Archive

Quotes

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

—Christina Stead, 1938

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

—E.B. White, 1944

Luck, in the great game of war, is undoubtedly lord of all.

—Arthur Griffiths, 1899

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

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.

—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BC

Survivors look back and see omens, messages they missed.

—Joan Didion, 2005

Some folks want their luck buttered.

—Thomas Hardy, 1886

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

—Simone de Beauvoir, 1963

Nothing is as obnoxious as other people’s luck.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1938

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

—Thomas Browne, 1642

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

—Charlotte Brontë, 1847

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

—Calvin Coolidge, 1932

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

—Martin Luther, c. 1540