"Fatalist" Quotes from Famous Books
... married for several years to Young Hopeful, and was left penniless with two boys. Lord Chesterfield was above all things a practical philosopher, as hard and as exquisitely rounded and polished as a granite column. He accepted the vanishing of his lifelong dream with the admirable stolidity of a fatalist, and in those last days of his radically artificial life he disclosed a welcome tenderness, a touch of the divine, none the less so for being common duty, shown in the few brief letters to his son's widow and to "our ... — The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... among the Ajivikas. Their leader Gosala had a personal quarrel with Mahavira but his teaching was almost identical except that he was a fatalist.] ... — Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... submit to be a vile drudge?" cries the fatalist. Nonsense! A man is not an irrational creature, but a reasoning being, and has something within him beyond mere brutal instinct. The greatest victory which a man can achieve is over himself, by which is meant those unruly passions ... — Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... guessed or considered that her aunt was possessed of intense emotions which had no outlet. Her features were regular, her shy eye had the clearness of a forest pool. She believed in predestination, which is to say that she was a fatalist; and while she steadfastly continued to regard this world as a place of sorrow and trials, she concerned herself very little about her participation in a future life. Old Dr. Ewing, the rector of St. Anne's, while conceding that no better or more charitable woman existed, found it so exceedingly ... — The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... brokers, contractors, and stock-jobbers, to prey upon the vitals of their country. He entailed upon the nation a growing debt, and a system of politics big with misery, despair, and destruction. To sum up his character in a few words—William was a fatalist in religion, indefatigable in war, enterprising in politics, dead to all the warm and generous emotions of the human heart, a cold relation, an indifferent husband, a disagreeable man, an ungracious prince, and ... — The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... is a delightful thing to be a fatalist, not as that word is generally employed, but to accept that, when things happen and not before, God has for some wise reason so ordained them. We have nothing further to do, when the scroll of ... — General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... to discern in him as he sat there still wearing the caftan of cloth of silver over his white tunic and a turban of the same material swathed about his steel headpiece that ended in a spike. Idly he swung his brown sinewy legs, naked from knee to ankle, with the inscrutable calm of the fatalist upon his swarthy hawk face with its light agate eyes and black forked beard; and those callous seamen who had assembled there to jeer and mock him were stricken silent by the intrepidity and stoicism of his bearing in the ... — The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... blame. If, for example, we catch no fish, Tony will blame the tide, the hour, the weather, the boat, the sail, the leads, the line, the hooks, the bait, the fish, his mate—anything rather than accept the one fact that, for reasons unknown, the fish are off the bite. A thoroughgoing fatalist would blame, if he did not acquiesce in, ... — A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... the fatalist whom I have refuted, and prepare again to lay down the first row of cards. But the fellow comes back with, "Those last shuffles were also ... — The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... as heavy as a world, which I had raised, and I had thought to bear to the end, was too great for my strength, and I was compelled to lay it down in the middle of my career. Oh, shall I then, again become a fatalist, whom fourteen years of despair and ten of hope had rendered a believer in providence? And all this—all this, because my heart, which I thought dead, was only sleeping; because it has awakened and has begun to beat again, because I have yielded to the pain of the emotion excited in my breast ... — The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "Without being a fatalist to the point of nonresistance," said he, "I have always found that the highest wisdom lies in an acquiescence with the actual." He spoke slowly, and there was a vibration of ... — The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of my belief," said the sculptor: "but you need not go to Rome to seek them. If there were one of those friends whose lifetime was twisted with your own, I am enough of a fatalist to feel assured that you will meet that one again, wander whither you may. Neither can we escape the companions whom Providence assigns for us, by climbing an ... — The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... satisfied with men as they are, and to treat them accordingly, and not according, in some respects, to my requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to be, then, like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of God. And, above all, there is this difference between resisting this and a purely brute or natural force, that I can resist this with some effect; ... — On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... absorption. As to the cause of events, as was said above, it is Fate. Repeatedly is heard the lament, "Fate (impersonal) is the highest thing, fie on vain human effort." The knight confesses with his lips to a belief in the new doctrine of absorption, but at heart he is a fatalist. And his aim is to die on the field of battle, that he may go thence directly to the heaven that awaits the good and the brave.