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I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
By a chance bond together,
Dangling this way and that, their links
Were made so loose and wide,
Methinks,
For milder weather.

— Henry David Thoreau

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Luck

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

Journals (1838)

Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God himself.

Journals (1838)

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.

Life Without Principle (1863)

None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.

Walden (1854)

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In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.

Louis Pasteur

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night (1601)

O Fortune, cruellest of heavenly powers,
Why make such game of this poor life of ours?

Horace Satires (-35)

Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Henry David Thoreau (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.