People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. George Bernard Shaw
Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances. Ralph Waldo Emerson
understanding the true nature of instinctive decision making requires us to be forgiving of those people trapped in circumstances where good judgment is imperiled. Malcolm Gladwell
The death of John Pennington had left his widow in circumstances which were more straitened than ever, and the Park had receded even from her notepaper, where it had long been retained as a courtesy title on the principle that addresses are given to us to conceal our whereabouts. Saki
In circumstances where the law of force prevails, where security depends on power alone, the weakest party is naturally the most busy to place itself in a posture of defense. Friedrich Schiller
As a civilian during the Second War, I was exposed to danger in circumstances which removed any distinction between the man in and the man out of uniform. Lester B. Pearson