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Common fate   /kˈɑmən feɪt/   Listen
Common fate

noun
1.
A Gestalt principle of organization holding that aspects of perceptual field that move or function in a similar manner will be perceived as a unit.  Synonym: law of common fate.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Common fate" Quotes from Famous Books



... among the more rare of old playing cards, and their gradual destruction when used as educational media will, as in the case of horn-books, and early children's books generally, account for this rarity. Perhaps the most interesting geographical playing cards which have survived this common fate, though they are the ultima rarissima of such cards, is the pack designed and engraved by H. Winstanley, "at Littlebury, in Essex," as we read on the Ace of Hearts. They appear to have been intended to afford instruction in geography ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... 24th, A.D. 410, Alaric approached the city, and the gates being opened to him by some Gothic slaves, his troops began at night a fearful scene of pillage and destruction. Men, women, and children were involved in a general massacre; nobles and plebeians suffered under a common fate. The Goths, as they entered, set fire to the houses in order to light their path, and the flames consumed a large part of the city. Great numbers of the citizens were driven away in hordes to be sold as slaves; others escaped to Africa, or to the islands on the coast of Italy, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... and there, chiefly because of absolute necessity to preserve portions of the structure, they are not such restorations as to jar on one, but exhibit a fidelity to tradition that saves them from the common fate of such efforts. Little or no retouching was necessary in the case of the stupendous flights of steps that were found leading up to the door of this prehistoric royal residence, and which are the first of the many sights the visitor of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various

... were no mean proficients in many chemical operations, especially in the arts of working metals, softening ivory, vitrifying flints, and imitating precious stones. Chemistry, however, experienced the common fate of all the arts, at the decline ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... which labor views all law-making is that of administration. A law may be beneficial. It is in danger on two sides. The first the risk of being declared unconstitutional, a common fate for the most advanced legislation in this country; or, safe on that side, it may be so carelessly or inefficiently administered as to be almost useless. In both cases, strong unions have a great influence in deciding the fate and the ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... common fate of fathers to be disappointed in their offspring, and to see the sons who ought to have been their honor and glory the scourge to punish their worldly aspirations," exclaimed ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... There remained only his memory and his Intended—and I wanted to give that up, too, to the past, in a way—to surrender personally all that remained of him with me to that oblivion which is the last word of our common fate. I don't defend myself. I had no clear perception of what it was I really wanted. Perhaps it was an impulse of unconscious loyalty, or the fulfilment of one of those ironic necessities that lurk in the facts of human existence. I don't know. I can't ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... generous; but we waited. White water was all we needed, and when we rounded a bend and a rapid showed up we knew what would happen. Smash! Police-boat number one goes on a boulder and hangs up. Bang! Police-boat number two follows suit. Whop! Police-boat number three encounters the common fate of all. Of course our boat does the same things; but one, two, the men are out of the head-boat and into the tail-boat; one, two, they are out of the tail-boat and into the head-boat; and one, two, the men who belong in the tail-boat are back in it and we are dashing on. "Stop! you ...
