Coincidence

ACoincidenceis a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or paranormal claims. Or it may lead to belief in fatalism, which is a doctrine that events will happen in the exact manner of a predetermined plan.

Quotes

• People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.
  • Isaac Asimov,"The Planet that Wasn't" originally published inThe Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction(May 1975)

• A “strange coincidence,” to use a phrase
  By which such things are settled nowadays.
  • George Gordon,Lord Byron(1788-1824), British poet.Don Juan.Canto vi. Stanza 78

• This is just too much of a coincidence to be coincidence.
  • Geoff Chester of the Naval Observatory in Washington, in connection with a boom and flash of light seen over Virginia Sunday night (March 29, 2009) during the same time frame the second stage of the Soyuz rocket launched the prior Thursday was slated to return to Earth.
  • Quoted inAndrea Thompson,Mystery flash traced to Russian space junkMSNBC, Mar. 30, 2009.

• Of course, I’m only indulging in mankind’s vice of trying to make a symbol out of coincidence.
  • Philip José Farmer,The Fabulous Riverboat(1971), Chapter 6

• “It was a coincidence.”
  “I don’t believe in coincidences.”
  “Neither do I. That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?”
  • Jasper Fforde,The Eyre Affair(2001), Chapter 8

• My liveliest interest is not so much in things, as in relations of things. I have spent much time thinking about the alleged pseudo-relations that are called coincidences. What if some of them should not be coincidences? My liveliest interest is not so much in things, as in relations of things. I have spent much time thinking about the alleged pseudo-relations that are called coincidences. What if some of them should not be coincidences?
  • Charles Fort,Wild Talents,ch. 2 (1932)

• By the laws of statistics we could probably approximate just how unlikely it is that it would happen. But people forget—especially those who ought to know better, such as yourself—that while the laws of statistics tell you how unlikely a particular coincidence is, they state just as firmly that coincidences do happen.
  • Robert A. Heinlein,The Door Into Summer,ch. 8 (1957)

• Coincidence may be described as the chance encounter of two unrelated causal chains which — miraculously, it seems — merge into a significant event.
  • Arthur Koestler(1905–1983), Hungarian-born British author. “Janus: A Summing Up”,Bricks to Babel: Selected Writings,with Comments by the Author (1980)

• Coincidence is a pimp and a cardsharper in ordinary fiction but a marvelous artist in the patterns of facts recollected by a non-ordinary memorist.
  • Vladimir Nabokov(1899–1977), Russian émigré American novelist and poet.Look at the Harlequins!Pt. VI, Ch. 1 (1974)

• If Tom had learned anything, it was that you can't ascribe great cosmic significance to a simple Earthly event. Coincidence, that's all anything ever is. Nothing more, than coincidence. Tom had finally learned there are no miracles, there is no such thing as fate, nothing is meant to be. He knew, he was sure of it now. Tom was.. he was pretty sure.
  • Narrator in(500) Days of Summer,written byScott NeustadterandMichael H. Weber(2009)

• Most coincidences are simply chance events that turn out to be far more probable than many people imagine.
  • Ivars Peterson (1997).The Jungles of Randomness.John Wiley & Sons. p. 188.ISBN 0-471-29587-6.

• It is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur.
  • Plutarch,Parallel Lives,vol. II, "Sertorius"

• The First Insight occurs when we become conscious of the coincidences in our lives... Coincidences are happening more and more frequently and that, when they do, they strike us as beyond what would be expected by pure chance... They feeldestined,as though our lives had been guided by some unexplained force. The experience induces a feeling ofmysteryandexcitementand, as a result, we feel morealive.... More people every day are convinced that this mysterious movement is real and that it means something, that something else is going on beneath everyday life. Thisawarenessis the First Insight... a reconsideration of the inherent mystery that surrounds our individual lives on this planet. We are experiencing these mysterious coincidences, and even though we don't understand them yet, we know they are real. We are sensing again, as in childhood, that there is another side of life that we have yet to discover, some other process operating behind the scenes. p. 8
  • The Celestine Prophecy,byJames Redfield,(1993)

• Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.
  • Tom Shadyac,Director's commentary forDragonfly

• The laws of probability not only permit coincidences; they absolutely insist on them.
  • Charles Sheffield,Rogueworld(1983), reprinted inThe Compleat McAndrew(2000),ISBN 0-671-57857-X,p. 223

• In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted.
  • Rex Stout,Champagne for One(1958)

• I have told you before there is no escaping the nature of the universe. it is that nature that has again brought you to me. Where some see 'coincidence', I see 'consequence'. Where others see 'chance', I see 'cost'.
  • The Merovingian, inThe Matrix Revolutions,written by theWachowski Brothers(2003)

• “Fifty-nine,” Mr. Mowen said. “That’s too many coincidences to just be a coincidence.”
  • Connie Willis,Blued Moon(originally published inAsimov's Science Fiction,January 1984)

See also

• The Celestine Prophecy
• Serendipity
• Synchronicity