Quotes about luck
56 quotes from 47 people
No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.
E. B. White1899–1985Here is New York (1949)Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances… Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882The Conduct of Life (1860), Worship
Sophocles496–406 BCAjax, Lines 550–551 (tr. R. C. Jebb, 1896)There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.
Euripides481–407 BCIphigenia in Tauris, ll. 721–722 (Bartlett’s, 1892)Skill is a function of chance. It’s an intuitive best-use of chance situations.
Philip K. Dick1928–1982Solar Lottery (1955), Chapter 5 (p. 60)
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.The gods throw the dice, and they don’t ask whether we want to be in the game or not.
Paulo Coelhoborn 1947By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), p. 198
Paul Erdős1913–1996My Brain Is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos (1998) by Bruce Schechter, p. 99
Herodotus484–425 BCThe Histories, Book 7, Ch. 49.Luck’s just another word for destiny…either you make your own or you’re screwed.
John le Carré1931–2020The Mission Song (2006)
Isaac Asimov1920–1992“The Planet that Wasn’t” originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (May 1975)Oftentimes a reverse has but made room for more prosperous fortune.
Seneca the Younger5 BC–AD 65Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XCI: On the Lesson to be Drawn From the Burning of Lyons
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry1900–1944Vol de Nuit (1931) (translated into English as Night Flight)In the fields of observation chance favours only the prepared mind.
Louis Pasteur1822–1895Lecture, University of Lille (7 December 1854)