— The Road • Jack London

... far into the heart of their country, which his parties scoured, and laid waste in every direction. Houses, corn-fields, gardens, and fruit trees, shared one common fate; and Sullivan executed strictly the severe but necessary orders he had received, to render the country completely uninhabitable for the present, and thus to compel the hostile Indians, by want of food, to remove to a ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall

... dread which haunted me day and night. As I grew older the same terror pursued me. Sometimes, after long hours spent in reasoning with myself, I thought that I had conquered my fear. I reflected, "After all, what does it matter? One dies and all is over. It is the common fate; nothing could ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... the clergy, who are well aware of their own weakness. It is scarcely necessary to remark that every country which has been long subjected to the sway of popery is in a state of great and deplorable ignorance. Spain, as might have been expected, has not escaped this common fate, and the greatest obstacle to the diffusion of the Gospel light amongst the Spaniards would proceed from the great want of education amongst them. Perhaps there are no people in the world to whom nature has been, as far as regards mental endowments, more bounteously ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... inexorable, stone-faced, cruel. In it he found no comprehension, seeing that it regarded humanity either as a herd of slaves or a pack of wolves, and not as brethren labouring, suffering, performing a common destiny, yielding to a common fate. He saw in the law no actual recognition of the individual, but only the acknowledgment of the social body. Thus, set down in a day miraculously clear, placed among strong characters who had never yet yielded up their souls, ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... of it is when the subject unexpectedly goes cross-lots, by a flash of short-cut, to a conclusion so suddenly revealed that it has the effect of wit. It needs the highest culture and the finest breeding to prevent the conversation from running into mere persiflage on the one hand—its common fate—or monologue on the other. Our conversation is largely chaff. I am not sure but the former generation preached a good deal, but it had great practice in fireside talk, and must have talked well. There were ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... a mouthful of food of any sort in the boat, nor a drop of water. The night was lowering, and intensely dark; and the wind was blowing fresher than was at all desirable for a boat. Still we determined to persevere, and we ran boldly off the land, trusting our common fate to Providence. I hoped we might fall in with some American, bound in or out: should that fail us, France might be reached, if we had good luck, in the course ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... needed all Ralph's strength of will, together with the pressure of circumstances, to keep his feet moving in the path which led that way. It needed, in particular, a constant repetition of a phrase to the effect that he shared the common fate, found it best of all, and wished for no other; and by repeating such phrases he acquired punctuality and habits of work, and could very plausibly demonstrate that to be a clerk in a solicitor's office was the best of all possible ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... enjoying and extending her arts and her literature; rising rapidly from political childhood to manly strength and independence; her offspring, yet now her equal; unconnected with the causes which might affect the duration of her own power and greatness; of common origin, but not linked to a common fate; giving ample pledge, that her name should not be forgotten, that her language should not cease to be used among men; that whatsoever she had done for human knowledge and human happiness should be treasured up and preserved; ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... of the army, and appeared to regain with the election of Tacitus, one of their members, all their ancient prerogatives. Their authority expired, however, with the death of his successor, Probus, who delivered the empire once more from the invasions of the barbarians, and succumbed to the too common fate ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... her father, had openly declared against the pragmatic sanction, which he had guaranteed in the most solemn manner; she therefore observed, that the damage he had sustained in consequence of that declaration, ought to be considered as the common fate of war. These reasons, though conclusive and irrefragable in the usual way of arguing, made no impression upon the palatine, who perfectly well understood his own importance, and was determined to seize this opportunity of turning it to the best advantage. The court ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... outbid that hand And pencil too, so that of force we must Confess their heaps show lesser than thy dust. And—blessed soul!—though this my sorrow can Add nought to thy perfections, yet as man Subject to envy, and the common fate, It may redeem thee to a fairer date. As some blind dial, when the day is done, Can tell us at midnight there was a sun, So these perhaps, though much beneath thy fame, May keep some weak remembrance of thy name, And to the faith of better ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... Irkutsk. Having done this, it had descended the valley of the Yenisei and struck the road on a level with Alsalevsk. From this little town began the frightful course of ruin which forms the chief part of Tartar warfare. Nijni-Oudinsk had shared the common fate, and the Tartars, to the number of fifty thousand, had now quitted it to take up a position before Irkutsk. Before long, they would be reinforced ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... fancy, wayward as the vagrant wind, May picture scenes of unambitious taste, Yet vainly now, we look around to find Thy early beauty mid this dreary waste; Unmourned, unmissed, thus in thy fallen state, Thou art an emblem of the common fate! ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... and cease repining, Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all; Into each life some rain must fall, Some days ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall, Some days ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... different scene! No further mention of the Dean; Who now, alas! no more is miss'd, Than if he never did exist. Where's now this fav'rite of Apollo! Departed:—and his works must follow; Must undergo the common fate; His kind of wit is out of date. Some country squire to Lintot[17] goes, Inquires for "Swift in Verse and Prose." Says Lintot, "I have heard the name; He died a year ago."—"The same." He searches all the shop in vain. "Sir, you may find them in Duck-lane;[18] I sent them with ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... which guard Marsilius' state, And Saragossa's men, Ferrau commands; And in this force, well-sheathed in mail and plate, Bold Malgarine and Balinverno stands; Morgant and Malzarise, whom common fate Had both condemned to dwell in foreign lands, Who, when dethroned, had to Marsilius' court (There hospitably harboured) ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... retained his clasp. "He is a mighty genius. He planned and executed Ipsambul. For that, which is the greatest monument to Rameses, the Incomparable Pharaoh loved him, and while the king lived my father was overwhelmed with his favors. Nor did the royal sculptor's good fortune wane, as is the common fate of favorites, for the great king planned that my father's house should be honored even after his death though the dynasties change. So Rameses gave him a signet of lapis lazuli, and its inscription commanded him who sat at any time thereafter on the throne of Egypt to honor the ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... fiercely and promised a dreadful retaliation on any renegade captured. He also described the fate of the Oriskany prisoners and some bateaux-men taken by Walter Butler's Rangers near Wood Creek; and I could scarcely endure to listen, so horrid were the details of our soldiers' common fate, where Mohawk and Tory, stripped and painted alike, conspired to invent atrocities undreamed ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... of measuring the common fate. You have had the touchstone of success, and the world has opened up before you. But what depress me and impress me are the sodden people whom I meet by the hundred; and I can't help reading my fate in the light of theirs. There are ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... artistic form to his religious aspiration. Some were carved in the Romanesque period, others in the Gothic, others in the Renaissance. Witnesses of the human mind in different ages, all are crumbling and growing green together, sharing a common fate. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... heard, called forth by the dangers of my kindred, I was ready to undergo with them one common fate; but they would not suffer me to continue a mere General, feeling that they needed a veteran King. Wherefore now accept first the Divine decree, and then the judgment of the Goths, since it is your unanimous wish which ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... Aurelian had no peace or repose. "The gods decree," said the impatient emperor, "that my life should be a perpetual warfare." He was obliged to take the field a few months after his triumph, and was slain, not in battle, but by the hands of assassins— the common fate of his predecessors and successors—"the regular portal" through which the Caesars passed to their account with the eternal Judge. He had boasted that public danger had passed—"Ego efficiam ne sit aliqua solicitudo Romana. Nos publicae necessitates teneant; vos occupent voluptates." ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... frequented roads. In process of time the family of the Nugents became lords of the manor, but they were not less friendly to the religious than the former proprietors. Indeed, so devoted were they to the Order, that, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, Multifarnham would have shared the common fate, had they not again and again repurchased it from those to whom it had been sold by Henry. Even during the reign of Elizabeth it was protected by the same family. But the day of suffering was even then approaching. In the October of the year 1601, a detachment of English soldiers was ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... 1706, was Ulysses; which, with the common fate of mythological stories, is now generally neglected. We have been too early acquainted with the poetical heroes, to expect any pleasure from their revival; to show them as they have already been shown, is to disgust by repetition; to give them new qualities, or new adventures, is to ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... impetuous. Early the next morning he entered the church of St. Martin, in company with three or four other persons, and commenced the work of destruction. Altars, statues, pictures, antiphonaries, missals, graduals—all underwent a common fate. From St. Martin's the iconoclasts visited in like manner the other ecclesiastical edifices of the town and its suburbs. Upon the ruins of the Romish superstition the new fabric arose, and Monsieur Philippe preached the same day in ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... Fortune. Heavens! why call this a world of misery, when it can furnish a life of such rapturous enjoyment? But alas, it is too soon over! For what ought man to sigh, could such felicity but last for ever? Ours shared the common fate—in being of short duration, and followed ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... who really appreciated the singular nature of my position