Cesare Pavese Quotes

I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him.

I'm a great believer in fate. I think things happen in spite of, and despite, yourself.

I don't believe in fate, because I'm not spiritual, but things do seem to work out.

I don't think there's any accidents in my life.

I don't believe we get to choose in life what we get to deal with and what we don't.

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

You are the master of your own earthly destiny just as surely as you have the power to control your own thoughts

I tend to think that you fulfill your own destiny, whether you realize it or not.

Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are the irresponsible puppets of fate or chance.

Flying or falling, it's up to us.

All that destiny garbage. Nobody can decide what happens to you. Nobody but you.

The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.

The world is a chessboard, Madam, on which we play out our ploys and follies. You are the Queen, of course. Your moves are the strongest. For myself, I claim only to be a knight, advancing in a crooked progress. Do we move ourselves, do you think, or does a great gloved hand place on our squares

No man or woman can live another's fate

More than anything else, I believe it's our decisions, not the conditions of our lives that determine our destiny.

I'm a believer that things happen. Fate is what happens.

Beth: "I don't think you realize what you're dealing with here. You can't just mess around with the forces of the universe!" Xavier: "What ever happened to free will? Or was that just a myth?

At the most one could say that his chi or ... personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed.

To sit back and let fate play its hand out and never influence it is not the way man was meant to operate.

Decision is the ultimate power. Decisions shape destiny.

Free will is something that people struggle with so much, but it's very simple to me. Carl Jung said at the same moment you're a protagonist in your own life making choices, you also are the spear carrier, or the extra, in a much larger drama. You've got to live with these two opposite ideas at the same time.

When it comes to individual destiny, there is no power greater in the universe then the conviction of the human soul to make a choice.

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

The soul in man is greater than his fate.

I think we make our own luck. Our parents give us life, but what we do with that life is our own responsibility.