Archive

Quotes

’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

Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.

—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BC

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

—Cormac McCarthy, 2005

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

—Christina Stead, 1938

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

Good or ill fortune is very little at our disposal.

—David Hume, 1742

Luck takes the step that no one sees.

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

Luck is believing you’re lucky. 

—William Carlos Williams, 1947

We do not suffer by accident. 

—Jane Austen, 1813

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

—E.B. White, 1944

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

—Samuel Butler, c. 1890
  •