towards the surrounding world, and with whom I could fully and sincerely discuss the cares and sorrows arising therefrom. What dreadful trials and experiences, what painful anxieties our common fate was to bring upon us, will ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee. How small a part of time they share, That are so ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... evident to thinkers that upon the right solution of the problem must forever depend the welfare of mankind. Many "solutions" have been offered; and, though they have differed widely, they agree in one respect—they have had a common fate—the fate of being false. What has been the trouble? The trouble has been, in every instance, a radical misconception of what a human being really is. The problem is to discover the natural laws of the human class of life. All the "solutions" offered ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... with modification, which received its first sufficiently ample and undisguised exposition in 1809 with the "Philosophie Zoologique" of Lamarck, shared the common fate of all theories that revolutionise opinion on important matters, and was fiercely opposed by the Huxleys, Romaneses, Grant Allens, and Ray Lankesters of its time. It had to face the reaction in favour of the Church which began in the days of the First Empire, as a natural consequence ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... compeers; lesser men may succumb but Algy goes on. One day, I suppose, he will meet the common fate; but may that sorry day be far ahead. For we could ill spare our Algy—our dear old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various

... seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your own country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your country's independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... founded at the end of the seventh century. Its history is headed by the chapter which begins the records of most of the ecclesiastical foundations of the duchy: when the invading heathen Normans reached Montivilliers, it shared the common fate of destruction, and when they withdrew, the common piety recalled it to existence. Richard IInd bestowed it upon Fecamp, but the same sovereign restored it to its independence, at the request of his aunt, Beatrice, who retired hither as abbess, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... there, on the principal street, in a row of ruins, stood a single house that was intact and undamaged. It was plain enough to be seen that pains had been taken to spare it from the common fate of its neighbors. Also, I glimpsed one short side street that had come out of the fiery visitation whole and unscathed, proving, if it proved anything, that even in their red heat the Germans had picked and chosen the fruit for the wine press ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... land's sake, deserted of her fruit And cast out from her gods. Nay, were all mute At Delphi, still 'twere strange to leave the thing Unfollowed, when a true man and a King Lay murdered. All should search. But I, as now Our fortunes fall—his crown is on my brow, His wife lies in my arms, and common fate, Had but his issue been more fortunate, Might well have joined our children—since this red Chance hath so stamped its heel on Laius' head, I am his champion left, and, as I would For mine own father, choose for ill or good This quest, to find the man who slew of yore Labdacus' son, the son ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles

... distant view of that silent monitor, the sombre beautiful spire of St. Denis, whose walls shadow the vaults of the Bourbons; they who sat on a throne not choosing to be thus constantly reminded of the time when they must descend to the common fate and crumbling equality ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... will appear, not as champions, but as victims; discountenanced, mortified, lowered, defeated, they will fall into listlessness and indifference. They will leave things to take their course; enjoy the present hour, and submit to the common fate. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... For I'm not ashamed that the common fate has overtaken me—common, because every man loves once before he dies; and yet uncommon, because no man ever loved a woman so worthy. Chancellor, there's no woman in the world like Miss Helen Mowbray, the lady to ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... of sitting, I think you will be one of them. If there is a child in the room, you will be making rabbits with your fingers. Then you are at the mercy of the painter's privilege—the foreground and background. If you have the common fate, your head will be stuck upon a red curtain, a watered pattern. If your man has used up his carmine, you will be standing in a fine colonnade, waiting with the utmost patience for the burst of a thunder cloud that makes the marble column stand ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... many fine works of ancient sculpture as this, for its master had been distinguished by his love of such things in a time when few cared for them. Some he had purchased at a great price; more than one masterpiece he had saved from oblivion amid ruins, or from the common fate of destruction in a lime-kiln. Well for him had he been content to pass his latter years with the cold creations of the sculptor; but he turned his eyes upon consummate beauty in flesh and blood, and this, the last of his purchases, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... It is the common fate of erroneous positions, that they are betrayed by defence, and obscured by explanation; that their authors deviate from the main question into incidental disquisitions, and raise a mist where they should ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... had been crowned with success, the greatest danger was still before us. Experience had taught that the fate which one week before befell Gordon at Fort Stedman was a common fate of troops who, in a necessarily broken state, gained an entrance inside of an energetic enemy's lines. Our position was not dissimilar to Gordon's after he had taken Fort Stedman. To our left was a strong, closed star-fort, well manned and supplied with cannon. It was impossible ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... to those who had been concerned in the distribution of the placards. All reputed heretics were apprehended, and, as rapidly as their trials could be prosecuted, condemned to death. There was a rare harvest of falsehood and misrepresentation. No wonder that innocent and guilty were involved in one common fate.