Casting lots causes contentions to cease, and keeps the mighty apart.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BCQuotes
You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.
—Cormac McCarthy, 2005Fortune resists half-hearted prayers.
—Ovid, 8’Tis not a ridiculous devotion to say a prayer before a game at tables?
—Thomas Browne, 1642Luck, in the great game of war, is undoubtedly lord of all.
—Arthur Griffiths, 1899Survivors look back and see omens, messages they missed.
—Joan Didion, 2005Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
—E.B. White, 1944Misfortune, n. The kind of fortune that never misses.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906It is so difficult not to become vain about one’s own good luck.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1963It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.
—Charlotte Brontë, 1847Those who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance.
—Calvin Coolidge, 1932Good 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 BCThere 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