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• Destiny: The events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future.  Oxford Dictionary
• Destiny: The force that some people think controls what happens in the future, and is outside human control.  Cambridge Dictionary
• Destiny: The predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events.  Dictionary.com
• Destiny: A predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency.  Merriam Webster
• Destiny is nothing but the specific way by which each individual reaches her death.  Alison K. Thompson
• Fate,  The future,  Karma,  Consequences

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Some argue our lives spring from destiny, not chance …

• Chance: The occurrence of events in the absence of any obvious intention or cause.  Oxford Dictionary
• A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance. Benjamin Disraeli
• There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny. Friedrich Schiller
• They who await no gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate. Matthew Arnold

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… while others argue its chance, not destiny that shapes our lives

• Alas, by the time Fate caught up with my life, Chance had it all planned. Robert Brault
• We cannot bear to regard ourselves simply as playthings of blind chance; we cannot admit to feeling ourselves abandoned. Ugo Betti
• Chance is a nickname of Providence. Sébastien-Roch Nicolas (Chamfort)
• Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not want to sign. Théophile Gautier
• There is no such thing as chance; and what seems to us mere accident springs form the deepest source of destiny. Friedrich Schiller
• Destiny is a worrying concept. I don’t want to be fated, I want to choose. Jeanette Winterson

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• Fate: the development of events outside a person’s control, regarded as predetermined by a supernatural power. Oxford Dictionary
• Fate: it’s out of your control. Destiny: it’s what you are meant to do. Claire Elizabeth Carter
• Fate and destiny both refer to a man’s future and fortune. Fate is seen as divinely planned, whereas destiny has the power to be influenced by man’s actions.  Fate is often pessimistic or fatalistic about one’s fortune whereas destiny is more upbeat and willing to take and chance for betterment.  net
• Most people use fate and destiny interchangeably, but they aren’t the same. Fate is the life you lead if you never put yourself in the path of greatness. That’s the direction your life moves in without any effort on your part. Destiny is your potential waiting to happen. You have to be willing to take that first step to reach your potential, even if it’s a risk.  L. Scott
• Destiny is what you are supposed to do in life. Fate is what kicks you in the ass to make you do it. Henry Miller
• If you do not create your destiny, you will have your fate inflicted upon you. William Irwin Thompson
• Realizing a destiny is not a matter of acquiescing in some form of relentless causality. If it were, there would be no sin. A destiny can be failed or refused. That is why it is not a fate. Gregory Wolfe
• We are all puppets in the hands of fate and seldom see the strings. Charles W. Chesnutt
• Fate is just the steps we take to follow destiny. Justin Robert Harnish
• Destiny is not the same as fate. The word refers not to anything terrible or even to anything inevitable, in the usual sense of the word, but to the temporal and free unfolding of a person’s essential being. A destiny is a spiritual drama. Gregory Wolfe
• Fate

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Destiny is an expression of our potential and possibilities

• All the possibilities of your human destiny are asleep in your soul. You are here to realize and honor these possibilities. When love comes in to your life, unrecognized dimensions of your destiny awaken and blossom and grow. Possibility is the secret heart of time. John O’Donohue
• Destiny is … the range of formal or structured human possibility within which human freedom is actual. Donald J. Keefe
• Destiny is a realm of opportunity. Kyonne M. Gibson
• Destiny represents the strength of our gifts that needs to be expressed in order to make our presence on Earth of value to others as well as ourselves. Celia C. Jennings
• Destiny is your potential waiting to happen. It’s the top tier in the grand scheme of possibilities and where your dreams come true. You have to be willing to take that first step to reach your potential, even if it’s a risk. L. Scott
• Potential,  Possibility

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Each person’s destiny offers unique opportunities for self-actualisation

• With his unique destiny each man stands, so to speak, alone in the entire cosmos. His destiny will not recur. No one else has the same potentialities as he, nor will he himself be given them again. The opportunities that come his way for the actualization of creative or experiential values, the tribulations which are destined to come his way–which he cannot alter and must therefore endure and in the enduring of them actualize attitudinal values–all these are unique and singular. Viktor Emil Frankl

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Destiny, and our quest for realising what it is, can give meaning to life …

• Destiny … a word which means more than we can find any definitions for. It is a word which can have no meaning in a mechanical universe: if that which is wound up must run down, what destiny is there in that? Destiny is not necessitarianism, and it is not caprice: it is something essentially meaningful. Each man has his destiny, though some men are undoubtedly “men of destiny” in a sense in which most men are not. S. Eliot
• Destiny is something not be to desired and not to be avoided. a mystery not contrary to reason, for it implies that the world, and the course of human history, have meaning. Dag Hammarskjold
• It is man’s destiny to ponder on the riddle of existence. F. Kettering
• Fate, Chance, God’s Will — we all try to account for our lives somehow. What are the chances that two raindrops, flung from the heavens, will merge on a windowpane? Gotta be Fate. Robert Brault
• Each man had only one genuine vocation – to find the way to himself…. His task was to discover his own destiny – not an arbitrary one – and to live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one’s own inwardness. Hermann Hesse
• If you keep your destiny in mind, every moment in life becomes an opportunity for moving closer to it. Arthur Golden
• Instead one bends every effort to help life to fulfill its highest destiny. One strives to maintain, enhance, and assist life to make the most of itself. Wilferd A. Peterson
• I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value. Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
• Meaning

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… and it can give us purpose

• We can’t become anything we want to be. We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.  If we are born to paint, it’s our job to become a painter. If we are born to raise and nurture children, it’s our job to become a mother.   Steven Pressfield
• Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny – he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally -you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you. Osho
• It appears I am destined for something; I will live. Robert Clive
• Be inspired with the belief that life is a great and noble calling; not a mean and groveling thing that we are to shuffle through as we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny. William E. Gladstone
• Purpose

