A Quote by James Russell Lowell

Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving.

James Russell Lowell

Quote Topics

Fate Jest Life Seems

Quote Author

James Russell Lowell
American - Poet
February 22, 1819 - August 12, 1891

Fate does not jest and events are not a matter of chance. There is no existence out of nothing.

Gamal Abdel Nasser

The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest.

Arthur Conan Doyle

It is a wretched thing that the young men of today are so contriving and so proud of their material posessions. Men with contriving hearts are lacking in duty. Lacking in duty, they will have no self-respect.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo

We never know we go when we are going- We jest and shut the Door- Fate-following-behind us bolts it- And we accost no more-.

Emily Dickinson

The Irish always jest even though they jest with tears.

Katharine Tynan

The Greek idea of fate is moira, which means "portion." Fate rules a portion of your life. But there is more to life than just fate. There is also genetics, environment, economics, and so on. So it's not all written in the book before you get here, such that you don't have to do anything. That's fatalism.

James Hillman

Better to wait and yearn, and still to wait, And die at last with unappeased desire, Than live to be the jest of such a fate, For that is my conception of hell-fire.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.

Samuel Johnson

The modern position seems only another manifestation of egotism, which develops when man has reached a point at which he will no longer admit the rights to existence of things not of his own contriving.

Richard M. Weaver

When I look at life I try to be as agnostic and unmetaphysical as possible. So I have to admit that, most probably, we do not have a fate. But I think that's something that draws us to novels - that the characters always have a fate. Even if it's a terrible fate, at least they have one.

Daniel Kehlmann

I watch my heart disappearing into her rosebud mouth. My Valentine's jest somehow seems less funny.

Neil Gaiman

All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet. It must be this voice that is telling me to do something, and I am sure it's the same voice that is speaking to everybody on this planet - at least everybody who seems to be concerned about the fate of the world, the fate of this planet.

Wangari Maathai

You know, I don't want to be offensive. But 'Infinite Jest' [regarded by many as Wallace's masterpiece] is just awful. It seems ridiculous to have to say it. He can't think, he can't write. There's no discernible talent.

Harold Bloom

No life, my honest scholar, no life so happyand so pleasant as the life of a well-governed angler; for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip-banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us.