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Destiny   /dˈɛstəni/   Listen
Destiny

noun
(pl. destinies)
1.
An event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen in the future.  Synonym: fate.
2.
The ultimate agency regarded as predetermining the course of events (often personified as a woman).  Synonym: fate.
3.
Your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you).  Synonyms: circumstances, fate, fortune, lot, luck, portion.  "Deserved a better fate" , "Has a happy lot" , "The luck of the Irish" , "A victim of circumstances" , "Success that was her portion"



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"Destiny" Quotes from Famous Books



... white thing, magical as a silver bullet, seemed a miniature incarnation of destiny, spinning his fate. Always Vanno was pricked by the desire to try again, and see if he could once more foretell the result. There lay the poignant, the indescribable charm: ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... now constituted, was, prior to 1853, a portion of the Territory of Oregon. During the year mentioned, a new territory was carved from the old Oregon boundaries, which the statesmen of that day evidently believed was marked by destiny for the achievement of great things, for they conferred upon it ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell

... depress my youthful spirits. I converted all that my father had left into money, and set out to try my fortune in foreign lands, accompanied only by an old servant of the family, who, on account of ancient attachment, would not part from me and my destiny. ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... the matter of handling a great business. To the exact nature of these alternatives the middle-class mind needs to direct itself if it is to exert any control whatever over its future. Take the case of the butcher. It is manifestly written on the scroll of destiny that the little private slaughter-house, the little independent butcher's shop, buying and selling locally, must disappear. The meat will all be slaughtered at some great, conveniently organized centre, and distributed thence to shops that will necessarily be mere agencies for ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... he arrived at last at another wood, and in this wood he found a hermit of whom he asked if he could not give him some news of Destiny? ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... throbbing with life! 'Tis a destiny enviable indeed! For is not this, as a delightful poet has said, "to take away with one all one's illusions, to be buried like an Eastern king, with all one's jewels and treasures, with all that makes ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac

... in his turn to conquer fate, Oedipus fled from Corinth; for he had never dreamed that his parents were other than Polybus and Merope the queen. Thinking to escape crime, he took the road towards Thebes, so hastening into the very arms of his evil destiny. ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody

... with bovine astonishment. The Kaffir herdsmen first ran yelling in every direction, and then rushed back to dig the shell up, amid inextinguishable laughter. The Hindoo grass-cutter neither ran nor laughed, but awaited destiny with resignation. By the way, there is a Hindoo servant in the 19th Hussar lines, who at the approach of a "Long Tom" shell always falls reverently on his face and prays ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... case he must overthrow and annihilate all legitimists," said Napoleon, quickly; "so that a new dynasty may arise, of which he will be the founder. I am the man of Destiny, and shall found a new dynasty, and one day the whole of Europe will be but one empire, MY empire! All of you, instead of cursing me, should joyfully hail my coming and welcome me as your liberator ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... records showed that this decision was justified. They wrote upon the Chart a long argument, chain upon chain and reason upon reason, to prove that from the beginning it was decreed that by this rock should the destiny ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... that doubts or suspects,—of that he was incapable; but the primitive man's demand for exclusive possession of his own. Probably Desmond, in such a case, would have lost his temper and cleared the air in half an hour. But temperament is destiny: and Lenox was not so made. He merely shut the door upon the evil thing; and tried—not very successfully—to ignore its existence. And with three evil spirits in possession of him, it is not surprising if at times he ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... only strewed the path of Minnie with flowers, and ripened the promised beauty of her childhood, it has borne a heavy hand upon the destiny of the ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... hoped would one day be David's wife, was all blonde hair, blue eyes and high spirits, so that the little blind god, aided by the Squire's strategy, propinquity and the universal law of the attraction of opposites, should have had no difficulty in making these young people fall in love—but Destiny, apparently, decided to make them exceptions ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... medieval poem is but a mere scenic effect, a strain of mystery and magic, that runs through the changes of the story with much added picturesqueness, but that has no obvious relation to the working-out of the plot, or fulfilment of their destiny by the different characters. Brynhild loses a great deal, and is a poor creature when compared with herself in the saga; Grimhild and her fateful drink have gone; Gudrun (Chriemhild) is much more complex, but not more tragic; ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... my destiny become a little earlier propitious and honored my devotion by marriage with you, I should have adored only the splendor of your eyes; of them I should have made my kings; of them I should have made my gods; sooner would I have ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... admirable voice; she can go on the stage to-morrow, and be, before six months, one of the pet actresses of Paris. What a life then! Ah, that is the one I dream, the one I would have selected, had I been mistress of my destiny." ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... steps, nor how to escape from the impetuosity of the Prince. The gates of the castle, she knew, were locked, and guards placed in the court. Should she, as her heart prompted her, go and prepare Hippolita for the cruel destiny that awaited her, she did not doubt but Manfred would seek her there, and that his violence would incite him to double the injury he meditated, without leaving room for them to avoid the impetuosity of ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole