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By not following our destiny, we impoverish our soul …

• Certain mystical philosophers have personified Destiny, and from this point of view each man’s personal destiny is his archetype or “other self”–his “angel”–with whom he must be reunited if he is to rise above his fragmentary identity as a worldling and become whole, as he is (and always has been) in the mind of God. GAI EATON
• We must trust our soul’s noncallings as well as its callings. Destiny seems to have very specific ideas about what each of us should be doing on the planet, and our greatest personal fulfillment always lies in those directions and none other. Dianne Skafte
• The soul of man createth its own destiny. Nathaniel Parker Willis
• A single day spent doing things which fail to nourish the soul is a day stolen, mutilated, and discarded in the gutter of destiny. Michel Faber
• Dreams won’t always take you on a straight path to destiny, but they’re usually related to what your soul wants for you. Kelly Cutrone
• The soul

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… for the soul understands more about destiny than the mind ever can

• When you are compassionate with yourself, you trust in your soul, which you let guide your life. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future; therefore, you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.  John O’Donohue

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Our destiny defines who we are – and vice versa

• Destiny is selfhood. To live your destiny is to be raised above accidental circumstances to the level of your essential being. This is not merely because destiny precludes accidents and thus provides a propitious life-environment. The relationship between destiny and self is more intimate than that. Destiny defines the self: you ARE your destiny. To speak of destiny as though it is merely something that happens to you is to assume that a person is in essence always the same, changeless at the core amid the ceaseless changes of life and history. But the truth is that what happens to you–including in this category the ideas and impulses that arise within you in response to outward events–defines your identity. The only way you could be fully identified would be by a story–of the kind God alone could tell–of the unfolding of your life in all its depths and complexities. Thus, living your destiny is carrying on your life as the one you really are. Glenn E. Tinder
• Anatomy is destiny. Sigmund Freud
• I take corresponding actions to speak out of my mouth as destiny is being created within me. It starts from within and manifests without. Marlene Babb
• I think ‘destiny’ is just a fancy word for a psychological pattern. Jodie Foster
• It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves. William Shakespeare
• Both body and life are predetermined, and the man has nothing to say in the matter: the individual is predetermined by the Great Will. The man is thus predestined, through the fact of his individuality, to a possible specific destiny; but, after the individuality is determined, he is given over to his own will, and his destiny is put into his own hands. John Phelps Fruit
• Destiny can never be cast away by you because it is you. Sorin Cerin
• There is a Destiny which has the control of our actions, not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature. George Washington

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Realising that we all share a common destiny can be a great catalyst for good

• A great revolution in just one single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a society and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of humankind. Daisaku Ikeda
• Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings. R. D. Laing
• Each of us is a citizen of a common planet, bound to a common destiny. So connected are we, that each of us has the power to be the eyes of the world, the voice of the world, the conscience of the world, or the end of the world. And as each one of us chooses, so becomes the world. Dennis Kucinich
• I’ve learned that people will seldom let you down if they understand that your destiny is in their hands, and vice versa. Harvey Mackay
• If you believe that humanity has a higher destiny, if you believe we can evolve, and become better than we are; if you believe we can overcome the scourge of war and someday fulfill the dream of harmony and peace earth, let us begin the conversation today. Let us exchange our ideas. Dennis Kucinich
• Our problems are man-made; therefore, they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. John F. Kennedy
• Our stories are singular but our destiny is shared. Barack Obama
• There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own. Edwin Markham
• You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. Ronald Reagan
• All are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.  Martin Luther King, Jr.
• When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. Andrew Boyd
• Human destiny is bound to remain a gamble, because at some unpredictable time and in some unforeseeable manner nature will strike back. Rene Dubos
• The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinions of its young men under five-and-twenty. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Many argue that we have the power and freedom to shape our destiny …

• I need not wait for I have the power to choose my own destiny. Og Mandino
• It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves. William Shakespeare
• Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. Steven Pressfield
• We fail to see that we can control our destiny; make ourselves do whatever is possible; make ourselves become whatever we long to be. Orison Swett Marden
• We must look for ways to be an active force in our own lives. We must take charge of our own destinies, design a life of substance and truly begin to live our dreams. Les Brown
• We write our own destiny …we become what we do. Chiang Kai-shek
• You shape your own destiny. Chet Atkins
• Your life will be no better than the plans you make and the action you take. You are the architect and builder of your own life, fortune, destiny. Alfred Armand Montapert
• I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road. Stephen Hawking
• I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, ‘No, I won’t do it, I won’t behave his way anymore. I’m lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,’ and then you do it. Leo Buscaglia
• Destiny is not a strange power which determines what shall happen to me. It is myself as given, formed by nature, history, and myself. My destiny is the basis of my freedom; my freedom participates in shaping my destiny. Paul Tillich
• Our destiny is not predetermined for us; we determine it for ourselves. Arnold Toynbee
• That which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves. Garth Stein
• You speak of destiny as if it was fixed. Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
• It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves. Lisa Mantchev
• Power,  Freedom

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… that we can be masters over what is in store for us …

• We have all experienced times when, instead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration… Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• No cause has he to say his doom is harsh, who’s made the master of his destiny. Friedrich Schiller
• I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul. William Ernest Henley
• I am master of my own destiny, and I can make my life anything that I wish it to be. Roger McDonald
• Anguish may crush us, life fail us–still let your soul and conscience rule supreme, and, dying, give the lie to soulless destiny, that dares to boast itself man’s master. James Platt
• You are in charge. You have the ability to master your destiny. Michael J. Mccarthy

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.. that we create our own circumstances in life …

