Archive

Quotes

Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.

—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BC

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

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1610

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

—Charlotte Brontë, 1847

We do not suffer by accident. 

—Jane Austen, 1813

Some folks want their luck buttered.

—Thomas Hardy, 1886

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

—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BC

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

—Christina Stead, 1938

Fortune resists half-hearted prayers. 

—Ovid, 8

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

—Seneca the Younger, c. 45

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

—Samuel Butler, c. 1890

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

—Oscar Wilde, 1895

Nothing is as obnoxious as other people’s luck.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1938