Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me
Leading wherever I choose.
Walt Whitman 1819-1892
 

Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.
Tacitus (c. 55-c. 120), Roman historian. The Histories, bk. 4, sct. 29.
 

The ignorant are a reservoir of daring. It almost seems that those who have yet to discover the known are particularly equipped for dealing with the unknown. The unlearned have often rushed in where the learned feared to tread, and it is the credulous who are tempted to attempt the impossible. They know not whither they are going, and give chance a chance.
Eric Hoffer (1902-83), U.S. philosopher. Reflections on the Human Condition, aph. 124 (1973).
 

There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. The Conduct of Life, "Illusions" (1860).
 

Let us beware of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress. When you realize there are no goals or objectives, then you realize, too, that there is no chance: for only in a world of objectives does the word "chance" have any meaning.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher. The Gay Science, aph. 109 (rev. ed., 1887).
 

Our being is subject to all the chances of life. There are so many things we are capable of, that we could be or do. The potentialities are so great that we never, any of us, are more than one-fourth fulfilled.
Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980), U.S. short-story writer, novelist. Interview in Writers at Work (Second Series, ed. by George Plimpton, 1963).
 

Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not originate. To discover something wholly new can be a matter of chance, of idle tinkering, or even of the chronic dissatisfaction of the untalented.
Eric Hoffer (1902-83), U.S. philosopher. Reflections on the Human Condition, aph. 93 (1973).
 

Chance is the one thing you can't buy. . . . You have to pay for it and you have to pay for it with your life, spending a lot of time, you pay for it with time, not the wasting of time but the spending of time.
Robert Doisneau (b. 1912), French photographer. Weekend Guardian (London, 4 April 1992).
 

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud:
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
W. E. Henley (1849-1903), English poet, critic, editor. Invictus: In Memoriam R. T. Hamilton Bruce .
 

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Hebrew Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:11.
 

Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.
Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), Spanish filmmaker. My Last Sigh, ch. 15 (1983), from his autobiography.
 

Neither dead nor alive, the hostage is suspended by an incalculable outcome. It is not his destiny that awaits for him, nor his own death, but anonymous chance, which can only seem to him something absolutely arbitrary. . . . He is in a state of radical emergency, of virtual extermination.
Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929), French semiologist. Fatal Strategies, "Figures of the Transpolitical" (1983; tr. 1990).
 

Chance does not speak essentially through words nor can it be seen in their convolution. It is the eruption of language, its sudden appearance. . . . It's not a night atwinkle with stars, an illuminated sleep, nor a drowsy vigil. It is the very edge of consciousness.
Michel Foucault (1926-84), French essayist, philosopher. Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel, ch. 3 (1963; tr. 1986).
 

We are able to find everything in our memory, which is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand sometimes to a soothing drug and sometimes to a dangerous poison.
Marcel Proust (1871-1922), French novelist. Remembrance of Things Past, vol. 10, "The Captive," pt. 2, ch. 3 (1923; tr. by Ronald and Colette Cortie, 1988).
 

All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence.
Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), Spanish filmmaker. My Last Sigh, ch. 15 (1983).
 

The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen.
G. C. Lichtenberg (1742-99), German physicist, philosopher. Aphorisms, "Notebook K," aph. 68 (written 1765-99; tr. R. J. Hollingdale, 1990).
 

The popularity of disaster movies . . . expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.
David Mamet (b. 1947), U.S. playwright. Writing in Restaurants, "Decadence" (1986).
 

However great a man's fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear-headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance--so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival. But think how a sense of survival must clamour to be heard at the last moment, what excuses it must present of a totally unscientific nature.
Graham Greene (1904-91), British novelist. Dr. Magiot, in The Comedians, pt. 1, ch. 4, sct. 1 (1966).
 

Your fortune is yet doubtful:  when I examined your face, one trait contradicted another.  Chance has meted you a measure of happiness:  that I know.  I knew it before I came here this evening.  She has laid it carefully on one side for you.  I saw her do it.  It depends on yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up:  but whether you will do so, is the problem I study.
Charlotte Bronte, in Jane Eyre, Chapter 19.
 

White shall not neutralize the black, nor good
Compensate bad in man, absolve him so:
Life's business being just the terrible choice.
Robert Browning, "The Pope"
 

Every act of will is an act of self-limitation.  To desire action is to desire limitation.  In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice.  When you choose anything, you reject everything else.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Guess if you can, choose if you dare.
Pierre Corneille, Héraclius
 

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.
George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"
 

There's small choice in rotten apples.
Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

The most human of all attributes is your ability to choose.
Woody Allen, The Purple Rose of Cairo

We are all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices.  Some are on a grand scale.  Most of these choices are on lesser points.  But we define ourselves by the choices we have made.  We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices.  Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, human happiness does not seem to have been included in the design of creation.  It is only we with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe.  And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even to find joy for simple things like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more.
Woody Allen, Crimes and Misdemeanors

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.
C. S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
William Jennings Bryan

Fortune can, for her pleasure, fools advance,
And toss them on the wheels of Chance.
Juvenal

It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win.
John Paul Jones

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

     You don’t have free will, David. You have the appearance of free will. - Thompson
     You expect me to believe that? I make decisions every day. - David
     You have free will over which toothpaste you use or which beverage to order at lunch,
but humanity just isn’t mature enough to control the important things. - Thompson
     So you handle the important things. Well, the last time I checked, the world’s a pretty screwed-up place. - David
     It’s still here. If we’d left things in your hands, it wouldn’t be.- Thompson
     Tell me why I can’t be with Elise. Because the last guy didn’t know. - David
     Meeting Elise at the Waldorf three years ago wasn’t chance. That was us. We knew she would inspire you to give that speech. That speech that brought you back from the edge of oblivion, and overnight made you the front runner in this coming election. - Thompson
     What are you saying? You want me to win the election? - David
     This one and four more after it. And I’m not just talking about elections for Senate. You can matter, David. Really matter. - Thompson
…
     Stop talking. It’s not working. - David
     Why do you refuse to accept what should be completely obvious by now. You’ve seen what we can do. You can’t doubt we are who we say we are. - Thompson
     Look, it’s not about who you are, it’s about who I am. - David
     Can’t outrun your fate, David. - Thompson
     I just disagree with you about what my fate is. I know what I feel for her, and it’s not going to change. All I have are the choices that I make. And I choose her, come what may. - David.
George Nolfi, The Adjustment Bureau, based on Adjustment Team, by Phlip K. Dick

The only safe thing is to take a chance. Play safe and you are dead. Taking risks is the essence of good work, and the difference between safe and bold can only be defined by yourself since no one else knows for what you are hoping when you embark on anything.
Mike Nichols, film director

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Seneca

Everything is sweetened by risk
Alexander Smith, Scottish poet, "The Fear of Dying," City Poems

To dare is to lose one's footing for a moment. Not to dare is to lose oneself.
Soren Kierkegaard