different circumstances I would’ve been embarrassed, but here in the dark I was glad to know where she was. It was about the only thing I was sure of.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

“That only a few, under any circumstances, protest against the injustice of long-established laws and customs, does not disprove the fact of the oppressions, while the satisfaction of the many, if real only proves their apathy and deeper degradation.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Law

“Many undoubtedly owe their good fortune to the circumstance that they possess a pleasing smile with which they win hearts. Yet these hearts would do better to beware and to learn from Hamlet's tables that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: Essays and Aphorisms

Smile, Learning, Heart

“In circumstances of real tragedy you see things straight away… past, present, and future together.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) French writer

Past, Future

“One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Lie, Time

“Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow, you must not stay with it under any circumstances.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Feeling

Quotes about circumstance page 3

Quotes about circumstance
page 3