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Quotes

Luck is believing you’re lucky. 

—William Carlos Williams, 1947

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

—Calvin Coolidge, 1932

Nothing is as obnoxious as other people’s luck.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1938

We do not suffer by accident. 

—Jane Austen, 1813

Some folks want their luck buttered.

—Thomas Hardy, 1886

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

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.

—Cormac McCarthy, 2005

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

—Charlotte Brontë, 1847

Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.

—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BC

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

Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.

—E.B. White, 1944

When the abbot throws the dice, the whole convent will play.

—Martin Luther, c. 1540

To hold a throne is luck; to bestow it, virtue.

—Seneca the Younger, c. 45