• Your destiny is in your hands. Creating the life you want is only, and always, up to you. Darren Johnson
• You are the creator of your own destiny. Swami Vivekananda
• We create our fate every day we live. Henry Miller
• We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance. Benjamin Disraeli
• The soul of man createth its own destiny. Nathaniel Parker Willis
• If you do not create your destiny, you will have your fate inflicted upon you. William Irwin Thompson
• Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves. Garth Stein
• I believe we make our own destinies, every last one of us. Morgan Rhodes

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… that we can overpower fate …

• There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn. Albert Camus
• I shall seize fate by the throat. Ludwig van Beethoven
• There’s much to be said for challenging fate instead of ducking behind it. Diana Trilling
• Failure and success seem to have been allotted to men by their stars. But they retain the power of wriggling, of fighting with their star or against it, and in the whole universe the only really interesting movement is this wriggle. M. Forester
• If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow. William McFee
• He is God-like who pulls hard against the swift stream of Fate, though he may go over the terrible Niagara of circumstances. James Lendall Basford
• Destiny is the course of events which is followed by those who are content to go with the tide. Arthur Edward Waite

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The belief that we are powerless to influence our destiny is damaging …

• The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• If you believe your destiny is controlled by fate, and your life is predetermined, I am sorry to inform you that you are already dead. Romeo Marrishaw
• Destiny is the invention of the cowardly, and the resigned. Ignazio Silone
• I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. Ronald Reagan
• We are all subject to the fates. But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair. Philip Pullman
• Control your destiny or somebody else will. Jack Welsh

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… especially if we blame our mistakes and failures on destiny

• Blaming destiny is a poor out for those who don’t reach desired destinations. Malcolm Forbes
• Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart – the dark apology for every error. The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides; in heaven God watches. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one and dethrone the other. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny. Albert Ellis
• Destiny: A tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure. Ambrose Bierce
• It is destiny phrase of the weak human heart! ‘It is destiny’ dark apology for every error! The strong and virtuous admit no destiny Edward Bulwer-Lytton
• Men heap together the mistakes of their lives, and create a monster they call Destiny. Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie
• The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. Edward Bulwer-Lytton
• You are the master of your destiny. You can do it, you can undo it, and you can do it differently. Don’t ever, ever blame your environment on somebody else. Sri Swami Satchidananda
• Don’t confuse poor decision-making with destiny. Own your mistakes. It’s ok; we all make them. Learn from them so they can empower you! Steve Maraboli
• Failure,  Mistakes

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Others argue that we do not create our destiny but rather participate in its unfolding …

• We do not create our destiny; we participate in its unfolding. David Richo
• Destiny guides us towards a specific goal, but without our wilful participation we will not achieve our destiny. Lee Bladon
• Destiny has a lot to do with it, but so do you. You have to persevere, you have to insist. Andrea Bocelli
• We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours. Dag Hammarskjold
• Your Destiny is chosen by God, your future is certain, whether you arrive there is up to you. Myles Munroe
• Destiny, I feel, is also a relationship – a play between divine grace and wilful self-effort. Elizabeth Gilbert

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… through the exercising of free will

• Destiny = our free will + God’s free will Terri Guillemets
• Destiny is a wonderful little outline on how everything will work out, but free will can rewrite the outline as things come to pass. It’s like the highway system, the road is already laid out for you, but there are numerous interchanges, off-ramps, and forks you can take; the road is set, the final destination isn’t. Cris Allan Pace
• Which brings me to my conclusion upon Free Will and Predestination, namely – let the reader mark it – that they are identical. Winston Churchill
• Destiny, the complicity of mankind in the self-disclosure of Being, must be freely chosen. Richard Rojcewicz
• Destiny is our will, and our will is nature. Benjamin Disraeli
• Destiny bears us to our lot, and destiny is perhaps our own will. Benjamin Disraeli
• What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny? Jim Butcher
• Free will

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Shape your destiny by the choices and decisions you make

• Choices are the hinges of destiny. Pythagoras
• Choice, not chance, determines destiny. Charles E. McKenzie
• Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not something to be waited for, but rather something to be achieved. William Jennings Bryan
• Destiny isn’t a matter of chance, but of choice, and what you choose to accept will eventually become yours. Katia Winter
• It’s choice – not chance – that determines your destiny. Jean Nidetch
• Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences. J. K. Rowling
• No one’s born with their destiny stamped on their forehead … we make the choices to fulfil our destiny. Naomi Judd
• It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. Tony Robbins
• America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses. Woodrow Wilson
• Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny. Bob Marley
• It is your decisions, and not your conditions, that determine your destiny. Tony Robbins
• No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. Agnes de Mille
• The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. Martin Luther King
• Nature is at work. Character and destiny are her handiwork. She gives us love and hate, jealousy and reverence. All that is ours is the power to choose which impulse we shall follow. David Seabury
• The roads we take are more important than the goals we announce. Decisions determine destiny. Frederick Speakman
• The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• You are not the victim of the world, but rather the master of your own destiny. It is your choices and decisions that determine your destiny. Roy T. Bennett
• I knew it like destiny, and at the same time, I knew it as choice. Jeanette Winterson
• Destiny is a worrying concept. I don’t want to be fated, I want to choose. Jeanette Winterson
• Our destiny hides among our free choices, disguised as the free-est of all. Robert Breault
• Choice,  Decision making

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Shape your destiny through your thoughts

