Befalls Quotes & Sayings

Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him. — Romain Gary

No great spiritual event befalls those who do not summon it. — Elbert Hubbard

America is very much about individual happiness, the right to expression, self-determination. In America you do need to point to harm befalls victims before you can limit someone else's rights. — Jonathan Haidt

There is a good and a bad light in which every thing that befalls us may be taken. If the human mind will busy itself to make theworst of every disagreeable occurrence, it will never want woe. — Samuel Richardson

In the blessings as well as in the ills of life, less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met ... — Arthur Schopenhauer

The ease with which such a fate befalls you suggests that it is really necessary to assert yourself in order to prevent yourself from being skipped; how could you ever come to life again if the butcher, the postman and the policeman made up their minds to ignore you? It is a terrible fate; I think I will knock over a chair at this moment; now the lodger beneath knows that I am alive at any rate. — Virginia Woolf

Nobody goes "AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" when they sing it. Maybe because it puts the life adventure in such clear and simple terms. The small creature is alive and looks for adventure. Here's the drainpipe
a long tunnel going up toward some light. The spider doesn't even think about it
just goes. Disaster befalls it
rain, flood, powerful foces. And the spider is knocked down and out beyond where it started. Does the spider say, "To hell with that"? No. Sun comes out
clears things up
dries off the spider. And the small creature goes over to the drainpipe and looks up and thinks it really wants to know what is up there. — Robert Fulghum

No great inner event befalls those who summon it not. — Maurice Maeterlinck

The worst evil which befalls our race is, that when we are wronged and plundered, all the world laughs around, and we are compelled to suppress our sense of injury, and to smile tamely, when we would revenge bravely. — Walter Scott

Regardless of how often the appetite for entertainment violence becomes addictive, increased exposure does risk further desensitizing viewers. And the element of pleasure that they derive may lead them to regard violence as a more acceptable way of dealing with problems, and victimization as more tolerable so long as it befalls others, not themselves. — Sissela Bok

All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the children of the Earth. — Chief Seattle

Not all or even most suffering is at the hands of fate; it befalls us at our invitation. — Dean Koontz

Forget the soul. No such ghost in the machine. What happens to our mind befalls our body also. The condition of the body is also the state of the mind. — Salman Rushdie

And what fate befalls mutineers? — Blackbeard

Yet no suffering befalls whoever relinquishes justice and truth, whereas the party system has painful penalties to chastise insubordination. These — Simone Weil

To not follow the dharma, either intentionally or through lack of awareness, creates a very low level of attention. In this low level of attention we make all kinds of mistakes and we are unhappy no matter what good fortune befalls us. — Frederick Lenz

Detached gibbous moonlight,
Befalls me,
Lying still on a sandy hill,
In a place far from home.
Home, where your warm hands,
Once embraced me,
Where you suckled me at birth,
And kissed me goodnight,
Where I once played as a child.
Now bereft and solitary,
I lie still far away,
In a foreign field of sand,
They'll bring me home
To you soon,
To lay me down
In an earthen chamber,
Beneath a green patch,
Close to you, so close,
Far from the guns of war. — Richard Kinsella

Thanksgiving reminds us that no matter what befalls us in life, we can take the charred remnants and we can reconstruct a life unimaginably richer than that from which the shards and pieces fell. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

For we should be as our Lord told us: "You should be like those who at all times watch and wait for their Lord (Luke 12:36). Truly, such vigilant people are alert and on the watch for the Lord for whom they wait; they look to see if he is not by chance concealed in what befalls them, however strange it may be to them. So we too should consciously look out for our Lord in all things. This demands much effort, and must cost us all that our senses and faculties are capable of. But this is the right thing for us to do, so that we grasp God in the same way in all things and find him equally everywhere. — Meister Eckhart

Nothing befalls a man except what is in his nature to endure. — Marcus Aurelius

I believed in clemency, once," Captain Noble said, at last, "A long time ago, before I learned that the world is a hard place, and those who cannot bear what befalls them, no matter how ill, will be crushed in favor of those who will. There is no clemency, Ellis, only survival. — G.L. Tysk

Whoever be the instruments of any good to us, of whatever sort, we must look above them, and eye the hand and counsel of God in it, which is the first spring, and be duly thankful to God for it. And whatever evil of crosses or afflictions befalls us, we must look above the instruments of it to God. — Thomas Boston

