A collection of quotes on the topic of destination, time, timing, people.
“Our stories may be singular, but our destination is shared.”
Nahj al-Balagha
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.”
Person to person: The problem of being human: A new trend in psychology (1967)
Source: page 187.
“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.”
“Some succeed because they are destined to, but most succeed because they are determined to.”
“He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination.”
“What is destined to happen will happen. Victory and defeat are like light and darkness.”
His own family toppled him, quoted in Obituary: N. T. Rama Rao, 19 January 1996, 8 January 2014, Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-n-t-rama-rao-1324748.html,
Introduction, Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), pp. 101-102
The Essence of Christianity (1841)
I ended up walking for two hours, and at the end of it I was crying to myself because I felt so sad.
My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 19, Longing
Source: https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/shockingly-simple-principles-of-spiritual-awakening/
“Written kisses don't reach their destination, rather they are drunk on the way by the ghosts.”
Source: Letters to Milena
“One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.”
Variant: Often misquoted as "One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things".
Source: Miller, H. (1957). Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch
Source: Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society
Of mathematics — as quoted in Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty (1980) by Morris Kline, p. 99.
Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 494
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation
Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B.) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1934/01/26.htm (January 26, 1934)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: Still others think that war should be organised by a "superior race," say, the German "race," against an "inferior race," primarily against the Slavs; that only such a war can provide a way out of the situation, for it is the mission of the "superior race" to render the "inferior race" fruitful and to rule over it. Let us assume that this queer theory, which is as far removed from science as the sky from the earth, let us assume that this queer theory is put into practice. What may be the result of that? It is well known that ancient Rome looked upon the ancestors of the present-day Germans and French in the same way as the representatives of the "superior race" now look upon the Slav races. It is well known that ancient Rome treated them as an "inferior race," as "barbarians," destined to live in eternal subordination to the "superior race," to "great Rome", and, between ourselves be it said, ancient Rome had some grounds for this, which cannot be said of the representatives of the "superior race" of today. (Thunderous applause.) But what was the upshot of this? The upshot was that the non-Romans, i. e., all the "barbarians," united against the common enemy and brought Rome down with a crash. The question arises: What guarantee is there that the claims of the representatives of the "superior race" of today will not lead to the same lamentable results? What guarantee is there that the fascist literary politicians in Berlin will be more fortunate than the old and experienced conquerors in Rome? Would it not be more correct to assume that the opposite will be the case?
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”
The Legend of the Baal-Shem (1955),1995 edition, p. 36
“When you choose the path, you choose the destination.”
2008-11-11
Threshold Editions
141659485X
244
2000s
Source: The Christmas Sweater
“People destined to meet will do so, apparently by chance, at precisely the right moment.”
Source: The Stars My Destination
“The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.”
Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 3: A Free Man's Worship
Context: Such... but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.
Context: That Man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins – all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.
“There is a destination but no way there; what we refer to as way is hesitation.”
Source: The Zürau Aphorisms
Speech to Conservative Central Council ("The Historic Choice") (20 March 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102990
Leader of the Opposition
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/jan/22/address-in-answer-to-the-speech in the House of Commons (22 January 1846).
1840s
Genjūan no Fu ("Prose Poem on the Unreal Dwelling") in Donald Keene, Anthology of Japanese Literature, p. 374 (Translation: Donald Keene)
Statements
“Everything I touch seems destined to turn into something mean and farcical.”
Hedda, Act IV
Hedda Gabler (1890)
My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 17
The Power of Now (1997)
On the Nomination of Archbishop Basilios (19 January 1951)
“If we choose the wrong road, we choose the wrong destination.”
Be Not Deceived https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/10/be-not-deceived, Dallin H. Oaks, October 2004
On Soviet actions in Hungary to the UN General Assembly (21 November 1956)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1925/07/lenin.htm,Letter on Max Eastman's Book, July 1, 1925
tahaँ basa basumati basu basumukhamukha
nigadita nigama sukarama dharamadhura ।
durita damana dukha śamana sukha gamana
parama kamana pada namana sakala sura ॥
bimala birati rati bhagati bharana bhala
bharama harana hari haraṣa harama pura ।
giridhara raghubara gharani janama mahi
tarani tanaya bhaya janaka janakapura ॥
Srisitaramakelikaumudi
Statement of 1829, as quoted in The Great Fear : The Reconquest of Latin America by Latin Americans (1963) by John Gerassi
Variant translations:
[The United States] appears destined by Providence to plague America with miseries in the name of Freedom.
As quoted in Simón Bolívar : Essays on the Life and Legacy of the Liberator (2008) by David Bushnell and Lester D. Langley, p. 135
The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.
