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Quotes about luck

56 quotes from 47 people

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There was no difference between the behavior of a god and the operations of pure chance.
Thomas Pynchonborn 1937Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), Pt. 3
- God
There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox1850–1919“Will,” included in Maurine: And Other Poems, p. 145 (1882)
- Motivation & Goals
Luck can often mean simply taking advantage of a situation at the right moment. It is possible to make your luck by being always prepared.
MKMichael Kordaborn 1933Success! (1977), p. 40
I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into.
Warren Buffettborn 1930To Barack Obama, as quoted in The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006), Ch. 5
- Success
Learn fortitude and toil from me, my son,
Ache of true toil. Good fortune learn from others.
Virgil70–19 BCAeneid (29–19 BC), Book XII, Lines 435–436 (tr. Robert Fitzgerald)
- Courage
- Work
I have no regrets at all. None. I consider myself to be the luckiest old broad on two feet.
Betty White1922–2021If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t) (2011)
- Age
Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
Lou Gehrig1903–1941Farewell speech on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, Yankee Stadium (4 July 1939)
- Baseball
Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
Jane Austen1775–1817Pride and Prejudice (1813), Volume I, Chapter VIIn context
- Happiness
- Marriage
A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you’d think misfortune would get tired, but then time is your misfortune
William Faulkner1897–1962The Sound and the Fury (1929), June Second, 1910 (2 of 4)In context
- Time
Diligence is the mother of good fortune
Miguel de Cervantes1547–1616Don Quixote (1605–1615), Part I, Chapter XLVIIn context
- Work
It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. In a bomb-proof dug-out I may be smashed to atoms and in the open may survive ten hours’ bombardment unscathed. No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.
Erich Maria Remarque1898–1970All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), Chapter VIIn context
- War & Peace
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars
William Shakespeare1564–1616King Lear (c. 1606), Act I, Scene II, spoken by EdmundIn context
- Responsibility
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Julius Caesar (1599), Act IV, Scene III, spoken by BrutusIn context
- Decisions
Che sera, sera,
What will be, shall be?
Christopher Marlowe1564–1593Doctor Faustus (c. 1592), spoken by FaustusIn context
- Life & Death
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy.
Robert Burns1759–1796To a Mouse (1786)In context
- Failure