Circumstances

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 119-120.

Circumstance

The massive gates of circumstance

 Are turned upon the smallest hinge,

And thus some seeming pettiest chance

 Oft gives our life its after-tinge.

The trifles of our daily lives,

 The common things, scarce worth recall,

Whereof no visible trace survives,

 These are the mainsprings after all.

• • Anon. In Harper's Weekly, May 30, 1863.

 Epicureans, that ascribed the origin and frame of the world not to the power of God, but to the fortuitous concourse of atoms.

• • Bentley—Sermons. II. Preached in 1692. See also Review of Sir Robert Peel's Address. Attributed later to Sir John Russell. See Croker—Papers. Vol. II. P. 56.

And circumstance, that unspiritual god, And miscreator, makes and helps along Our coming evils, with a critch-like rod, Whose touch turns hope to dust—the dust we all have trod.

• • Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV, Stanza 125.

Men are the sport of circumstances, when The circumstances seem the sport of men.

• • Lord Byron, Don Juan. Canto V, Stanza 17.

I am the very slave of circumstance And impulse—borne away with every breath.

• • Lord Byron, Sardanapalus, Act IV, scene 1.

Odd instances of strange coincidence.

• • Queen Caroline's Advocate in the House of Lords, referring to her association with Bergami.

The long arm of coincidence.

• • Haddon Chambers—Captain Swift.

 Nulla cogente natura, sed concursu quodam fortuito.

• • Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, Book I. 24. Adapted by him to: "Fortuito quodam concursu atomorum." (By some fortuitous concourse of atoms.) Same in Quintilian. 7. 2. 2.

Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.

• • William Cowper, Letter to Mr. Newton.

Circumstances beyond my individual control.

• • Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Chapter 20.

Man is not the creature of circumstances, Circumstances are the creatures of men.

• • Benjamin Disraeli, Vivian Grey. Vol. II, Book VI, Chapter 7.

 It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are.

• • Epictetus, Chapter XXIV. Quoted from Ovid—Tristia. IV. 3. 79, scene 1. Long's translation.

 To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives.

• • Oliver Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield, Chapter XXI.

Circumstances alter cases.

• • Haliburton—The Old Judge, Chapter XV.

 Man, without religion, is the creature of circumstances.

• • Thomas Hardy—Guesses at Truth. Vol. I.

 Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral circumstances which supply good and beautiful results—the fragrance of celestial flowers—to the daily life of others.

• • Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from an Old Manse. The Old Manse.

Et mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor.

 And I endeavour to subdue circumstances to myself, and not myself to circumstances.

• • Horace, Epistles. I. 1. 191.

Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors.

 What the discordant harmony of circumstances would and could effect.

• • Horace, Epistles. I. 12. 19.

 For these attacks do not contribute to make us frail but rather show us to be what we are.

• • Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ. Dibdin's translation, Book I, Chapter XVI.

 Consilia res magis dant hominibus quam homines rebus.
 Men's plans should be regulated by the circumstances, not circumstances by the plans.

• • Livy, Annales. XXII. 39.

Man is the creature of circumstances.

• • Robert Owen—The Philanthropist.

Accidental and fortuitous concourse of atoms.

• • Lord Palmerston. Of the combination of Parties led by Disraeli and Gladstone, March 5, 1857.

Condition, circumstance is not the thing.

• • Alexander Pope, Essay on Man. Ep. IV, line 57.

 The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.

• • Walter Scott, Answer of the Author of Waverly to the Letter of Captain Clutterbuck. The Monastery.

The Lie with Circumstance.

• • William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act V, scene 4, line 100.

• My circumstances

Being so near the truth as I will make them, Must first induce you to believe.

• • William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act II, scene 4, line 62.

Leave frivolous circumstances.

• • William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Act V, scene 1, line 27.

 How comes it to pass, if they be only moved by chance and accident, that such regular mutations and generations should be begotten by a fortuitous concourse of atoms.

• • J. Smith—Select Discourses. III. P. 48. (Ed. 1660). Same phrase found in Marcus-Minucius Felix his Octavius. Preface. (Pub. 1695).

In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends; While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.

• • Jonathan Swift, Paraphrase of Rochefoucauld's Maxim.

Aliena nobis, nostra plus aliis placent.

 The circumstances of others seem good to us, while ours seem good to others.

• • Syrus, Maxims.

Varia sors rerum.

 The changeful chance of circumstances.

• • Tacitus, Historiæ, Book II. 70.

So runs the round of life from hour to hour.

• • Alfred Tennyson, Circumstance.

And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance.

• • Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, Part LXIII, Stanza 2.

This fearful concatenation of circumstances.

• • Daniel Webster, Argument. The Murder of Captain Joseph White. (1830). Vol. VI. P. 88.

 F. M. the Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to Mr. —— and declines to interfere in circumstances over which he has no control.

• • Wellington. See G. A. Sala—Echoes of the Week in London Illustrated News, Aug. 23, 1884. See Capt. Marryatt—Settlers in Canada. P. 177. Grenville—Memoirs, Chapter II. (1823), gives early use of phrase.

Who does the best that circumstance allows, Does well, acts nobly, angels could no more.

• • Edward Young, Night Thoughts, Night II, line 90. (Compare Habakkuk. II. 2.)