[346] ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... own, shrank from the pitiless logic of his analysis. They loved his work as little as they respected his life. They judged him by a censorious standard which took no account of genius. And Poe shared with dignity and without regret the common fate of prophets. If he is still an exile in American esteem, he long since won the freedom of the larger world. He has been an inspiration to France, the inspirer of the nations. He did as much as any one of his contemporaries to mould the literary art of our day, and in the prose of Baudelaire ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... in inns and innkeepers. He knew good food and he knew good value, and he had a mighty keen eye for a rogue. There may, it is true, have been something in his manner which provoked them to exhibit their worst side to him. It is a common fate with angry men. The trials to which he was subjected were momentarily very severe, but, as we shall see in the event, they proved a ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... an Indian, but his face I could not see; for one hand staunched a wound in his head and the other gripped a knife with which he had been defending himself. My first thought was that he must be a Nor'-Wester, or his body would not have escaped the common fate; but if a Nor'-Wester, why had he been left on the field? So I concluded he was one of the camp-followers, who had joined our forces for plunder and come to a merited end. Still he was a man; and I stooped to examine him with a view to ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... dying thief, penitent on the cross, was promised admission. It was of "Paradise," not of heaven, that Tertullian said "the blood of the martyrs is the perfect key." So, too, when Jerome, Chrysostom, and others speak of a few favored ones delivered from the common fate before the day of judgment, it is "Paradise," and not heaven, that is represented as being thrown open to them. Irenaus says, "Those who were translated were translated to the Paradise whence disobedient Adam was ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... follow these people and try to rally them. Our military force could overwhelm most of these poor people, involving men, women, and children in a common fate; but there are among the Mormons many brave men accustomed to arms and horses, men who could fight desperately as guerillas; and, if the settlements are destroyed, will subject the country to an expensive and protracted war, without any compensating ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... Mary College, with Prospect of doing the greatest Good for the Colonies of Virginia and Maryland, conferred this princely Donation upon them; and were seconded with the ample Benefaction of the honourable Mr. Boyle, and the Contributions of the Country. But this underwent the common Fate of most other charitable Gifts of this Kind, having met with several Difficulties to struggle with in its Infancy; but the most dangerous was, that it was as it were no sooner finished, but it was unfortunately and unaccountably consumed to Ashes. Yet observe ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones

... what ultimate reward was reserved for those whom the republic hires, he could never bring himself to believe that years of faithful labor and a skill which increased with every new task set could meet the common fate. So when his resignation was requested, and when, refusing indignantly, he was turned out, neck and heels, after his twelve years of faultless service, it ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... imprudence to remain in Guienne merely to engage Harcourt in a series of trifling skirmishes, and after much time and trouble take a few little paltry towns, when in the heart of the kingdom a treason or a defeat might irreparably involve the loss of everything, and condemn Bordeaux to share the common fate, after a more or less prolonged existence. Taking one thing with another, Guienne was doubtless a considerable accessory; but the grand struggle was not to be made there; it was at Paris and upon the banks of the Loire that the destiny of the Fronde and that of Conde too must be ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... is obvious;[58] and the author must participate in the common fate of all sedentary occupations. But his maladies, from the very nature of the delicate organ of thinking, intensely exercised, are more terrible than those of any other profession; they are more complicated, more hidden in their causes, and the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... themselves upon the platform of resistance—they pass insults, and they must submit to the consequences. We have just finished the perusal of a case in AEsop's Fables, exactly in point. It is the case of a trumpeter taken prisoner in battle. He claimed exemption from the common fate of prisoners of war, in ancient times, on the ground that he carried no weapons, and was, in fact, a non-combatant, belonging to the peace party! "Non-combatant, the Devil!" exclaimed the opposing ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... passed by Indifferent, for he had seen such men. Too well he knew the common fate of all; But I, the first time in my life, did learn That, if we but live long enough, we all Shall be such miserable ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus

