William Shakespeare on Destiny
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“What a falling-off was there!”
“What is done cannot be now amended.”
“What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?”
“For it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell.”
“But He, that hath the steerage of my course, Direct my sail!”
“If he had been as you and you as he, You would have slipt like him.”
“Things at the worst will cease or else climb upward To what they were before.”
“Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew and dog will have his day.”
“Think you I bear the shears of destiny? Have I commandment on the pulse of life?”
“Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies, Which, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.”
“A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.”
“They that stand high have many blasts to shake them; And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.”
“A man whom both the waters and the wind, In that vast tennis-court, hath made the ball For them to play upon.”
“We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff, And good from bad find no partition.”
“Imperious Cæsar, dead and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!”