... doing? Only, trying to arrange the wheels of Providence; trying to make peace and war; to kill and to keep alive. I was taking and bearing on my shoulders the burden of the nation's armies and of their destiny. It fell on my heart all at once, what I was doing. And my nerves were straining, even now, to throw around my beloved the shield of circumstances; to keep him where he would be safe; to put my hand between his life and a blow. Could Daisy do that? Was her arm long enough, or her eye ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... outside influence, developing what we know as civilization. We see everywhere the rise and fall of nations, races and civilizations, and their utter blotting out; and we refuse to accept that process as a universal law through which the destiny of the human race is working itself out. In fact, we do not seem to believe that the human race has any destiny; it may have beginning and an end, ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates

... pleasant; but at last it was made into twelve garments of that kind which people do not like to name, and yet everybody should wear one. "See, now, then," said the flax; "I have become something of importance. This was my destiny; it is quite a blessing. Now I shall be of some use in the world, as everyone ought to be; it is the only way to be happy. I am now divided into twelve pieces, and yet we are all one and the same in the whole dozen. It is ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... lives have not been wicked, become one with him. They are each of them called by his name. To Osiris, all sepulchral inscriptions are addressed. His career, with the victory of the power of darkness over him, and his glorious revival in the regions of the West, typifies human life and destiny. The principal god at Memphis is Ptah, the primal divinity, the former of heaven and earth; yet, perhaps, a god of light, since he is styled by the Greeks, Hephaestus. At Thebes, Ammon was revered as the king of the gods: he shared in the properties of the sun. Thoth is ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... recourse to this scheme. I have written much; but as to profits, they are nearly nil! The more do I look upwards; but both for his own sake, and that of others, man is obliged to turn his eyes earthwards; for this, too, is part of the destiny of humanity. I embrace you, my dear fellow-artist, ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... lay through the long nights shedding tears of misery. Too late; her beauty blurred, her heart worn with suffering, often poisoned with bitterness. Yet there came moments of revolt, when she rose and looked at herself in the mirror, and asked——But for Olga, she would have tried to shape her own destiny. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... crude as they necessarily were, had admirers who strengthened his own conviction that literature was his destiny; the tripos faded into the background, replaced by the more splendid vision of seeing an accepted article from his pen in a real London magazine; he gave frantic chase to the will o' the wisp of literary fame, which so many pursue all their lives ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... chief eunuch of the heir apparent of the Turkish empire is a far greater man than a poor prince, or a proscribed rebel. This worthy can do our business, and I trust will. He clearly bites, and a richer bait will, perhaps, secure him. In the meantime, we must be patient, and remember whose destiny ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli

... third brother, whose name was Backbac, was blind, and his evil destiny reduced him to beg from door to door. He had been so long accustomed to walk through the streets alone, that he wanted none to lead him: he had a custom to knock at people's doors, and not to answer till they opened to him. One day he knocked thus, and the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... in the prime of youth and beauty, very large of limb, dark in color, cried considerably; whilst the younger one ... laughed as if she thought the change in her destiny very good fun." ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... knowledge, setting forth the "wisdom Religion" of life, as taught by the Adepts of Hermetic Philosophy. It will richly repay all who are seeking the higher life to carefully study this book, as it contains in a nutshell the wisdom of the ages regarding man and his destiny, here and hereafter. The London and American first edition, also the French edition, Vol. I, met with lively criticism from Blavatsky Theosophists, because it annihilates that agreeable delusion of "Karma" and "Reincarnation" from the minds ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne

... procure enough plasmon to secure my family against the ills it was heir to for evermore. I did not immediately understand that plasmon was one of the investments which he had made from "the substance of things hoped for," and in the destiny of a disastrous disappointment. But after paying off the creditors of his late publishing firm, he had to do something with his money, and it was not his fault if he did not make a fortune ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... possessed of the devil. He would run to the major on hearing his name called; he would turn somersets; he would walk on his hinder feet; he would point with his nose to any letter of the alphabet he was commanded; and, no doubt, with a little more training, he could have delved the mysteries of destiny with a facility that neither medium nor clairvoyant could have excelled. If, then, the lookers on were at first delighted, they now stood amazed, and declared that so sensible an animal had never before been brought to the city. "I have been told, sir," said the major with an air ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... Jeneka will take care of themselves. They are popular and beloved characters here in Morovenia. They are not taking you into consideration except as you seem to interfere with their selfish plans. I have made it a rule not to work out my neighbor's destiny." ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... however, were, in this reign, taught to know their own power; and the great designs of a king, whose wisdom they had so long experienced, even though they were not brought to actual experiment, disposed them to consider themselves as masters of the destiny of their neighbours; and, from that time, he that shall nicely examine their schemes and conduct, will, I believe, find that they began to take an air of superiority, to which they had never pretended before; and that they have been ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... her expression and the consciousness of coming supper in her mind, gazed obediently where her mistress gazed, and was touched with the same fierce beauty. They stood there fronting the crimson pools over the far hills, two small sentient things facing destiny with pathetic courage; they had, in the chill evening on the lonely hill, a look as of those predestined to grief, almost ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... stillness and the moon, high-risen, touched the world about me with her magic, whereby things familiar became transformed into objects of wonder; tree and hedgerow took on shapes strange and fantastic; the road became a gleaming causeway whereon I walked, godlike, master of my destiny. Beyond meadow and cornfield to right and left gloomed woods, remote and full of mystery, in whose enchanted twilight elves and fairies might have danced or slender dryads peeped and sported. Thus walked I in an ecstasy, scanning with eager eyes the novel beauties around me, my mind full of the poetic ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... were taking place in regard to the political status and destiny of the country. Hitherto the British Government had exercised only a nominal influence over the coast districts. A consul was stationed at Duke Towns but he had no means of exercising authority, and the tribes higher up the Cross River would war ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... that night, the destiny of Gerald Grantham. The coldness of the general demeanour of Matilda, was forgotten in the ardor of character which had escaped from beneath the evident and habitual disguise; and the enthusiastic sailor could think of nothing but the witchery of that ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... Nehal Singh?" he demanded, in a harsh, rasping voice. "Is it not sufficient that thou hast failed thy destiny, but in the same hour thou must close thine eyes and dream, like a child on whose shoulders rest no duty, no responsibility? Awake! I have more ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... alarmed, and put the pieces away directly, taking the opportunity when evening came of abusing the young lady roundly. "It's all your bad luck," retorted she. "Real gold would be too much for your inferior destiny." There was an end of that; but Ma went on to say, "I always heard that fox-girls were of surpassing beauty; how is it you are not?" "Oh," replied the young lady, "we always adapt ourselves to our company. ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... was his subject, seems to have been carried, by a kind of destiny, to the light and the familiar, or to conceits which require still more ignoble epithets. A slaughter in the Red sea "new dies the water's name;" and England, during the civil war, was "Albion no more, nor to be named ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... woman, from her being gifted with strong affections, exert a peculiar influence on her character and destiny. Therefore is it, that a young lady should choose her intimate associates with care. Let it not be accident, still less unhallowed gratifications, prejudice, pride, passion, folly, which form the ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... as Forbes-Robertson said it, seemed to mean: "I gave you all—all that you could not understand." "Yet are not you and I in the toils of that destiny there that moves the arras. Is it ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... function—perhaps for this reason we may look upon these aethalia as exhibiting a suspended performance; the sporangia have failed to go forward to what was evidently a possible, though apparently not an essential destiny in form and figure. For the care and dispersal of the spores, achievement must surely be somewhat impaired. Whatever the measure of such inefficiency, among the Stemonitales Amaurochaete shows the acme, as Reticularia among ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride

... no fancies such as these; but equally true is it that he will taste none of that exuberant happiness which is that man's portion who weaves out a story of his life, and who, in connecting the promise of early years with the performance of later, will seek to fulfil a fate and destiny. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... they failed to strike the deepest chords of human feeling or display that high seriousness which is indicative of real dignity of character. Love had been the despot whose slightest caprice was law.—in obeying his commands one could do no wrong. Woman became the arbiter of man's destiny in so far as, the fervent lover, in his ardor, was glad to do her bidding. The troubadour Miravel has told us that when a man made a failure of his life, all were prone to say: "It is evident that ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... Foreordination, or Good Fortune, or Destiny, or Providence, or Luck, whichever one of these presided on this occasion,—suit yourselves as to this, O infidel or orthodox! capitalize them all, since some of you will have it so—elected that these two people should not meet till they had both cooled off a little. ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... degree of sympathetic sorrow which penetrated my soul. Had I ever heard such a sigh from a husband's bosom? Alas! I never knew the sweet, soothing solace of wedded sympathy; I never was beloved by him whom destiny allotted to be the legal ruler of my actions. I do not condemn Mr. Robinson; I but too well know that we cannot command our affections. I only lament that he did not observe some decency in his infidelities; and that while he ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... to where his destiny led him, Don Estevan and Pedro Diaz were also on their way. Although the hills were but six leagues from the camp, yet, uncertain of the time of his absence, Don Estevan had left orders to his people to await his return. ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... all, were old offenders; their faults and idiosyncrasies had been reviewed often. The occasion demanded a new scapegoat; and we determined to find him. We looked across the broad expanse of veld and bitterly reflected on a destiny that circumscribed our freedom within the barriers of a town; that denied us even the wild freshness of morning uncontaminated by the miasma of city streets. In this frame of mind we easily drifted into speculation on first causes. We began ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... reach up to the bell was what he did not like; to cry aloud for help would have availed him little; besides, how ashamed would he have been to be found caught in a trap, like an outwitted fox! How was he to twist himself through! He saw clearly that it was his irrevocable destiny to remain a prisoner till dawn, or, perhaps, even late in the morning; then the smith must be fetched to file away the bars; but all that would not be done so quickly as he could think about it. The whole Charity School, just opposite, would be in motion; all ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... watched the tall figure mount the platform. Lord Glyncraig, with his clear-cut features, iron-grey hair, and commanding air, looked a born leader of men, and well fitted to take his share in swaying a nation's destiny. She could picture him a power in Parliament. It was good of him to come this afternoon to speak at a girls' school. Lady Glyncraig, handsome, well-dressed, and aristocratic, sat in the post of honour ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... took all his men into her city, hoping to keep them there for ever, and make him her husband. AEneas himself was so happy there, that he forgot all his plans and the prophecies he had heard, until Jupiter sent Mercury to rouse him to fulfil his destiny. He obeyed the call; and Dido was so wretched at his departure that she caused a great funeral pile to be built, laid herself on the top, and stabbed herself with AEneas' sword; the pile was burnt, and the Trojans saw the flame from their ships ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... into an Eagle, while my Queen was left in an enchanted sleep. I knew that after two hundred years a Prince would recall her to the light of day, and a Princess, in restoring to me the hand which my enemy had cut off, would give me back my natural form. The Fairy who watches over your destiny told me this, and it was she who guided you to the cabinet in the turret, where she had placed my hand. It is she also who permits me to show my gratitude to you by granting whatever favour you may ask of me. Tell me, Princess, what is it that ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... generations were prepared; the pangs, The internal pangs, were ready, the dread strife Of poor humanity's afflicted will, Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny." ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... happy days, Gipsey, when thy glancing eye, Fain would dart its piercing rays, Through her future destiny. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various