• But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided. Alfred North Whitehead
• Destiny is not preordained. Destiny is ordained totally by you. Every single moment of your NOW existence is the result of your previous thought. The idea that everything is already laid out for you in advance is a hallucination. You can and do manifest your own destiny. Wayne Dyer
• It is the habitual, not the periodical thought that decides your destiny. Wallace D. Wattles
• Our destiny changes with our thought; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thought corresponds with our desire. Orison Swett Marden
• Thoughts lead on to purpose, purpose leads on to actions, actions form habits, habits decide character, and character fixes our destiny. Tryon Edwards
• Your thoughts are the architects of your destiny. David O. McKay
• What a man thinks of himself, it is that which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Henry David Thoreau
• You control your future, your destiny. What you think about comes about. Mark Victor Hansen
• The destiny of every human being is decided by what goes on inside his skull when confronted by what goes on outside his skull. Eric Berne
• Real, constructive mental power lies in the creative thought that shapes your destiny, and your hour-by-hour mental conduct produces power for change in your life. Lawrence J. Peter
• The one thing over which you have absolute control is your own thoughts. It is this that puts you in a position to control your own destiny. Paul G. Thomas
• Thinking,  Positive thinking

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Shape your destiny through the development of character

• Plant a thought, reap an act. Plant an act, reap a habit. Plant a habit, reap a character. Plant a character, reap a destiny. Confucius
• Thoughts lead on to purpose, purpose leads on to actions, actions form habits, habits decide character, and character fixes our destiny. Tryon Edwards
• Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become habits. Watch your habits for they become your character. And watch your character for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become. My father always said that… and I think I am fine. Margaret Thatcher
• If you create a character, you create a destiny. Andre Maurois
• Sow a character and you reap a destiny. James Allen
• The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny. James Allen
• Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. Frank Jackson
• If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny. Andre Maurois
• Character is destiny. Heraclitus
• Our character is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be. George Santayana
• Out of our beliefs are born deeds; out of our deeds we form habits; out of our habits grows our character; and on our character, we build our destiny. Henry Hancock
• The within is ceaselessly becoming the without. From the state of a man’s heart proceed the conditions of his life; his thoughts blossom into deeds, and his deeds bear the fruitage of character and destiny. James Allen
• A man’s character is his fate. Heraclitus
• 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. Anaïs Nin
• Character

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Shape your destiny through your attitude

• No matter what, we always have the power to choose hope over despair, engagement over apathy, kindness over indifference, enthusiasm over lethargy, love over hate. This is our true freedom. Whatever life may throw at us, we have the freedom and ability to choose our attitude. And I believe it is in those moments of choice that we manifest our destiny. Cory Booker
• You can begin to shape your own destiny by the attitude that you keep. Dr Michael Beckwith
• Attitude

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Shape your destiny through the actions you take

• We write our own destiny …we become what we do. Chiang Kai-shek
• I do not believe in fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in fate that falls on them unless they act. G. K. Chesterton
• The chief condition on which, life, health and vigour depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfilment of its destiny. Colin Powell
• We write our own destiny. We become what we do. Madame Chiang Kai-Shek
• Action

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Shape your destiny by going to it and going for it

• Destiny is not going to come to you — you must go to it. James A. Jimason
• Destiny is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it. Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• They who await no gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate. Matthew Arnold

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Shape your destiny by resisting fate

• Destiny is the course of events which is followed by those who are content to go with the tide. Arthur Edward Waite
• Failure and success seem to have been allotted to men by their stars. But they retain the power of wriggling, of fighting with their star or against it, and in the whole universe the only really interesting movement is this wriggle. M. Forester
• If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow. William McFee
• He is God-like who pulls hard against the swift stream of Fate, though he may go over the terrible Niagara of circumstances. James Lendall Basford
• Fate

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Shape your destiny by intention and hard work

• Motive is causative, work is operative, destiny is resultant. Thomas Robert Slicer
• No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune. Plutarch
• Intention,  Hard work

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Shape your destiny through determination and perseverance

• There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• Destiny has a lot to do with it, but so do you. You have to persevere, you have to insist. Andrea Bocelli
• Your ability to shape your destiny is directly proportional to your belief that it is a matter of will and determination–however much or little that belief may be. James A. Owen
• Some things are destined to be — it just takes us a couple of tries to get there. R. Ward
• Determination,  Perseverance

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Shape your destiny through your integrity

• The soul is dyed the colour of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny … it is the light that guides your way. Heraclitus
• Integrity is your destiny-it is the light that guides your way. Plato
• Your integrity will affect your destiny; don’t leave home without it. Clarence E. Hodges
• Integrity

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Shape your destiny by how you choose to respond to events

• It is not what life brings us, but the manner in which we receive it, that shapes our destiny. Marie Dubsky

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Shape your destiny through the power of desire

• It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny. Eric Hoffer
• As is your desire, so is your will. As is your will, so is your deed.  As is your deed, so is your destiny.   The Upanishads
• You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your deep, driving desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny. Upanishads
• Desire

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Shape (and meet) your destiny with courage and fortitude

• Fate loves the fearless. James Russell Lowell
• We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with a high and resolute courage. Theodore Roosevelt
• We all have a destiny in accordance with the breadth of our shoulders. My shoulders are broad. Placido Domingo
• No man or woman born, coward or brave, can shun his destiny. Homer
• Whatever form fear takes, your willingness to face it squarely will determine your fate in the high country of human potential. Dan Millman
• Courage

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Shape your destiny by following your dreams and ideals

• Dreams are like stars. You may never touch them, but if you follow them they will lead you to your destiny… Liam James
• Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny. Carl Schurz
• Dreams,  Ideals

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Shape your destiny through present moment awareness

• If we are truly in the present moment, and not being carried away by our thoughts and fantasies, then we are in a position to be free of fate and available to our destiny. Reshad Field
• Through the law of cause and effect we choose our destiny. Moreover, we are our own prophets for we constantly project our future state by the seeds we plant in the present. Cheryl Canfield
• Live in the present

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Shape your destiny through developing self-knowledge

• Thou knowest not what destiny awaits thee. It is time thou shouldst learn to know thyself. Friedrich Schiller
• When an inner situation is not made conscious it appears outside as fate. Carl Jung
• Self-knowledge

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Shape your destiny through the power of self-belief