Even through you and I are in different boats, you in your boat and we our canoe, we share the same river of life. What befalls me befalls you. And downstream, downstream in this river of life, our children will pay for our selfishness, for our greed, and for our lack of vision. — Oren Lyons

If some appalling disaster befalls, there's Always a way for the rich. — Euripides

If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by,
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.
If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls. — Emily Dickinson

I just want to protect them no matter how much pain befalls me. — Masashi Kishimoto

Whatever befalls in accordance with nature should be accounted good. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Does this mean we will always understand our challenges? Won't all of us, sometime, have reason to ask, 'O God, where art thou?' Yes! When a spouse dies, a companion will wonder. When financial hardship befalls a family, a father will ask. When children wander from the path, a mother and father will cry out in sorrow. Yes, 'weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.' Then, in the dawn of our increased faith and understanding, we arise and choose to wait upon the Lord, saying, 'Thy will be done.' — Robert D. Hales

On the occasion of every accident that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use. — Epictetus

It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

We infrequently contemplate the harms that await any new-born child - pain, disappointment, anxiety, grief, and death. For any given child we cannot predict what form these harms will take or how severe they will be, but we can be sure that at least some of them will occur. None of this befalls the nonexistent. Only existers suffer harm. — David Benatar

Good befalls us while we sleep, sometimes. — Honore De Balzac

I'm a goddess of destruction. Tell me honestly that you find nothing exciting about the idea of a billion people screaming out for mercy when there's no one left who cares what befalls them. Of the entire earth being rained on by all manner of demons bent on ultimate torture and sacrifice. Them ripping and shredding human flesh as they claw in a drunken frenzy fueled by their hatred of everything. Drinking blood in an orgy of terror ... ahhh, the beauty of annihilation. There's nothing like it.(Apollymi) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Come closer, my dears, let me give you a warning,
Of the fate that befalls those who stay out past morning,
In the darkest hours before the dawn,
When witches roam and demons spawn,
And children die with spirit gone,
Magicked away in the gloaming. — Nenia Campbell

You have seen those things, look now at these: do not trouble yourself, make yourself simple. Does a man do wrong? He does wrong to himself. Has some chance befallen you? It is well; from Universal Nature, from the beginning, all that befalls was determined for you and the thread was spun. The sum of the matter is this: life is short; the present must be turned to profit with reasonableness and right. Be sober without effort. — Marcus Aurelius

Nothing that befalls anyone is too senseless to have happened. — Philip Roth

Fear is not an option." "Don't dwell on the dark side of things, but look for the light and build around it. If one door closes, look for another one to open." "Never, ever, blame others for what befalls you, no matter how horrible it might be. Trust you, and only you, to be responsible for your own life. — Diane Von Furstenberg

What befalls me couldn't have missed me, and what misses me could not have befallen me. — Alexandra Burt

Curses are our conscious choices, so is grace," said Rama. Every error is an invitation to see our reality better, to realise where our consciousness is and where it can be. When we refuse to reach out to the potential of our consciousness, a curse befalls us. — Tomichan Matheikal

See well how it often befalls that to rise to the topmost degree would make it seem that the abyss is on high. — Diane De Poitiers

The benevolent have the advantage of the envious, even in this present life; for the envious man is tormented not only by all the ill that befalls himself, but by all the good that happens to another; whereas the benevolent man is the better prepared to bear his own calamities unruffled, from the complacency and serenity he has secured from contemplating the prosperity of all around him. — Charles Caleb Colton

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. One thing we know: our god is also your god. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator. — Chief Seattle

Things happen to everybody in the course of a lifetime. Relationships end, people die, tragedy befalls everyone. So everyone has this wealth of experience, and the older you are the more you have to draw on. — Eric Stoltz

But if I have once overcome my heart, and am contented through the grace of God in my heart, then this makes me content not only in one particular but in general, whatever befalls me. — Jeremiah Burroughs

I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people's standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself. So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me. — Sophia Loren

The art of life consists in taking each event which befalls us with a contented mind, confident of good ... With this method ... rejoice always, though in the midst of sorrows, and possess all things, though destitute of everything. — James Freeman Clarke

