Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

Man thinks, God directs.

Man proposes, but God disposes.

Though men determine, the gods doo dispose: and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.

We animals live life in all its glorious uncertainty. Why do politicians think they can control events?

Man plans, but God decides.

Chance is better than choice; it is more lordly. Chance is God, choice is man.

There is no doubt such a thing as chance, but I see no reason why Providence should not make use of it.

I, too, was carrying around my own fate. All the things I couldn't know sat somewhere inside, embroidered into me-maybe not quite fixed to the point of inevitability but waiting, in any event, for a chance to unspool.

Though men determine, the gods doo dispose: and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.

Man proposes, but God blocks the game.

Before you leave, the fortune teller reminds you that the future is never set in stone.

Direct interference in a person's life does not enter our scope of activity, nor, on the other, tralatitiously speaking, hand, is his destiny a chain of predeterminate links: some 'future' events may be linked to others, O.K., but all are chimeric, and every cause-and-effect sequence is always a hit-and-miss affair, even if the lunette has actually closed around your neck, and the cretinous crowd holds its breath.

We can speculate. Last time I checked, the future doesn't take my advice.

Of course you have to believe in destiny; that everything is sheer chance is an intolerable notion.

A person’s destiny is something you look back at afterwards, not something to be known in advance.

He seemed to be talking about my fears, my insecurity, and my unwillingness to see what was wonderful because tomorrow it might disappear and I might suffer. The gods throw the dice, and they don't ask whether we want to be in the game or not.

You make choices that are good and sound, but the gods have other plans for you.

In a universe governed by God there are no chance events. Indeed, there is no such thing as chance. Chance does not exist. It is merely a word we use to describe mathematical possibilities. But chance itself has no power because it has no being. Chance is not an entity that can influence reality. Chance is not a thing. It is nothing.

Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.

Intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over.

Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.

I think we can affect our own fates, but there's also a powerful energy that's the universe or God or whatever your unconscious recognizes that helps along your way.

Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options