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Odd instances of strange coincidence.

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.

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

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.

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

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

The long arm of coincidence.

By some fortuitous concourse of atoms. [Lat., Fortuito quodam concursu atomorum.]

Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.

Circumstances beyond my individual control.

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

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

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

Circumstances alter cases.

Man, without religion, is the creature of circumstances.

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.

And I endeavour to subdue circumstances to myself, and not myself to circumstances. [Lat., Et mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor.]

What the discordant harmony of circumstances would and could effect. [Lat., Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors.]

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

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