... place where I shall find a God and my salvation. Do you marvel that I love Fay Larkin—that she is not dead to me? Do you marvel that I love her, when I KNOW, were she alive, chained in a canyon, or bound, or lost in any way, my destiny would lead me to her, and she should ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... her, he led Beulah to his horse. Here he made her sit down while he gave her water and food. Bit by bit she told him the story of her experience. He suffered poignantly with her, but he could not be grateful enough that the finger-tip of destiny had pointed him to her prison. He thanked his rather vague gods that it had been his footsteps rather than those of another man that had wandered ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... of the country, therefore the laws are framed for the good of the majority. No land offers better or freer social conditions to the homemaker. Advantages offer not only to the settler himself, but he has every reason to hope for a happy destiny for his children. ...
— Wheat Growing in Australia • Australia Department of External Affairs

... great writers, Mr. Whistler's portrait of Carlyle. It is a picture whose story is complete, whose honours have been gathered abroad—in Paris, in Brussels, in Munich. Its destiny has been accomplished; it belongs to the City of Glasgow, and from the corporation of that city was borrowed for the Victorian Exhibition. The corporation lent it in good faith; the borrowers have treated it with all the indignity it is in their power ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... consciousness that her husband would be deeply vexed, not by the conduct or the fate of Bras, but by her being the heroine of so mad an adventure. She knew that he wished her to be serious and subdued and proper, like the ladies whom she met, while an evil destiny seemed to dog her footsteps and precipitate her into all sorts of erratic mishaps and "scenes." However, this adventure was likely soon to have an end. She could go no farther. Whatever had become ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... Counts, who held not a very high rank amongst the nobility in the first instance, but gradually increased their power until Eudes, Count of Paris, in 922 ultimately became King of France, which also was the destiny of two other nobles who held the same title, Robert the brother of Eudes, and ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... house and spacious and beautiful demesne, he may live as blank a life as any tattered ditcher. Without an appetite, without an aspiration, void of appreciation, bankrupt of desire and hope, there, in his great house, let him sit and look upon his fingers. It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire. Although neither is to be despised, it is always better policy to learn an interest than to make a thousand pounds; for the money will soon be spent, or perhaps you may feel no joy ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Spaniard is going, his heart happy to know that you will be protected and sustained by your new father, and that the smoke of the powder may ascend to the Maker of life, praying him to shower on you all a happy destiny and prosperity in always living in good ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... of destiny That went down scornful under many spears; Who soon as we are born are straight our friends, And live in simple music, country songs, And mournful ballads ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... of Creation: a Popular View of some of the Grand Conclusions of the Sciences in reference to the History of Matter and of Life. Together with a Statement of the Intimations of Science respecting the Primordial Condition and the Ultimate Destiny of the Earth and the Solar System. By ALEXANDER WINCHELL, LL.D., Chancellor of the Syracuse University. With Illustrations. 12mo, ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday

