Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Quotes

I don't think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

I think some things are just meant to happen; you can't change your fate. Maybe we have a small amount of control.

Fate pulls you in different directions.

There is a major ingredient missing from our perception of how changes are brought about; that ingredient is power.

The march of events rules and overrules human action.

Does our hand show in this?

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.

But in the end it wasn't up to me. The bigs things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us before we're born.

You can work hard, do everything that you think is right, but one thing you'll never overcome in life is fate. You can't control fate.

At some unnoticed moment, I began to understand that a life is written in indelible ink. What I've chosen, what's happened unchosen, can't be unmade or redone. Poetry, though, is a door that only continues to open. Even the unchangeable past changes inside a poem. Not the facts, but the feeling, the comprehension.

We're all put here for a reason. And one little movement changes your way of life.

One of the most predictable things in life is there will be change. You are better off if you can have a say in the change. But you are ignorant or naive if you don't think there will be change, whether you want it to or not.

Everyone has power. But it doesn't help if you don't use it.

I always say that people are like peanut shells on the ocean: the waves will take them everywhere.

Time brings all things to pass.

Life to me is defined by uncertainty. Uncertainty is the state in which we live, and there is no way to outfox it.

I never thought we had a chance of impacting anything. I am just starting to realize that we can change things - not just VICE, but all of us. In fact, we have to.

We speculate as to what is in store for us. But we not only undergo events, we in part cause them or at least influence their course. We have not only to study them but to act.

Sometimes history takes things into its own hands.

So many things happen for every event, and if you try to manipulate it, it means you are struggling against the whole universe, and that's just silly.

If your life changes, we can change the world, too.

But I'd rather not predict. I'd rather affect.

For me, leadership is making a difference. It's using your agency to bring about change.

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