[46] Out of a long description of this heaven a few extracts here selected will show what the ... — The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... pursued by some persistent ill luck and was like an oriental fatalist, and having seen her dreams all fade away and her hopes crushed, she would sometimes hesitate a whole day or longer before undertaking the simplest thing, for fear she might be on the wrong road and it would turn out badly. She kept repeating: "Talk of bad luck—I have ... — Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... majesty of the Eternal; the power and authority of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, extending over all creatures from the beginning to everlasting; the reality and nature of God's purposes, and their fulfilment in creation and providence; in opposition to the atheist, the fatalist, the deist, the sceptic, and every other who does not believe in the truth of Divine revelation; are made known, and claim to ... — The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... myself a philosopher," he went on, "nor am I a fatalist, but I think that most men can face the inevitable with a certain calmness that is only born of absolute despair. Did you ever see a man hanged? I did once. He walked to the gallows as coolly and deliberately as though he were going to breakfast. A week before he had been ... — The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... fatalist in the sense you mean," returned his friend. "Everything has been fixed from ... — Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... first time throughout the long story, Constantine looked me fixedly in the eyes. The strange light of another world, of the fatalist East, looked plainly out of his eyes. Every Russian carries a terrible possibility about with him like a torch of tragic flame, ready to be lighted at ... — Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... wheel of Fortune, Ides of March, Hobson's choice. last shift, last resort; dernier ressort [Fr.]; pis aller &c (substitute) 147 [Fr.]; necessaries &c (requirement) 630. necessarian^, necessitarian^; fatalist; automaton. V. lie under a necessity; befated^, be doomed, be destined &c, in for, under the necessity of; have no choice, have no alternative; be one's fate &c n.. to be pushed to the wall to be ... — Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... quagmire into which thoughts of Adrea had led him; a parable sent to show him the folly of such thoughts, and whither they tended. He laughed a little bitterly at the thought. Once, when a very young man, he had thought himself a fatalist. After all, perhaps it was the best thing to be! Conscience and duty were wearisome guides; a course of voluntary drifting would be rather ... — A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... about to perish and sought consolation in the constant practice of religion, which was edifying but scarcely improved him as a companion. As for Otter, he also believed that the hour of death was nigh, but being a fatalist this did not trouble him much. On the contrary, in spite of Leonard's remonstrances he began to live hard, betaking himself freely to the beer-pot. When Leonard remonstrated with him ... — The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... it all. Camille learns to love sometimes, and Oakhurst, the gambler, does not want to part with one who has stood a friend in an emergency. But Camille knows that, for her, few flowers are even annual, and Oakhurst is practical and a fatalist. ... — A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... of irony: Zeno, a fatalist by theory, makes his disciples heroes; Epicurus, the upholder of liberty, makes his disciples languid and effeminate. The ideal pursued is the decisive point; the stoical ideal is duty, whereas the Epicureans make an ideal out of an interest. Two tendencies, ... — Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to rack your brains like the devil to do it, but you can't explain why she falls in love with this man and not with that. Perhaps you recall Longfellows's lines: 'The men that women marry, and why they marry them, will always be a marvel and a mystery to the world.' Personally, I'm a bit of a fatalist regarding love. I think hearts are mated when they're fashioned, and when they get together you can no more keep them apart than you keep two drops of quicksilver from running into each other when they ... — The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... acceded to by the weak Montezuma—let us not say weak, but rather fatalist—and, accompanied by his weeping vassals, he allowed himself to be conducted to the stone fortress which had been assigned to the Spaniards as their habitation. The circumstance is perhaps ... — Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock |