Vance Havner Quotes

The march of events rules and overrules human action.

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

We are not the masters of our own destiny as far as our case load is concerned.

Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.

It's a lot like life. I think 99 percent of what goes on in life, we have very little control over.

Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.

Many events in our lives are the result of things beyond our control. While it is comforting to think, 'I'm in charge,' in truth, most changes effected by individuals are very limited in scope.

It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish.

There seems to be a law that governs all our actions so I never make plans.

There is a destiny that shapes our ends rough, hew them as we will.

Men try to run life according to their wishes; life runs itself according to necessity.

Wherefore the race being not to the swift, etc. but time and chance happening to all men, I leave the Judgement of the whole to the Candid, of whose correction I shall never be impatient.

Men are the sport of circumstances when it seems circumstances are the sport of men.

Marriage happens; it can't be planned. When it has to happen, it will happen. Normally, what we always believe is that however prepared you are, if it's not meant to happen, it won't. And however much we have not planned, it will still happen if it's destined.

The fates will lead you to the future or drag you there.

Fate has many faces.

I get the impression sometimes that a play arrives in a sequence of events that I have no control over.

If something is meant to be, then it will be.

Fate is a sempiternal and unchangeable series and chain of things, rolling and unraveling itself through eternal sequences of cause and effect, of which it is composed and compounded.

There are so many things that you have no control over: whether you play or not, whether you get traded or not, or whether you get waived or not.

Fate...may...be...thwarted.

People say things like "it wasn't supposed to go this way" and "this isn't what I wanted." They're just making noise. There's no such thing as "supposed to," and what you want doesn't matter. All that matters is what happened.

The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we're not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.

Fortune raises up and fortune brings low both the man who fares well and the one who fares badly; and there is no prophet of the future for mortal men.

Sometimes, what you do you have no control over because it's predestined. It's gonna happen in spite of you. There's nothing you can do about it.