... ask. She must know if Zorzi had been to Venice during the night, for until she knew that, all hope of peace was at an end. Nella had meant no harm, but she had played the fatal little part in which destiny loves to go masking ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... signal, not only for the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the Austrian alliance, but for the direct marching of those troops as allies into the camp of the Prussians. Thus sudden are the mutations of war; thus inexplicable are the combinations of destiny. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... London; but from this he was restrained, during the time he was at the Royal Institution. To his former intention he now determined to apply himself, and in addition to the attempt, by giving private lectures, to assure himself of that independency, of which his unfortunate destiny, though with every reasonable expectation before him, had ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... Society of England, "that in any reconstruction of Africa, which may result from this war, the interests of the native inhabitants and also their wishes, in so far as those wishes can be clearly ascertained, should be recognized as among the principal factors upon which the decision of their destiny should be based." In other words, recognizing for the first time in the history of the modern world ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... times. I almost know it by heart. O, it begins so pretty and so grand! This is the way it begins," she added, encouraged by the interest she must have seen in my face: "'Amid the combinations of actors and forces that make up the great kaleidoscope of history, we often find a turn of Destiny's hand.'" ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... all that throng there was no friend for him, nor even one to do him favor. A score of lies or a flood of denials would be unavailing to win so much as a glance of sympathy. He had essayed a game with Destiny; he had lost and must pay penalty—and he never doubted what that penalty would be with Richard Plantagenet his judge. But at least, he would wring a cry of pain from the heart of his enemy—and ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... life to help, the Lord has wonderfully blessed our labors. The Colony is prospering as I never expected to see it. The people are beginning to see that a true republic can only exist by governing one's own self, that in the hands of each individual is the destiny of the nation. We are a peaceful people, greatly helped under the Lord by the fact that not a saloon blackens the pure air ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... brook runs into the first hearing of the sea, to defer its own extinction it takes a lively turn inland, leaving a pleasant breadth of green between itself and its destiny. At the breath of salt the larger trees hang back, and turn their boughs up; but plenty of pretty shrubs come forth, and shade the cottage garden. Neither have the cottage walls any lack of leafy mantle, where the summer sun works his own defeat by fostering ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... arguments of Gioberti, the graphic pictures of Manzoni, and the terse pathos of Leopardi, did he illustrate what Italy boasts of later genius; but through his own eloquent integrity and magnetic love of her achievements and faith in her destiny. The savings of years of patient toil were sacrificed to the subsistence of his poor countrymen who came hither after bravely fighting at Rome, Venice, Milan, and Novara, to have their fruits of victory treacherously gathered by aliens. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... actual position of prostitutes the world over, their sense of justice will at last be freed, and become forevermore a new force in the long struggle for social righteousness. The wind of moral aspiration now dies down and now blows with unexpected force, urging on the movements of social destiny; but never do the sails of the ship of state push forward with such assured progress as when filled by the mighty hopes of a newly enfranchised class. Those already responsible for existing conditions have come to acquiesce in them, and feel obliged to adduce reasons explaining the permanence and ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams

... and a difference of sex, fear of him comes first; this is swallowed up by a desire to help—overwhelming sense, reason, and the time of night; anger would follow close on that—with Florinda, with destiny; and then up would bubble an irresponsible optimism. "Surely there's enough light in the street at this moment to drown all our cares in gold!" Ah, what's the use of saying it? Even while you speak and look over your shoulder ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... nothing," it did not speak the last word on the subject. You will look about you for something like hope, you will shake the doors of churches to see if they still swing, but you will find them walled up; you will think of becoming Trappists, and destiny will mock at you, and for reply will give you a bottle of wine and ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... by his great conceptions derived from Heaven, and by a kind of admirable instinct, the secret of which is not given to ordinary men, seemed born to mold fortune to conform to his designs and bring destiny to his feet. And that the great tho diverse characters of these two men might be clearly discerned, it should be borne in mind that the one, his career cut short by an unexpected blow, died for his country like another Judas Maccabeus, mourned by the army as for a father, while the court ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... the clergyman was forgotten in the bitterness of self-reproach. "I was a fool," she thought, as she turned away, "to fancy that my native air could be untainted by the destiny which has mocked me from ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... had not disappointed her. When she had crowned him with a title she had felt that a high destiny awaited him and the event proved it. After a youth on the ranch, Mark, at sixteen, grew restive, at seventeen announced that he wanted an education and at eighteen packed his grip and went to work his way through Stanford University. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... that it was not this alone that had decided his fate. He felt as though a grey veil had descended over his whole future; even over all that in his imagination had elevated him above the more sordid chances of destiny. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... they have proved themselves worthy of being received in such a sanctuary. Our country has enjoyed the benefit of their unblemished morals, and their mild, polite, and unassuming manners, and wherever destiny has placed them, they have industriously relieved the national burden of their support by diffusing the knowledge of a language, which good sense, and common interest, should long since have considered as a valuable ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... from Voltaire, (most men die without having lived). "I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear." Beethoven's idea of the purport of life was similar. He believed, and put his theory into practice, that each man has within himself the potentialities with which he shapes his own destiny. Fate and Destiny are verities that have to be faced, but they do not have all their own way with us. Each of us has the power to control his destiny to some extent. By willing it so the tendency is toward betterment. ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... work, one of the most terse and profound things Bach ever wrote, contains, among many other subtle inspirations, one conception with which we may fitly end our survey, for it strongly suggests Bach himself and the destiny of all that work which he finished so lovingly, with no prospect of its becoming more than a family heirloom and a salutary tradition in his Leipzig choir-school. In the Magnificat he sets the words ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... But ah! what destiny can do Is not for folly's hand. The flames O-Shichi kindled were From sea to Shiba fanned. And it was learned a love-sick girl Had charred a thousand homes. Then were the fury-smitten folk like to ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice

... could not pass over the Jordan under the old dispensation is seen on the very heights of Hermon with the Son of Man, sharing His Transfiguration glory, and talking of that death on Calvary to which be owed his glorious destiny. ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... good and bad—will equally anathematise his shameful memory; and among all peoples, past and present, will he remain alone in his cruel destiny—Judas Iscariot, the Traitor. ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... the most pernicious influence upon the manners, habits and character, of those among whom it exists. Lisping infancy learns the vocabulary of abusive epithets, and struts the embryo tyrant of its little domain. The consciousness of superior destiny takes possession of his mind at its earliest dawning, and love of power and rule, 'grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.' Unless enabled to rise above the operation of those powerful causes, he enters the world with miserable notions of self-importance, and under ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... world, by proper thought comes to delight in goodness, he recognizes the impermanence of wealth and beauty, and looks upon religion as his best ornament. He feels that this alone can remedy the ills of life and change the fate of young and old; the evil destiny that cramps another's life cannot affect him, living righteously; always removing that which excites desire, he is strong in the absence of desire; seeking to find, not what vain thoughts suggest, but ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... mysticism. So many of our true Russian souls end in that way! Very characteristic." He felt pity for Ziemianitch, a large neutral pity, such as one may feel for an unconscious multitude, a great people seen from above—like a community of crawling ants working out its destiny. It was as if this Ziemianitch could not possibly have done anything else. And Sophia Antonovna's cocksure and contemptuous "some police-hound" was characteristically Russian in another way. But there was no tragedy there. This was a comedy of errors. It was as if the devil himself were playing ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... been the measure of his happiness, and his own exertions have never procured him any certain reward; profligate, because, probably from the confused variety of his moral lessons, he has at last concluded that right and wrong are but unmeaning words. Let us change the destiny of this child, by changing his education. Place him under the sole care of a person of an enlarged capacity, and a steady mind; who has formed just notions of right and wrong; and who, in the distribution of reward and punishment, of praise and ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... lifted his hand as the Secretary endeavoured to break in. "I thoroughly realize the responsibility of my position and that my great wealth is a sacred trust. Upon the answer to the question you have just put to me depends the destiny of the world, whether it is answered by myself at this time or by others in the future. Exactly what I will do when the time comes I cannot say, but I will tell you this much, that in reaching a decision I will call to my assistance ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... interest which, quite unintentionally, manifested itself, perhaps, in a too enthusiastic and somewhat exaggerated estimate of the beauties and resources of their adopted country and of the grandeur of its future destiny and of its rapid progress, and which, so to speak, brought about a reaction towards the opposite extreme in the minds of the class to whom I refer. This enthusiasm was, to say the least, pardonable under the circumstances, for all men are prone to think that objects which intensely engross ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... the first confusion of the assault, he still defended himself and his charge with desperate courage, fighting from street to street, and house to house for five nights and as many days. While he lived Henry's destiny and the fate of France trembled in the balance. But he fell at length, his brain pierced by the ball of an arquebuse, and died an hour before sunset on the 22nd of June. ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman

... The inscrutable ways of Chance—Destiny, call it what you will—brought about the greatest catastrophe that had so far obtained in the Guernsey ranks. Major Davey moved his party over an area—at about 11 in the morning of a warm, sunny Sunday—coming in for a spell of shelling extraordinary ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... who has subjected the earth to those who serve him, in order that they may march by spacious roads—who has placed them on the earth, and there located the three vicissitudes of their destiny: the creation, the return to the earth, and the resurrection from its bowels. He has extended it by his power, and it has become a bed for his servants. He has fixed it by means of inaccessible mountains, of considerable elevation, and has raised over it the summit of heaven, unsupported ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... moral law which reason teaches us from the nature of actions themselves, and we shall believe that we can obey that will only by promoting the weal of the universe in ourselves and in others. Moral theology is, therefore, only of immanent use. It teaches us to fulfil our destiny here in the world, by placing ourselves in harmony with the general system of ends, and warns us against the fanaticism, nay, the crime of depriving reason of its legislative authority in the moral conduct of life, for ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... too small to evoke the heroic in men, that the Church is in the world. She is in the world to change the world, so that its whole extent may be filled with the glory of God, and may become worthy of the eternal destiny of the souls of men. Hers is a high and costly venture. She has strongholds to storm—the entrenchments where the forces of private-mindedness and apathy and money-worship are dug in. In the attempt she can exhaust ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot

... supposed parents. Meantime his real father, Laius, on his way to consult the god at Delphi, met his unknown son returning from that shrine—a quarrel fell out, and the younger man slew the elder. Followed by his evil destiny, he wandered on, and found the now kingless Thebes in the grasp of the Sphinx monster, over whom he triumphed, and was rewarded by the hand of Iokaste, his own mother! Not till four children—two sons and two ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... McAlister's permission to "swap" the horse reached Scott Peck, the creature took his destiny into his own hands. Scott had gone away on a desperate errand, to fetch some sort of food for the poor creature, whose bones stared him in the face, and Sary went out one morning to give him her potato-peelings and some scraps of bread, when, suddenly, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... years there had never been any doubt in the mind of Robert Worth as to the ultimate destiny of Texas, though he was by no means an adventurer, and had come into the beautiful land by a sequence of natural and business-like events. He was born in New York. In that city he studied his profession, and in eighteen hundred ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... was not regarded with the cold-blooded inquisitiveness or matter-of-fact apathy, according as there is or is not anything to be learnt from it, with which such an event is now regarded. Every occurrence in the heavens was then believed to carry with it the destiny of nations and the fate of individuals, and accordingly was of surpassing interest. Ever since the time of Hipparchus it had been possible for some capable man here and there to predict the occurrence of eclipses pretty closely. The thing is not difficult. The prediction ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... would never have multiplied. It is even seen that creatures sometimes perform acts that have no fruits, for without acts the course of life itself would be impossible. Those persons in the world who believe in destiny, and those again who believe in chance, are both the worst among men. Those only that believe in the efficacy of acts are laudable. He that lieth at ease, without activity, believing in destiny alone, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... "Surely the destiny that draws two young persons to each other is hard to understand!... In that temple there was a young acolyte, and love ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... "For you it is the will of heaven and destiny that ye shall return here with the fleece; but meanwhile both going and returning, countless trials await you. But it is my lot, by the hateful decree of a god, to die somewhere afar off on the mainland of Asia. Thus, though I learnt my fate from ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... dissuaded him from undertaking an affair of which he was by no means capable, I thought it high time to think of my own affairs. I hated my profession now more than ever; I was at first hurried into it by the infatuation of my kindred. My destiny had bound me down to it by the chains both of duty and pleasure, so that I could see no possibility to set myself free. I was upwards of twenty-five years of age, and I saw it was now too late to begin to carry a musket; ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... as if in obedience to a lightning will impelling her, as if borne along by the rush of her destiny, pale, resolute, without knowing what she would say, what she would do, she started upwards. Having crossed the upper landing, she was about to place her foot on the lighter stairway, when she stumbled and fell, remaining ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... tells us of the events of 714. It is written on an unusually large tablet of clay and is in, the form of a letter. It begins "To Ashur the father of the gods... greatly, greatly may there be peace. To the gods of destiny and the goddesses who inhabit Ehar sag gal kurkurra, their great temple, greatly, greatly may there be peace. To the gods of destiny and the goddesses who inhabit the city of Ashur their great temple, greatly, greatly may there be peace. To the city and its inhabitants may there be peace. To the ...
— Assyrian Historiography • Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead

... his destiny, for he sank his head on his chest, and followed the officer from the court room in silence. The crowd moved back for the passage of the prisoner, and when his tall form was seen descending from the outer door, a rush of the people to the scene ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... did not always interest her, although she never showed anything but the most ladylike attention. He often went away lamenting the destiny that had fashioned his nature to run in so small and rigid a groove. His happiness, therefore, did not consist in being with her, for then he was oppressed by a consciousness of not entirely pleasing her. It was rather in retrospect, in his memory of her sweet ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various