... following essays," observes he in his preface, "have already appeared at different times, and in different publications. The pamphlets in which they were inserted being generally unsuccessful, these shared the common fate, without assisting the booksellers' aims, or extending the author's reputation. The public were too strenuously employed with their own follies to be assiduous in estimating mine; so that many of my best attempts in ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... by means of the new arrivals which kept coming in, hurled into the midst of us without thought or question, that this was the common fate of all who were repulsive to the sight, or who had any weakness or imperfection which offended the eyes of the population. They were tossed in among us, not to be healed, or for repose or safety, but to be out of sight, that they might ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... calamity—cause every male child of Hebrew parents to be slain at birth." Pharaoh approved of this advice, and issued an edict accordingly. The Egyptian monarch's kind-hearted daughter (whose name, by the way, was Bathia), who rescued the infant Moses from the common fate of the Hebrew male children, was a leper, and consequently was not permitted to use the warm baths. But no sooner had she stretched forth her hand to the crying infant than she was healed of her leprosy, and, moreover, afterwards admitted ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... common fate of great men must allow they well deserve and hardly earn that applause which is given them by the world; for, when we reflect on the labours and pains, the cares, disquietudes, and dangers which attend their road to greatness, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... of one of the best of Monarchs, and all Kingly Government: all England found itself deplorably inslav'd by the Arbitrary Tyranny of many Pageant Kings. Oh that we shou'd so far forget with what greatness of mind You then shar'd the common Fate, as now and again to force Your Royal Person to new Perils, and new Exiles; but such ingratitude we are punisht with, and You still suffer ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... Whether he were dead or alive, near or distant from his ancient abode, was a point on which neither Mervyn, nor any of those with whom I had means of intercourse, afforded any information. Whether he had shared the common fate, and had been carried by the collectors of the dead from the highway or the hovel to the pits opened alike for the rich and the poor, the known and the unknown; whether he had escaped to a foreign shore, or were destined ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... it, my Andre ... the common fate of the loyal!" A sigh lifted the fair young bosom, but she showed no other sign ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... in front of the writing-table, leaning his elbows on it, pressing his face upon his folded arms. For in good truth, what did it all amount to? Not outraged laws of nature, not sins against the Holy Ghost; but just simply this, that the common fate had overtaken him. He loved a woman, and in so loving had, at ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... will do so," answered Douglas, with, a sudden change of tone; "you are right, Paulina. I will not be so weak as to become the prey of these distressing fancies, these dark forebodings. What have I to fear? Death is no terrible evil. It is but the common fate of all. I can face that common doom as calmly as a Christian should face it. But deceit, treachery, falsehood from those we love—those are evils far more terrible than death. Oh, Paulina! tell me that I have no ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... undiminished rays Through distant times the lovely dame conveys: To Gloriana[13] Waller's harp was strung; The queen still shines, because the poet sung. Even all those graces, in your frame combined, The common fate of mortal charms may find, (Content our short-lived praises to engage, The joy and wonder of a single age,) 60 Unless some poet in a lasting song To late posterity their fame prolong, Instruct our sons the radiant form to prize. And see your beauty ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... the disadvantage this had placed him at. He would have laughed if, at this outset of his wonderful fortune in literature, his genius acknowledged by all without misgiving, young, popular, and prosperous, any one had compared him to the luckless men of letters of former days, whose common fate was to be sold into a slavery which their later lives were passed in vain endeavors to escape from. Not so was his fate to be, yet something of it he was doomed to experience. He had unwittingly sold himself into ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... Mohammed Ahmed created did not escape the common fate of human enterprise; nor was it long before the warm generous blood of a patriotic and religious revolt congealed into the dark clot of a military empire. With the expulsion or destruction of the foreign officials, soldiers, and traders, the racial element began to subside. The reason for its ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... said I; 'though a Roman, I have hardly myself escaped the common fate; you need not be surprised to see me drawn, by-and-by, within the charmed circle, and binding upon my own neck the silken chains and the golden yoke. But see, the ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... filled with pain and tears. It may be that death gives all there is of worth to life. If those we press and strain against our hearts could never die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. Maybe this common fate treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate, and I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not. Another life is naught, unless we know and love again the ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... scene now—not all the squalor of the room could efface or diminish the majesty of their two figures. They sat like two tall old kings, eye to eye, not friends, or reconciled only in this last and lonely hour by meditation on man's common fate. If I cannot make you understand this, what follows will seem to you absurd, though indeed at the ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... man in the prime of life, Struck down in one short hour, The loving wife, the rose-cheeked girl, Fairer than opening flower, The ardent youth, with fond hopes elate,— O'ertaken all by one common fate. ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... stirred; and the wall had such a ripening influence that where, here and there high up, a disused nail and scrap of list still clung to it, it was easy to fancy that they had mellowed with the changing seasons and that they had rusted and decayed according to the common fate. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... occurred on the death of Anthony Collins. He left behind him a considerable number of his own manuscripts, there was one collection formed into eight octavo volumes; and that they might be secured from the common fate of manuscripts, he bequeathed them all, and confided them to the care of our Des Maizeaux. The choice of Collins reflects honour on the character of Des Maizeaux, yet he proved unworthy of it! He suffered himself ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... A common case and common fate was that of Mrs. Tracy. She had married, both early and hastily, a gallant lieutenant, John George Julian Tracy, to wit, the military germ of our future general; their courtship and acquaintance previous to matrimony extended over ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... Siebel!—thine is but the common fate! They told thee Fortune upon youth would wait; 'Tis false when ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... of the imagination and those of the intellect. A hundred theories about the Greek legends of the Centaurs or the Amazons may establish themselves, have a vogue, undergo criticism and finally be exploded as absurdities: that is the common fate of intellectual products after they have done their work. But the Centaurs of the Parthenon and the Amazons of the Mausoleum are immortally independent of all ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... take in all the details of his investigations, she disapproved of much of the new doctrine, but she felt that he was right and fighting for a good cause. He knew that he could always count on her never-flagging sympathy; that he had a friend at home who would always stand by him. Their common fate drove them into each other's arms like frightened birds at the approach of a storm. All the womanliness in her,—however little it may be appreciated now-a-days,—which is after all nothing but a memory ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... would not be like lying in each other's arms—oh, not at all like that. Rebecca Mary caught her breath; it was perilously like a sob. Then she girded up her loins and went away to meet her fate—the common fate of all. ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... enemies! No mortal foes these, to be overcome by harrowing array of might! Omnipresent, unresting, pursuing man even in sleep, subtly equipped with a miasmic weapon, these soldiers of ignorant lusts seek to slay us all. Thoughtless is the man who buries his ideals, surrendering to the common fate. Can he seem other ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... more than "prominent chief," for no one man ever had real authority over the whole of the distracted land. Even of these prominent chiefs, however, according to the annalists, very few died natural deaths. Some fell in battle, others were assassinated; but the most common fate for a monarch was to be "slain by his successor." If this was true of the most powerful men in the country, to speak of the office of chief as elective is really absurd. But more than this: there is no evidence that the "tribal system," in the sense of ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... mind? What arms are these, and to what use design'd? These times want other aids! Were Hector here, Ev'n Hector now in vain, like Priam, would appear. With us, one common shelter thou shalt find, Or in one common fate with us be join'd.' She said, and with a last salute embrac'd The poor old man, and by the laurel plac'd. Behold! Polites, one of Priam's sons, Pursued by Pyrrhus, there for safety runs. Thro' swords and foes, amaz'd and hurt, he flies Thro' empty courts and ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... the very recent acquisitions of physiological science. Curiously enough, however, now that they are made out, it appears that they were in good part long ago attained, recorded, and mainly forgotten. The earlier observations and surmises shared the common fate of discoveries made before the time, or by those who were not sagacious enough to bring out their full meaning or importance. Vegetable morphology, dimly apprehended by Linnaeus, initiated by Casper ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... mean merit. His affectionate remembrance of his Syrian home, led him to introduce into his new kingdom the flowers and fruits of the east;—and the palm-tree, which was the parent of all those of its kind in Spain, and to which he addressed the well-known lines, lamenting their common fate as exiles from their fatherland, was planted by himself in the gardens of the Rissafah, a country palace built on the model of one near Damascus, in which the first years of his life had been spent. In architectural magnificence he rivaled or surpassed the former princes of his race, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various



Words linked to "Common fate" :   Gestalt law of organization, Gestalt principle of organization



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