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Quotes

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

—Charlotte Brontë, 1847

Luck is believing you’re lucky. 

—William Carlos Williams, 1947

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

—Martin Luther, c. 1540

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

—Oscar Wilde, 1895

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

—Cormac McCarthy, 2005

Casting lots causes contentions to cease, and keeps the mighty apart.

—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BC

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1610

It is so difficult not to become vain about one’s own good luck.

—Simone de Beauvoir, 1963

Fortune resists half-hearted prayers. 

—Ovid, 8

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

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

—Seneca the Younger, c. 45

A self-made man is one who believes in luck and sends his son to Oxford.

—Christina Stead, 1938