One must follow one’s star, wherever it leads.
What we call our destiny is truly our character, and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.
There are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them. Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane, sometimes they barely fan one’s cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore.
You say your life is your own. But can you dare to ignore the chance that you are taking part in a gigantic drama under the orders of a divine Producer? Your cue may not come till the end of the play–it may be totally unimportant, a mere walking-on part, but upon it may hang the issues of the play if you do not give the cue to another player. The whole edifice may crumple. You as you, may not matter to anyone in the world, but you as a person in a particular place may matter unimaginably.
You are the master of your own earthly destiny just as surely as you have the power to control your own thoughts. You may influence, direct, and eventually control your own environment, making your life what you want it to be.
With the strength of our love and of our will, we can change our destiny, as well as the destiny of many others.[Com a força de nosso amor, de nossa vontade, podemos mudar o nosso destino, e o destino de muita gente.]
What do I know of man’s destiny? I could tell you more about radishes.
Was a struggle to choose one’s own destiny less worthwhile than the necessity to stop a great evil?
There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known. Nothing you can see that isn’t shown. Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
The ancients, even though they believed in destiny, believed primarily in nature, in which they participated wholeheartedly.[C’est que les Anciens, s’ils croyaient au destin, croyaient d’abord à la nature, à laquelle ils participaient.]
Our destiny rules over us, even when we are not yet aware of it; it is the future that makes laws for our today.[Unsere Bestimmung verfügt über uns, auch wenn wir sie noch nicht kennen; es ist die Zukunft, die unserm Heute die Regel giebt.]
Now let the matter rest as it is, or as it may be, what avail useless speculations? What is to occur we do not know; still in so far we do! what God wills!
