Archive

Quotes

Luck is believing you’re lucky. 

—William Carlos Williams, 1947

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

—Simone de Beauvoir, 1963

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

—Christina Stead, 1938

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

—Seneca the Younger, c. 45

Luck takes the step that no one sees.

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

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

—Samuel Butler, c. 1890

Some folks want their luck buttered.

—Thomas Hardy, 1886

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

—Arthur Griffiths, 1899

Good fortune turns aside destruction by a great god.

—Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy, c. 100 BC

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1610

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

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

Fortune resists half-hearted prayers. 

—Ovid, 8

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

—E.B. White, 1944
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