... verse proceeds to draw the logical conclusion, which oddly enough, runs thus: "therefore drive sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh." In one place[73] the writer solemnly and sadly affirms that the destiny of the upright and the wicked, the wise and the foolish is wholly alike; in another[74] he seems to proclaim that the unrighteous shall suffer for their evil-doing, while the God-fearing shall be rewarded with ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... of the poet's genealogy is, that he was of mixed race, the Alighieri being of Teutonic origin. Dante was born, as he himself tells us,[9] when the sun was in the constellation Gemini, and it has been absurdly inferred, from a passage in the Inferno,[10] that his horoscope was drawn and a great destiny predicted for him by his teacher, Brunetto Latini. The Ottimo Comento tells us that the Twins are the house of Mercury, who induces in men the faculty of writing, science, and of acquiring knowledge. This is worth mentioning as characteristic ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... MARY; she would like to have declared to all the earth the power and tenderness of that Immaculate Heart, which pursues with importunity and tears those who fly from her Divine Son. Loving him, she cannot bear that those for whom he suffered should be recreant to their high destiny; but May could only commune with the unseen guardians of her soul, and through them declare her rapture, which ebbed and flowed in sweet numbers, like a ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... you, Jack," began Maverick after they had been shown to their room. "Aunt Jean is a trump! I almost forgive her Miss Lothrop. But I suppose women would be less than women, if they did not want to dip their fingers into destiny. It is their ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... into the vale of years, before he could be disgusted with fatigue, or disabled by infirmity, he made no collection of his works, nor desired to rescue those that had been already published from the depravations that obscured them, or secure to the rest a better destiny, by giving them to the world ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... not thyself. Thou and I are but as flying dust on the eternal wheels of destiny. Fear not, nor let thy heart be troubled. Even yet, the Lord will make bare his arm and I shall escape, even as a bird from the snare of ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... You will not expect from me an elaborate speech, but will be contented with a few warmly-felt words. Citizens, accept my fervent thanks for your generous welcome, and my blessing upon your sanction of my hopes. You have most truly stated what they are, when you announce the destiny of your glorious country, and tell me that from it the spirit of liberty will go forth and achieve the ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... regarded by Ballanche as the original state of historical society; and history, as a whole, he considers to have followed the same course as that taken by the Roman plebs in its attempts to attain equality with the patriciate. On the events through which the human race is to achieve its destiny Ballanche gives few intelligible hints. The sudden flash which disclosed to the eyes of Hebal the whole epic of humanity cannot be reproduced in language trammelled by time and space. Scattered throughout the works of Ballanche are many valuable ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... seal of the last communication, written or oral, which I shall probably ever submit to you. For our paths, henceforth, will lead us widely apart, Derrington. You are a free agent, the arbiter of your own destiny; I am one who can take no initiative regarding the paths I must tread. But this letter is not to speak of myself, but is to tell you about her, if, perchance, when you read these words, you have ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... climax. The boy, like a million other American boys, was a politician, and what was worse, fit as yet to be nothing else. He should have been, like his grandfather, a protege of George Washington, a statesman designated by destiny, with nothing to do but look directly ahead, follow orders, and march. On the contrary, he was not even a Bostonian; he felt himself shut out of Boston as though he were an exile; he never thought of himself as a Bostonian; he never looked about him in Boston, as boys commonly do wherever ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... contract their marriages in the waters of the sea. With us it is different, because half of us must live within the other half or perish. Parasites upon the rest, levying a daily toll of nutriment upon their hosts, they are yet in some measure the arbiters of the destiny of those within whom they dwell. At the moment of union of two gametes is decided the character of another zygote, as well as the nature of the population of gametes which must make its home within him. The union once affected the inevitable ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett

... thought, wondering if this dream were perhaps an omen that her destiny ought not to be bound ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli

... Greek looked longingly for the Olym- [1] piad. The Chaldee watched the appearing of a star; to him, no higher destiny dawned on the dome of being than that foreshadowed by signs in the heav- [5] ens. The meek Nazarene, the scoffed of all scoffers, said, "Ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"—for he forefelt and foresaw the ordeal of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... defeat. He had suffered a mutiny—and later, in a few violent, reckless minutes of action he had broken it—or cowed it at least. Now he felt himself master of the harbor again, but not the master of his own destiny. He did not sum up his case in these terms; but this is what it came to. Destiny was a conviction with him, and not a word at all—a nameless conviction. He did not consider the future anew; but he felt, without ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... encounter in the Dalesman's Daughter, Red Wull, for so M'Adam called him, resigned himself complacently to his lot; recognizing, perhaps, his destiny. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... You look as sulky as you did when I broke your bow and arrows, and set Aphrodite laughing at you. But I have learned manners, and the goddesses only smile now. Cheer up! How is your destiny a ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse

... remembrance—why do I linger here? Am I not ruined—would it not be madness to involve you in my misfortunes, even if your heart was still my own? I will not distress you further. Yet, before I go,' added he, in a solemn voice, 'let me repeat, that, whatever may be my destiny—whatever I may be doomed to suffer, I must always love you—most fondly love you! I am going, Emily, I am going to leave you—to leave you, forever!' As he spoke the last words, his voice trembled, and he threw himself ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... have just committed a crime. I have found at last the mate whom I have sought. Have you a mind to learn your destiny? Aha! you came here to see a play, and you shall see a play—nay, two. Come. Present me to Mme. de la Garde as one of your best friends. Am I not your last ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac

... wants and tricks of fortune, which entangle the web of man's affairs, it has no place. The animal element, if not banished from view altogether, becomes merely the organ of the ruling motions of the spirit; and fortune is lost in destiny or providence. Thus the incidents of the narrative cease to be mere incidents. They are held together by passion; they are themselves, so to speak, manifestations of passion working with more and more intensity to the final consummation. Not the laws which regulate ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green

... balconies, and innumerable "barkers" added their honeyed invitations to the perpetual din. From end to end it was a saturnalia of vice, a babel of sound, a glimpse of the inferno. Money flowed like water; every man was his own law, and the gun the arbiter of destiny. The town marshal, with a few cool-headed deputies, moved here and there amid the chaos, patient, tireless, undaunted, seeking merely to exercise some ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... flowers in wide parterres, and shady walks between. This viewed, but not enjoyed, with arms across He stood, reflecting on his country's loss; Himself an object of the public scorn, And often wished he never had been born. At last (for so his destiny required), With walking giddy, and ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden

... source of all strength, that they could hold by me and hope, even when there seemed nothing to hope for. As for me, all the armies of the world, and the world itself might melt or blow away, but I should be safe with God, and know that for every creature He was working out some noble destiny. All the pain, and sorrow, and defeat, were rough places—briars in an upward path to something we ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm



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