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Quotes

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

—Charlotte Brontë, 1847

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

—Seneca the Younger, c. 45

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

—Martin Luther, c. 1540

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

—Calvin Coolidge, 1932

There 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

We do not suffer by accident. 

—Jane Austen, 1813

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

—Samuel Butler, c. 1890

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

Nothing is as obnoxious as other people’s luck.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1938

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

—Oscar Wilde, 1895

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

—Cormac McCarthy, 2005

Good 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 BC
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