William Shakespeare Quotes on Fate & Destiny (38 Quotes)

To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.

Now the fair goddess, Fortune,
Fall deep in love with thee, and her great charms
Misguide thy opposers' swords!

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

Mend your speech a little, lest it may mar your fortune.

In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state;
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

O Fate, take not away thy heavy hand!

This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.

The great man down, you mark his favourite flies,
The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies;
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.

This is the excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick in fortune -- often the surfeits of our own behavior -- we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star.

Fortune reigns in gifts of the world.

I protest-
Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,
Thy valour and thy heart- thou art a traitor;
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;
Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince;
And from th' extremest upward of thy head
To the descent and dust beneath thy foot,
A most toad-spotted traitor.

But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman:
there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward
her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of
her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate
husband, this well-seeming Angelo.

In good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description
of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.

Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss.

Fortune, put them into my hand.

Fortune, good night; smile once more, turn thy wheel.

To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day
Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men
Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury,
As I am truly given to understand,
The King with mighty and quick-raised power
Meets with Lord Harry; and I fear, Sir Michael,
What with the sickness of Northumberland,
Whose power was in the first proportion,
And what with Owen Glendower's absence thence,
Who with them was a rated sinew too
And comes not in, overrul'd by prophecies-
I fear the power of Percy is too weak
To wage an instant trial with the King.

All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

There
is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor,
and death for his ambition.

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear.

But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,
Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great:
Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,
And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!

Good fortune, worthy soldier, and farewell.

Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally, I would we could do so for her benefits are mightily misplaced and the bountiful blind girl doth most mistake in her gifts to women. 'Tis true for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly. Nay, now thou goest from Fortunes office to Natures. Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature.

Know
That it was he in the times past which held you
So under fortune, which you thought had been
Our innocent self?

As good luck would have it.

No;
It is thyself, mine own self's better part;
Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim,
My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.

God hath blessed you with a good name to be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune, but to write or read comes by nature.

The mightiest space in fortune nature bringsTo join like likes and kiss like native things.

To be, or not to be that is the question Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them To die to sleep No more and, by a sleep to say we end.

'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I; 'No, sir,' quoth he,
'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.

You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time's flies.

Fortune knows we scorn her most when most she offers blows.

For, now he has crack'd the league
Between us and the Emperor, the Queen's great nephew,
He dives into the King's soul and there scatters
Dangers, doubts, wringing of the conscience,
Fears, and despairs-and all these for his marriage;
And out of all these to restore the King,
He counsels a divorce, a loss of her
That like a jewel has hung twenty years
About his neck, yet never lost her lustre;
Of her that loves him with that excellence
That angels love good men with; even of her
That, when the greatest stroke of fortune falls,
Will bless the King-and is not this course pious?

What need I fear of thee But yet I'll make assurance double sure, and take a bond of fate thou shalt not live That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, And sleep in spite of thunder

Tell her my love, more noble than the world,
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,
Tell her I hold as giddily as Fortune;
But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems
That Nature pranks her in attracts my soul.

'Tis but fortune; all is fortune.

That cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.