Archive

Quotes

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

—Oscar Wilde, 1895

It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear. 

—Charlotte Brontë, 1847

’Tis not a ridiculous devotion to say a prayer before a game at tables?

—Thomas Browne, 1642

Good or ill fortune is very little at our disposal.

—David Hume, 1742

Those who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance.

—Calvin Coolidge, 1932

Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.

—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BC

Good fortune is light as a feather, but nobody knows how to hold it up. Misfortune is heavy as the earth, but nobody knows how to stay out of its way.

—Zhuangzi, c. 300 BC

Misfortune, n. The kind of fortune that never misses.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.

—Mark Twain, 1897

Survivors look back and see omens, messages they missed.

—Joan Didion, 2005

We do not suffer by accident. 

—Jane Austen, 1813

Luck takes the step that no one sees.

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

To put one’s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.

—Samuel Butler, c. 1890