Luck Quotes

This page is about fortune in the old sense. Shakespeare leads, followed by Seneca, Livy, La Rochefoucauld and Publilius Syrus. Horace’s Satires have the line that opens the sourced list, an appeal to Fortune as the cruellest of heavenly powers for making game of life. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (1776) has vicissitudes of fortune that bury empires and cities in a common grave, and Thomas Gray, in 1761, wrote of a man too poor for a bribe and too proud to importune, who did not have the method of making a fortune.

Three entries are flagged misattributed. “Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when He did not want to sign” is credited to Anatole France, and two passages are credited to Torquato Tasso, one about the fortunate extolling fortune and another comparing a day of fortune to a harvest.

Random quote on Luck

Most quoted on luck:

Trump obviously never meant to impose a wealth test on his administration, or he would have failed it himself. He is proof that a fortune isn’t necessarily an obstacle to being a champion of an agenda of populist reform.

Rich Lowry No, the Swamp Won't Be Drained (2016)

Nothing happens by chance, my friend... No such thing as luck. A meaning behind every little thing, and such a meaning behind this. Part for you, part for me, we may not see it all real clear right now, but we will, before long.

Richard Bach Nothing by Chance: A Gypsy Pilot's Adventures in Modern America (1969)

Krapp: Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now.

Samuel Beckett Krapp's Last Tape (1958)

It is a common proverb, beauteous princess, that diligence is the mother of good fortune.

Miguel de Cervantes El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

Miguel de Cervantes El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)