I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‚Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.‘

It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions.

Sometimes when you’ve had a long series of disappointing things happen, you can get into the very bad habit of just expecting more of what you’ve already had.

I never had to choose a subject – my subject rather chose me.

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

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.

The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.

In a universe that’s an intelligent system with a divine creative force supporting it, there simply can be no accidents. As tough as it is to acknowledge, you had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you are today, and the evidence is that you did.

The will is a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wills; Nor can it choose its rider… the riders contend for its possession.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

I believe nothing happens by mistake. You know, the universe has a divine plan. That sounds dramatic.

The centre of the system of the world is immovable.

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

Know that as a Christian, your destiny is to be Christlike in all of your ways.

And no, we don’t know where it will lead. We just know there’s something much bigger than any of us here.

A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.

I decided, very early on, just to accept life unconditionally; I never expected it to do anything special for me, yet I seemed to accomplish far more than I had ever hoped. Most of the time it just happened to me without my ever seeking it.

One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.

Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates.

The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent.

I will seize fate by the throat; it shall certainly never wholly overcome me.

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

The moon gravitates towards the earth and by the force of gravity is continually drawn off from a rectilinear motion and retained in its orbit.

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

The progress of India is the destiny of one-sixth of humanity. And it will also mean a world more confident of its prosperity and more secure about its future.

I was born on January 8, 1942, exactly three hundred years after the death of Galileo. I estimate, however, that about two hundred thousand other babies were also born that day. I don’t know whether any of them was later interested in astronomy.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us.

Control your own destiny! Control your own destiny!

Just because something didn’t work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.

I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – ‚tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.

No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn’t find the weapons. I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do.

I guess you could say it’s always been my destiny to be a performer.

If humanity doesn’t land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected.

Whatever fortune has raised to a height, she has raised only to cast it down.

The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.

The Milky Way is nothing else but a mass of innumerable stars planted together in clusters.

It’s the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

For NASA, space is still a high priority.

The most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth.

Intimates are predestined.

It confuses me and disappoints me when somebody says, ‚What does he do? What does he do?‘ My records are some of the biggest anthems ever. What do you think, they magically just appear? Obama walked out to my record.

Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.

It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.