When good befalls a man he calls it Providence, when evil fate. — Knut Hamsun

In countries of more advanced civilisation and of a more insurrectionary spirit, the public, accustomed to expect everything to be done for them by the State, or at least to do nothing for themselves without asking from the State not only leave to do it, but even how it is to be done, naturally hold the State responsible for all evil which befalls them, and when the evil exceeds their amount of patience, they rise against the government and make what is called a revolution; whereupon somebody else, with or without legitimate authority from the nation, vaults into the seat, issues his orders to the bureaucracy, and everything goes on much as it did before; the bureaucracy being unchanged, and nobody else being capable of taking their place. A very different spectacle is exhibited among a people accustomed to transact their own business. In France, a large part of the people — John Stuart Mill

The saddest thing that befalls a soul is when it loses faith in God and woman. — Alexander Smith

One of man's greatest failings is that he looks almost always for an excuse, in the misfortune that befalls him through his own fault, before looking for a remedy-which means he often finds the remedy too late. — Jean Francois Paul De Gondi

But it is often those who have least of all in this life whom He chooseth for the kingdom. Put thy trust in Him and no matter what befalls thee here, He will make all right hereafter. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

VI. If you were coming in the fall, I'd brush the summer by With half a smile and half a spurn, As housewives do a fly. If I could see you in a year, I'd wind the months in balls, And put them each in separate drawers, Until their time befalls. If only centuries delayed, I'd count them on my hand, Subtracting till my fingers dropped Into Van Diemen's land. If certain, when this life was out, That yours and mine should be, I'd toss it yonder like a rind, And taste eternity. But now, all ignorant of the length Of time's uncertain wing, It goads me, like the goblin bee, That will not state its sting. — Emily Dickinson

We are part of the earth and it is part of us ... What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. — Chief Seattle

But why would anyone on a joyous occasion rake over past unpleasantness and dwell on painful events horrible to experience and repellent to recall? Silence is mightier than words. It clothes the wreckage that befalls us in the deep folds of forgetfulness unless someone stirs up the painful memories for the sole purpose of edifying us by example and, as with illnesses, of helping us avoid the causes that led us to them. — Gregory Of Nazianzus

We are to take no counsel with flesh and blood; give ear to no vain cavils, vain sorrows and wishes; to know that we know nothing, that the worst and cruelest to our eyes is not what it seems, that we have to receive whatsoever befalls us as sent from God above, and say, "It is good and wise,
God is great! Though He slay me, yet I trust in Him." Islam means, in its way, denial of self. This is yet the highest wisdom that heaven has revealed to our earth. — Thomas Carlyle

Really? And what curse befalls the Adams of the world?"
Ann opens her mouth and, presumably thinking of nothing to say, closes it again.
It is Felicity who answers, eyes steely. "They are weak to temptation. And we are their temptresses. — Libba Bray

No matter the challenges that befalls you in life, never ever forget who you are". — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

Envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving. Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know! What a bright prospect that is-downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment! — Jeffrey R. Holland

Humans don't connect their actions with what befalls them. Don't they perceive time as linear?"
"They do," said Aitassi. "They just don't see why they should do anything individually to change their future to the one they want. All eight billion of them. — Karen Traviss

Christ willed to suffer and be despised and do you dare complain of the same? Christ had adversaries and backbiters; and do you wish to have all men your friends and benefactors? When shall your patience attain her crown if no adversity befalls you? If you are willing to suffer naught that is against you, how will you be the friend of Christ? — Thomas A Kempis

I have not harmed her. I have not allowed harm to come to her. It's more than her lot has ever offered me, and English has seen what befalls them when they press the boot on our necks. She has survived the wages of justice through luck, mettle, and wit enough to open her eyes.
English finally sees.
If I'm to be ruled, may it be by those who see. — J. Anderson Coats

Love only what befalls you and is spun for you by fate. — Marcus Aurelius

It's as though not even that most basic level of imaginative thought had been admitted into consciousness to cause the slightest disturbance. A century of destruction unlike any other in its extremity befalls and blights the human race - scores of millions of ordinary people condemned to suffer deprivation upon deprivation, atrocity upon atrocity, evil upon evil, half the world or more subjected to pathological sadism as social policy, whole societies organized and fettered by the fear of violent persecution, the degradation of individual life engineered on a scale unknown throughout human history, nations broken and enslaved by ideological criminals who rob them of everything, entire populations so demoralized as to be unable to get out of bed in the morning with the minutest desire to face the day ... all the terrible touchstones presented by this century, and here they are up in arms about Faunia Farley. — Philip Roth

