Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.
Interpretation
Fate represents events that havenβt been deeply considered or understood yet.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that what we often refer to as fate consists of events and circumstances that have not yet been thoughtfully examined or understood. He implies that fate is not merely predetermined; rather, it encompasses causes that we have yet to explore, urging us to engage with our experiences and perceptions critically to uncover their true significance.
In practice
During a philosophical discussion on destiny and free will.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.
I will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a succession of anticlimaxes β toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings.
I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.
A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
They themselves mocked Africa, trading stories of absurdity, of stupidity, and they felt safe to mock, because it was a mockery born of longing, and of the heartbroken desire to see a place made whole again.
If multiculturalism succeeds in making us a nation of independently empowered tribes, each tribe will be deprived of the comfort of victimhood and be forced to confront human limitation for what it is: a fixture of life.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.