Etty Hillesum Quotes

There is no such thing as destiny. We ourselves shape our lives.

No cause has he to say his doom is harsh, who's made the master of his destiny.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

I believe that fate is choices - it's not chance.

My grand uncle was a traditional priest, and he would always say to me as a kid, 'We stand in our own light,' which essentially for him meant we were entirely responsible for a lot of what happens to us and for the ways in which our lives play out.

In life, there is good, evil, love, and hatred. What we desire, choose, and need to pursue is in our hands.

Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases; being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.

Destiny planned out, I don't need no hand out.

It is your decisions, and not your conditions, that determine your destiny.

Flying or falling, it's up to us.

It would be so easy to let my fate just carry me away... following this same path my whole life through. But I know I can't. What I do, I do...with no regrets.

Destiny is what every human being creates for oneself. Fate is when you fail to create your own destiny.

You are the Master of your own Destiny

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.

The futures and ultimate fates of the characters in The Snow Queen are profoundly changed by choices made in their own minds or hearts, as well as choices unexpectedly forced on them by things beyond their control.

Man is supposed to be the maker of his destiny. It is only partly true. He can make his destiny, only in so far as he is allowed by the Great Power.

I've always felt that life is a novel, and part of it is written for you, and part of it is written by you. It's up to you to write the ending, ultimately.

Everybody is dealt a hand of cards. It was my choice to play them the way I played them.

A lot of people go through life thinking that they don't have any control, that life is just happening to them. But that's not true.

A man's character is his fate.

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

The simplest way to say it is that I think we're all dealt these cards in life, but the cards in and of themselves don't read one way or the other. It's up to you to home in and cultivate whatever you've got in your hand.

We do not choose the day of our birth nor may we choose the day of our death, yet choice is the sovereign faculty of the mind.

Men are not yet ready to shape their own destinies, to control and direct world events, of which -- instead -- they become the victims.

The word 'fate' doesn't really mean much to me in some ways. I think we make our own.