• I think that you have to believe in your destiny; that you will succeed, you will meet a lot of rejection and it is not always a straight path, there will be detours – so enjoy the view. Michael York
• Whatever you habitually think yourself to be, that you are. You must form, now, a greater and better habit; you must form a conception of yourself as a being of limitless power, and habitually think that you are that being. It is the habitual, not the periodical thought that decides your destiny. Wallace D. Wattles
• Self-belief

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Shape your destiny through following your passion

• Each person discovers a field of allurements, the totality of which bears the unique stamp of that person’s personality. Destiny unfolds in the pursuit of individual fascinations and interests … By pursuing your allurements, you help bind the universe together. The unity of the world rests on the pursuit of passion.  Brian Swimme
• Passion,  Do what you love

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Shape your destiny through changing your perception

• Change your perception and you change your destiny. Takudzwa Mash
• Perception

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Let your destiny be about love

• As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life. Napoleon Bonaparte
• Destiny is the bridge you build to the one you love. Victor Levin
• The path to love is our spiritual destiny. Deepak Chopra
• Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another. Thomas Merton
• Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all- compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State- and Church-begotten weed, marriage? Emma Goldman
• One love, one heart, one destiny. Bob Marley
• Love

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Let your destiny be about greatness

• Our destiny is greatness and we must return to its fulfilment. Paul Tsongas
• The future works out great men’s destinies; The present is enough for common souls, Who, never looking forward, are indeed Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age Are petrified forever. James Russell Lowell
• The single common denominator of men and women who achieve great things is a sense of destiny. Brian Tracy
• We are made for larger ends than Earth can encompass. Oh, let us be true to our exalted destiny. Catherine Booth
• We bear a heavy and therefore a great destiny. Alfred Rosenberg
• With our eyes fixed on the future, but recognizing the realities of today, we will achieve our destiny to be as a shining city on a hill for all mankind to see. Ronald Reagan
• You can be great only if it is your destiny. Andrea Bocelli
• Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour. Fidel Castro
• Greatness

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Let your destiny be about courage

• We must always take risks. That is our destiny. T. S. Eliot
• Fate loves the fearless. James Russell Lowell
• Whatever form fear takes, your willingness to face it squarely will determine your fate in the high country of human potential. Dan Millman
• Courage

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Let your destiny be about following your own chosen path and guidance

• Other people and their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny. Oprah Winfrey
• It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. The Bhagavad Gita
• Never surrender your hopes and dreams to the fateful limitations others have placed on their own lives. The vision of your true destiny does not reside within the blinkered outlook of the naysayers and the doom prophets. Anthon St. Maarten
• No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance. Henry Miller
• You must have control of the authorship of your own destiny. The pen that writes your life story must be held in your own hand. Irene C. Kassorla
• Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker? Garth Nix
• Follow your own path

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Let your destiny be about joy

• Joy is our goal, our destiny. We cannot know who we are except in Joy. Not knowing Joy, we do not know ourselves. Marianne Williamson
• Joy is your destiny. You were created for joy. Pay attention to what brings you joy and take joyful actions daily. Creative action equals joy attraction. Joy is the path to your true purpose. Marta Davidovich Ockuly
• Joy

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Let your destiny be about learning and discovery

• To be always on the move, learning, discovering, unfolding, is your eternal destiny. Living is life’s only purpose… To live without self-concern. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Learning,  Discovery

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Let your destiny be about harmony with nature

• I just have this absolute belief that humans are moving away from cruelty and destruction towards a time when we can truly live in harmony with nature. When we understand that there is a spiritual power around us from which we can draw strength. That is where I believe human destiny ultimately is taking us. I just hope we have time. Jane Goodall
• Harmony,  Nature

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Let your destiny be about excellence

• I believe the destiny of your generation – and your nation – is a rendezvous with excellence. Lyndon B. Johnson
• If a man does not work passionately – even furiously – at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God. George Lois
• Excellence

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Let your destiny be about being all you can

• Becoming a star may not be your destiny, but being the best you can be is a goal that you can set for yourself. Brian Lindsay
• Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfil his destiny. Paul Tillich
• Potential

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Let your destiny be about service

• I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. Albert Schweitzer
• The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule. Albert Einstein
• Service,  Making a difference

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Let your destiny be your children

• Children are our legacy. Our responsibility. They are our destiny and we are theirs. The extent to which we fail as parents, we fail as Gods children. Dirk Benedict

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Let your destiny be about moving ever forward

• The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees. H. White
• Progress,  Momentum

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Let your destiny be about unity and cooperation

• It is man’s destiny, I think, to go forward, ever forward. We are of the breed, you and I, the breed who venture always toward what lies out there — westward, onward, everward. Louis L’atour
• One love, one heart, one destiny. Bob Marley
• Unity,  Cooperation

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Let your destiny be about breaking free of your past

• Our history is not our destiny. Alan Cohen
• Today is a new day. Don’t let your history interfere with your destiny! Let today be the day you stop being a victim of your circumstances and start taking action towards the life you want. You have the power and the time to shape your life. Break free from the poisonous victim mentality and embrace the truth of your greatness. You were not meant for a mundane or mediocre life! Steve Maraboli
• When you hold on to your history, you do it at the expense of your destiny. Bishop T.D. Jakes
• Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny. Steve Maraboli
• No matter what your history has been, your destiny is what you create today. What are you going to create? Steve Maraboli
• Nothing is predestined. The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings. Ralph H. Blum
• The past

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Some argue that our life’s destiny is a mystery and we cannot foretell it …

• Betimes I have heard people bewail the fact that our destinies are shrouded in mystery; I think, though, that it is a blessing of sorts. Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us untasted. Jacqueline Carey
• Born, the Man assumes the name and image of humanity, and becomes in all things like unto other men who dwell upon the earth. Their hard lot becomes his, and his, in turn, becomes the lot of all who shall come after him. Drawn on inexorably by time, it is not given him to see the next rung on which his faltering foot shall fall. Bounded in knowledge, it is not given him to foretell what each succeeding hour, what each succeeding minute, shall have in store for him. In blind nescience, in an agony of foreboding, in a whirl of hopes and fears, he completes the cycle of an iron destiny. Leonid Andreyev
• Do not try to find out – we’re forbidden to know – what end the gods have in store for me, or for you. Horace
• Even though it is divinely ordained, the musical score of your unfolding destiny is not necessarily easy to hear. Paul O’Brien
• It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time. Winston Churchill
• Not without a shudder may the human hand reach into the mysterious urn of destiny. Friedrich Schiller
• Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill. Arthur Conan Doyle
• The glass of your life is darkened, and darkly through it you see distorted and ghastly fragments of duty and destiny. George Arnold
• Thou knowest not what destiny awaits thee. It is time thou shouldst learn to know thyself. Friedrich Schiller
• Who recollects distinctly his past adventures, knows his destiny to come. Johann Caspar Lavater
• Mystery

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… for destiny reveals itself only through the unfolding of a life’s events …

• Destiny will show when it’s time. Eric Harvey
• Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. Steve Jobs
• A glance, a word — and joy or pain befalls…. How slight the links are in the chain that binds us to our destiny! Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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… and especially through co-incidences, synchronicity and serendipity

• As we blossom or awaken, we begin to notice there is a force in the world that seems to be operating and leading us into a certain destiny. And it’s very much a kind of detective effort on our own part to figure out what these things mean. The synchronicity is essentially a meaningful coincidence that brings us information at just the right time. While leading us forward, it also feels very inspiring and destined in a way. It feels like we’re on a path of unfolding in our own personal evolution. James Redfield
• Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous. Charlotte Clemensen Taylor
• Coincidences are little hellos from heaven. Theresa Caputo
• Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you’ve found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for. Lawrence Block
• Coincidences are puns of destiny. In the pun, two strings of thought are tangled into one acoustic knot; in the coincidental happening, two strings of events are knitted together by invisible hands. Arthur Koestler
• This is the ultimate truth of synchrodestiny—that the sum total of the universe is conspiring to create your personal destiny… We cannot even imagine the complex forces behind every event that occurs in our lives. There’s a conspiracy of coincidences that weave the web of karma or destiny and creates an individual’s personal life. Deepak Chopra
• Coincidences mean you’re on the right path. Simon Van Booy
• Synchronicity,  Coincidence

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Destiny, some argue, sends no heralds

• Herald: A sign that (something) is about to happen. Oxford Dictionary
• As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. Oscar Wilde
• Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. Oscar Wilde

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Some argue our destiny is fixed and there is not escape from it …

• Destiny is an absolutely definite and inexorable ruler. Physical ability and moral determination count for nothing. It is impossible to perform the simplest act when the gods say no. I have no idea how they bring pressure to bear on such occasions; I only know that it is irresistible. Aleister Crowley
• Destiny is inescapable … it is whatever God, however you perceive Him, ordains our life to be. Bob Love
• Each man’s destiny is hung like a medallion around his neck. Gai Eaton
• For rarely man escapes his destiny. Ludovico Ariosto
• There can be no exit from manifest destiny. Mick Farren
• Fortune comes to a man; he cannot go to it. James Lendall Basford
• I think it not improbable that man, like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it never has seen but is to be – that man may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
• If the course of human affairs be considered, it will be seen that many things arise against which heaven does not allow us to guard. Niccolo Machiavelli
• Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today Friedrich Nietzsche
• He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned. French Proverb
• I have a wife, I have sons: all of them hostages given to fate. Lucan
• Destiny can never be cast away by you because it is you. Sorin Cerin
• Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of your being. Marcus Aurelius
• There is a Destiny which has the control of our actions, not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature. George Washington
• We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it. Steven Pressfield
• People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. James Baldwin
• Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. Albert Einstein

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… and we have much less free will and free choice than we may think

• Under the big political umbrella, a man is just like a leaf in the ocean, with no control of his destiny and does not have any choice. Zhang Yimou
• Men speak of blind destiny, a thing without scheme or purpose. But what sort of destiny is that? Each act in this world from which there can be no turning back has before it another, and it another yet. In a vast endless net. Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in the maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life. Cormac Mccarthy
• Our wills and fates do so contrary run, that our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. William Shakespeare
• We are no more free agents than the queen of clubs when she victoriously takes prisoner the knave of hearts. Mary Wortley Montagu
• Free will

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All attempts to avoid destiny will be to no avail

• A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it. Jean de La Fontaine
• Often the steps we take to avoid destiny lead us to it. Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger
• The efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only serve to lead us into it. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Which reminds me of a fortune cookie: you often find your destiny on the path you take to avoid it. Hector Elizondo

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Some paint destiny as a cruel master that we are victims of …

• Alas, poor men, their destiny. When all goes well a shadow will overthrow it. If it be unkind one stroke of a wet sponge wipes all the picture out. Aeschylus
• Ah me, thou Destiny, Giver of evil gifts. Aeschylus
• Alas! we are the sport of destiny. William Makepeace Thackeray
• Destiny has two ways of crushing us – by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them. Henri Frederic Amiel
• It is the destiny of mint to be crushed. Waverley Root
• Destiny is real. And she’s not mild-mannered. She will come around and hit you in the face and knock you over and before you know what hit you, you’re naked- stripped of everything you thought you knew and everything you thought you didn’t know- and there you are! A bloody nose, bruises all over you, and naked. And it’s the most beautiful thing. JoyBell C.

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… and paint fate as being full of cruel twists

• Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like. Lemony Snicket
• Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat. Elizabeth Bowen
• I am alone this evening… because of a cruel twist of fate, a phrase which here means that nothing has happened the way I thought it would. Once I was a content man, with a comfortable home, a successful career, a person I loved very much, and an extremely reliable typewriter, but all of those things have been taken away from me…. As I sit in this very tiny room, printing these words with a very large pencil, I feel as if my whole life has been nothing but a dismal play, presented just for someone else’s amusement, and that the playwright who invented my cruel twist of fate is somewhere far above me, laughing and laughing at his creation. Lemony Snicket
• I’m not absolutely certain of the facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare who says that it’s always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping. G. Wodehouse
• That’s life — whichever way you turn, fate sticks out its foot to trip you. Martin Goldsmith & Martin Mooney

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Others paint destiny as a more benevolent force

• Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Destiny is not the same as fate. The word refers not to anything terrible or even to anything inevitable, in the usual sense of the word, but to the temporal and free unfolding of a person’s essential being. A destiny is a spiritual drama. Gregory Wolfe
• Destiny itself is like a wonderful wide tapestry in which every thread is guided by an unspeakable tender hand, placed beside another thread and held and carried by a hundred others. Rainer Maria Rilke

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They argue we should fully accept and co-operate with our destiny, whatever it may be …

• A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it. Ursula K. Le Guin
• Accept the things to which fate binds you and love the people with whom fate brings you together, and do so with all your heart. Marcus Aurelius
• Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs? Marcus Aurelius
• Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live. Marcus Aurelius
• Amor Fati – “Love Your Fate,” which is in fact your life. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Destiny is a good thing to accept when it’s going your way. When it isn’t, don’t call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck. Joseph Heller
• It’s destiny! Perhaps it is the energy that pulls on the threads and, well, I’m just leaving it as it is meant to be. Liu Dan
• Acceptance,  Go with the flow

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… and allow it to lead us …

• Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him. Henry Miller
• Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant. Seneca the Younger
• The willing, destiny guides them; the unwilling, destiny drags them. Seneca the Younger
• … he was one of those men who like to be observers at their own lives … such people observe their destiny much as most people tend to observe a rainy day. Alessandro Baricco

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… for paradoxically this is a path to peace …

• What is the highest secret to victory and peace? To will what God wills, and strike a league with destiny. William Rounseville Alger
• Inner peace is impossible without patience. Wisdom requires patience. Spiritual growth implies the mastery of patience. Patience allows the unfolding of destiny to proceed at its own unhurried pace. Brian L. Weiss
• Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher powers, be genuinely indifferent as to what becomes of it all and you will find not only that you gain a perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition, the particular goods you sincerely thought you were renouncing. William James
• Inner peace

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… and paradoxically a path to freedom too

• An individual’s destiny belongs to him in much the same way as the ground, which fetters him by its gravity, but without which walking would be impossible. We must accept our destiny as we accept the ground on which we stand–a ground which is the springboard for our freedom. Viktor Emil Frankl
• There are powers far beyond us, plans far beyond what we could have ever thought of, visions far more vast than what we can ever see on our own with our own eyes, there are horizons long gone beyond our own horizons. This is courage- to throw away what is our own that is limited and to thrust ourselves into the hands of these higher powers- God and Destiny. To do this is to abide in the realm of the eternal, to walk in the path of the everlasting to follow in the footprints of God and demi-gods. The hardest part for man is the letting go. For some reason, he thinks himself big enough to know and to see what’s good for him. But in the letting go……..is found freedom. In the letting go…….. is found the flight! C. JoyBell C.
• Freedom

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Destiny is a force that we should trust …

• Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. Steve Jobs
• I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be. Douglas Adams
• There is an unseen life that dreams us. It knows our true direction and destiny. We can trust ourselves more than we realize and we need have no fear of change. John O’Donohue
• Thy lot or portion of life is seeking after thee; therefore, be at rest from seeking after it. Ali ibn Abi Talib
• You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. Steve Jobs
• No amount of worrying can change the future. Go easy on yourself, for the outcome of all affairs is determined by God’s decree. If something is meant to go elsewhere, it will never come your way, but if it is yours by destiny, from you it cannot flee. Umar
• Destiny commands… and imposes a sacred obligation to show up in the face of one’s desire for a normal, casual life… there are other forces afoot of which consciousness has only the dimmest of understandings… James Hollis
• Even when you think you have your life all mapped out, things happen that shape your destiny in ways you might never have imagined. Deepak Chopra
• Our destiny often looks like a fruit-tree in winter. Who would think from its pitiable aspect that those rigid boughs, those rough twigs could next spring again be green, bloom, and even bear fruit? Yet we hope it, we know it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be… John Lennon
• There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk. Guy Gavriel Kay
• Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had. Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
• Trust,  Trust in God,  Divine order

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… and a journey we should actively face and embrace …

• Destiny is a journey. Therefore, it is essential for anyone who wants to reach his or her planned destination to stay on course. Detouring can cause a trip that is only meant to take a day turn into a trip that takes weeks… The only way you can travel into your destiny is to release yourself of other routes that cause lengthy detours, taking you back to the beginning and sometimes to dead end streets. Kristi Luv Wilson
• No man or woman born, coward or brave, can shun his destiny. Homer
• Realizing a destiny is not a matter of acquiescing in some form of relentless causality. If it were, there would be no sin. A destiny can be failed or refused. That is why it is not a fate. True, the very word “destiny” is indicative of necessity, but the necessity of a destiny is not like the necessity that makes an object fall when it is dropped. Rather, it is the kind I recognize when I face a duty I am tempted to evade and say to myself, “This I must do.” Gregory Wolfe
• The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him. Jan Patocka
• The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny. Napoleon Bonaparte
• We are not here on earth to change our destiny, but to fulfill it. Guy Finley
• When fate hands us a lemon, let’s try to make lemonade. Andrew Carnegie
• Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear. Charlotte Brontë
• Maybe we cannot escape from the destiny of the human, but we have the choice: to suffer our destiny or to enjoy our destiny. To suffer, or to love and be happy. To live in hell, or to live in heaven. My choice is to live in heaven. What is yours? Don Miguel Ruiz
• Life is a journey

