Kismet. [Turk. kismet, Pers. quismat, a. Aarb. qisma(t) portion, lot, fate, f. qasama to divide.]
Destiny, fate.
1849 E.B. EASTWICK Dry Leaves 46 One day a man related to me a story of Kismat or destiny. 1865 MRS. GASKELL in Cornh. Mag. Feb. 219 It's a pity when these old Saxon houses vanish off the land; but it is 'kismet' with the Hamleys. 1883 F.M.CRAWFORD Mr. Isaccs i. 19 The stars or the fates...or whatever you like to term your kismet.
---Definition courtesy of the Oxofrd English Dictionary
Today's quote is a definition of one of my favorite words--Kismet. As the quotes above suggest, this word of Arabic origin entered the English language in the mid to late 1800s. In English, kismet suggests a kind of magic, good fortune, crossing paths, the perfect alliance of the stars, an overarching order. It has a romantic quality, suggesting that things are "meant to be"--despite all evidence to the contrary.
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"The Discovery of the Business End of the Bees" Chas. H. Yale (d. 1920)
Artist: Friedrich Graetz (1840-1913)
A Digital Experiment in Curation, Exhibition, and Exchange
About Me
- The Honeybee
- "What others did contrive, I carry to my hive." ---Francis Daniel Pastorius (1651-1720)
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This is a virtual commonplace book--a collection of favorite (or at least evocative) quotations taken from my readings with brief commentary/interpretation. While I have kept a "paper hive" for years, I am now experimenting with this online journal as a means of exploring how the flexibility of the digital format suggests common interests & styles across radically different subjects, genres and time periods. While all of my commentaries are impromptu, I will occasionally plan to post a "series" on a given topic. For the most part, however, I have found it most fascinating to allow my blog to remain relatively desultory and to allow the labeling function to reveal these connections. There is an element of surprise to the virtual format that I could not anticipate in producing my paper copy. Please use the label function to search for quotes under a given topic. Or "search the blog" for your interests.
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Chas. H. Yale's Fantastic Spectacle, or, The Evil Eye (1898)
"The Discovery of the Business End of the Bees" Chas. H. Yale (d. 1920)
Picnic Scene
Artist: Friedrich Graetz (1840-1913)
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