People talk about nightfall, or night falling, or dusk falling, and it's never seemed right to me. Perhaps they once meant befalling. As in night befalls. As in night happens. Perhaps they, whoever they were, thought of a falling sun. That might be it, except that that ought to give us dayfall. Day fell on Rupert the Bear. And we know, if we've ever read a book, that day doesn't fall or rise. It breaks. In books, day breaks, and night falls.
In life, night rises from the ground. The day hangs on for as long as it can, bright and eager, absolutely and positively the last guest to leave the party, while the ground darkens, oozing night around your ankles, swallowing for ever that dropped contact lens, making you miss that low catch in the gully on the last ball of the last over. — Hugh Laurie

Nothing befalls any man which he is not fitted to endure. — Marcus Aurelius

If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. — Chief Seattle

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it. — Elbert Hubbard

Our city, these streets, I don't know why it makes me so depressed. That old familiar gloom that befalls the city dweller, regular as due dates, cloudy as mental Jell-O. The dirty facades, the nameless crowds, the unremitting noise, the packed rush-hour trains, the gray skies, the billboards on every square centimeter of available space, the hopes and resignation, irritation and excitement. And everywhere, infinite options, infinite possibilities. An infinity, and at the same time, zero. We try to scoop it all up in our hands, and what we get is a handful of zero. — Haruki Murakami

Man is born to live, to suffer, and to die, and what befalls him is a tragic lot. There is no denying this in the final end. But we must deny it all along the way. — Thomas Wolfe

All things are bound together, all things connect. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls also the children of the earth. — Oren Lyons

But who can describe the overweening pride of men? Or women mad with passion, reckless in their hearts, soulmates to every kind of ruin that befalls us? Wild passion, unrestrained, boundless, that overcomes the women, perverts the yoke of wedlock for beasts and men alike. — Aeschylus

There are certain things in which we so rarely meet with our double that it seems a miracle when that chance befalls. — Charlotte Bronte

But if God endures it for the sake of the benefit for you which he has foreseen in it, and if you are willing to suffer what he suffers and what passes through him to you, then it takes on the colour of God, and shame becomes honour, bitterness is sweetness and the deepest darkness becomes the clearest light. Then everything takes its flavour from God and becomes divine, for everything conforms itself to God, whatever befalls us, if we intend only him and nothing else is pleasing to us. Thus we shall grasp God in all bitterness as well as in the greatest sweetness. — Meister Eckhart

The disadvantages and dangers of the author's calling are offset by an advantage so great as to make all its difficulties, disappointments, and maybe hardships, unimportant ... Nothing befalls him that he cannot transmute into a stanza, a song, or a story, and having done this, be rid of it. The artist is the only free man. — W. Somerset Maugham

No other profession is subject to the public contempt and derision that sometimes befalls lawyers. the bitter fruit of public incomprehension of the law itself and its dynamics. — Irving Kaufman

Fishermen, no matter what supreme good fortune befalls them, cannot ever be absolutely satisfied. It is a fundamental weakness of intellect. — Zane Grey

Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers — Leigh Hunt

Happiness and sorrow are two sides of the same coin called life. Whatever befalls you, walk on unattached. — Sanchita Pandey

A glance, a word
and joy or pain befalls ... How slight the links are in the chain that binds us to our destiny! — Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Happiness or sorrow- whatever befalls you, walk on untouched, unattached. — Gautama Buddha

You'll find that great artists don't love, live, fuck or even die like ordinary people. Because they always have their art. It nourishes them more than any connection to people. Whatever human tragedy befalls them, they're never too gutted, because they need only to pour the tragedy into their vat, stir in the other lurid ingredients, blast it over a fire. What emerges will be even more magnificent than if the tragedy had never occurred. — Marisha Pessl

Turn away from mischief. Again and again, turn away. Before sorrow befalls you. — Gautama Buddha

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. — Chief Seattle