As quoted in Latin American Evangelical Theology in the 1970's : The Golden Decade (2009) by J. D. S. Salinas and Daniel Salinas, p. 38
http://books.google.com/books?id=Uhbxgjsxyx0C&q=%22It+is+always+thus+impelled+by+a+state+of+mind+which+is+destined+not+to+last+that+we+make+our+irrevocable+decisions%22&pg=PA622#v=onepage
Ce n'est jamais qu'à cause d'un état d'esprit qui n'est pas destiné à durer qu'on prend des résolutions définitives.
http://books.google.com/books?id=xtWwncTOUbQC&q=%22Ce+n'est+jamais+qu'%C3%A0+cause+d'un+%C3%A9tat+d'esprit+qui+n'est+pas+destin%C3%A9+%C3%A0+durer+qu'on+prend+des+r%C3%A9solutions+d%C3%A9finitives%22&pg=PA188#v=onepage
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919), Ch. I: "Madame Swann at Home"
"One Man's Cup of Coffee," Time Magazine profile (June 30, 1961)
"General Audience", in Saint Peter's Square (26 November 2014) https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2014/documents/papa-francesco_20141126_udienza-generale.html.
2010s, 2014
[Rigopoulos, Antonio, The Life And Teachings Of Sai Baba Of Shirdi: The Conflicting Origins, Impacts, and Futures of the Community College, http://books.google.com/books?id=TNohSoS0CzUC&pg=PA43, 1993, SUNY Press, 978-0-7914-1267-1, 43–]
Sources
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 510–524, as translated by R. Potter (1860)
Speech at the Nobel Banquet (10 December 1994) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1994/oe-speech.html
Context: The destination of the soul: this is what I, led on by Nils Holgersson, came to seek in the literature of Western Europe. I fervently hope that my pursuit, as a Japanese, of literature and culture will, in some small measure, repay Western Europe for the light it has shed upon the human condition.
Essays on Woman (1996), Problems of Women's Education (1932)
Context: The concept which assumes that everything in the Church is irrevocably set for all times appears to me to be a false one. It would be naive to disregard that the Church has a history; the Church is a human institution and like all things human, was destined to change and evolve; likewise, its development takes place often in the form of struggles. Most of the definitions of dogma are conclusive results of preceding intellectual conflicts lasting for decades and even centuries. The same is true of ecclesiastical law, liturgical forms — especially all objective forms reflecting our spiritual life.
Memoirs
Context: The Grand Duke appeared to rejoice at the arrival of my mother and myself. I was in my fifteenth year. During the first ten days he paid me much attention. Even then and in that short time, I saw and understood that he did not care much for the nation that he was destined to rule, and that he clung to Lutheranism, did not like his entourage, and was very childish. I remained silent and listened, and this gained me his trust. I remember him telling me that among other things, what pleased him most about me was that I was his second cousin, and that because I was related to him, he could speak to me with an open heart. Then he told me that he was in love with one of the Empress’s maids of honor, who had been dismissed from court because of the misfortune of her mother, one Madame Lopukhina, who had been exiled to Siberia, that he would have liked to marry her, but that he was resigned to marry me because his aunt desired it. I listened with a blush to these family confidences, thanking him for his ready trust, but deep in my heart I was astonished by his imprudence and lack of judgment in many matters.
“No wind favors he who has no destined port.”
Book II, Ch. 1
Attributed
Variant: No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
Source: The Complete Essays
“The journey, Not the destination matters…”
Variant: The journey not the arrival matters.
Variant: You have now reached infatuation’s final destination—the complete and merciless
devaluation of self.
Source: Eat, Pray, Love
“We will surely get to our destination if we join hands.”
“There's no use going to school unless your final destination is the library.”
“Direction, not intention determines your destination.”
The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
Variant: Direction—not intention—determines our destination.
Source: Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch
Source: Night World, No. 3
“Life is a journey, not a destination.”
Source: Go Tell It on the Mountain
Variant: I knew my father had done the best he could, and I had no regrets about the way I'd turned out. Regrets about journey, maybe, but not the destination.
Source: Dear John
“Some things are destined to be -- it just takes us a couple of tries
to get there.”
Source: Lover Mine
Source: Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration
“it doesn t matter if it takes a long time getting there; the point is to have a destination.”
“… where's the skill in being a hero if you were always destined to do it?”
Source: Un Lun Dun
“We come from long lines of people destined never to meet.”
“Its the not the Destination, It's the journey.”
Source: Self-Reliance
Source: The Devil and Miss Prym
“roads were made for journeys not destinations”
Source: Postcards from the Edge
