In Act V Scene ii of Hamlet, Laertes has challenged Hamlet to a duel, and Horatio acts as the last advocate for Hamlet to acknowledge his true nature that he has long denied himself. Hamlet has just dismissed his true feelings as a woman's misgivings, saying "how ill all's here about my heart: but it is no matter." Horatio has told Hamlet, "If your mind dislike anything, obey it..." entreating Hamlet, if he is to deny his feelings, to at least deny his thoughts no longer. Hamlet rejects Horatio's plea through a dismissal of the significance of this choice and the significance of his own being, and so ensconces himself further within his chosen philosophy, sealing his fate.
Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special providence in
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be
not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come:
the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves,
what is't to leave betimes?
Hamlet recognizes that while there is fate, there is also the human desire to decide it for ourselves.
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well,In the end, it seems we are but little birds, knowing not of what we will leave, yet free to live our lives intentionally, recklessly, and fatefully.
When our deep plots do fail; and that should teach us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.