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… and even actively pursue

• As long as we are persistence in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time. Denis Waitley
• The trick in chasing destiny is to feel it as a rider, a rider on a spinning ball waiting for a rare chance in time. Those few moments of balance between darkness and light where the infinite is in motion and the motion is felt as a dance, as a solution that dissolves the question. Steve Cash

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Destiny, some say, is an expression of divine providence and guidance …

• Providence: The foreseeing care and guidance of God or nature over the creatures of the earth. com
• Providence: A manifestation of divine care or direction. Merriam Webster
• Chance is a nickname of Providence. Sébastien-Roch Nicolas (Chamfort)
• A door that seems to stand open must be a man’s size, or it is not the door that Providence means for him. Henry Ward Beecher
• Destiny is … only God’s whisper. Sorin Cerin
• The place you are right now God circled on a map for you. Hāfez
• You know that saying, that when God closes a door he opens a window, well, sometimes out of nowhere he’ll do you one better and he’ll kick a whole wall down. Ryan Murphy,
• I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen. Elizabeth Gilbert
• God,  Trust in God

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… an expression of God’s will for each of our lives

• An unjust destiny is at variance with the will of the Almighty; a just destiny is merely the expression of his will: in no case is there room for destiny outside and above the deity. There is therefore no destiny apart from the will of God. By obedience to that will man may escape from evil, by opposing it he may bring evil on himself and his descendants. Evelyn Abbot
• Bottom line: God will not allow any person to keep you from your destiny. They may be bigger, stronger, or more powerful, but God knows how to shift things around and get you to where you’re supposed to be. Joel Osteen
• Destiny = our free will + God’s free will Terri Guillemets
• Destiny is inescapable … it is whatever God, however you perceive Him, ordains our life to be. Bob Love
• Destiny is the final end God has prepared for my journey. The vehicle that God has prepared to bring me to my destiny is my purpose on earth. God has wrapped up my destiny inside my purpose. No one can ever attain their God given destiny without first discovering his or her purpose. The reason God has made us here on earth. Ben N. Israel
• Destiny waits in the hands of God, shaping the still unshapen. S. Eliot
• Fulfilling your purpose and stepping into your destiny is inextricably tied to knowing who created you and why you exist. One can never truly know who they are without knowing who created them and why. The creator is always a part of his creation. The manufacturer is always a part of his product. Christopher Joy
• God is the author and finisher of your destiny. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of your destiny. He is the only one that can show you your destiny. As far as He is your manufacturer, He is the only one that can show you what you are fashioned to do. Harrison Enudi
• The world’s definition of the word “destiny” is a person’s lot or fate in life. In the world’s eyes, God has nothing to do with it; it’s pure luck. But God’s definition is totally different because it is based in Him, not luck, lot or fortune. In my words, God’s definition of the word “destiny” is “the fulfilment of the calling God has placed upon your life.” Carolyn Anderson
• What is the highest secret to victory and peace? To will what God wills, and strike a league with destiny. William Rounseville Alger

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• Karma differs from fate or destiny because it encourages us to take an active role in life. The Law of Karma requires the spiritual seeker to follow the highest code of ethics. Todd Cramer
• Karma is a key that we may use to organize our lives, rather than endlessly agonizing over the seemingly unexplainable and often unexpected events forming the fabric of our lives…. Karma is not about fate, fatalism, or destiny; nothing is pre-ordained– rather everything is a sequential happening emerging logically from antecedents. Karma is a way of viewing existence that brings about a harmony of both fatalism and free will, resulting in increased mental health and self-responsibility. Jonn Mumford
• Karma is about taking an active role in creating your destiny through your actions and choices
• Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny. The Vedas tell us, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
• Karma is not something pessimistic. If you think of karma as something wrong, you are seeing karma only according to what happened in the past. You look at the past and karma becomes a monster. So you should also look at karma in the present and future. Then karma becomes something very wide and really alive. Through karma you can understand what your destiny is. Destiny itself has no solid form; it’s something you can create. You can create your life. That is why we study karma. Dainin Katagiri
• Karma is the destiny man weaves for himself. H. Leslie-Smith
• Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something–your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. Steve Jobs
• Chance and destiny are not adequate concepts for explaining karma. It’s really a dance, isn’t it! — a dance of sisters and brothers who come together by mysterious likeness and attraction. Their dances in turn come together with all the dances across the world. For some this can be joyless, even the dance of exploitation and murder, but for the Bodhisattva it is the great cotillion of intimacy. Robert Aitken
• This is the ultimate truth of synchrodestiny—that the sum total of the universe is conspiring to create your personal destiny… We cannot even imagine the complex forces behind every event that occurs in our lives. There’s a conspiracy of coincidences that weave the web of karma or destiny and creates an individual’s personal life. Deepak Chopra
• Karma

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• A girl with a good figure can often shape her own destiny. Evan Esar
• A great destiny needs a generous diet…. What can be expected of a people that live on macaroni! Christian Nestell Bovee
• Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like. Lemony Snicket
• From someone who doesn’t want to share your destiny, you should neither accept a cigarette. Cesare Pavese
• I had this great urge… I had it the day I was born. Some may call it destiny. My parents and friends called it dismaying. Dian Fossey
• The last I heard from my destiny, it wanted me to make a legal U-Turn at my next opportunity. Robert Brault
• There’s a destiny that shapes our ends, but most women put more faith in a girdle. Evan Esar
• Rich, fatty foods are like destiny: they too, shape our ends.
• Destiny: A tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure. Ambrose Bierce
• What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny? Jim Butcher

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