Quotations about Luck
Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer'd. ~William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, c.1609
Luck has a longer reach than wisdom. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have. ~Coleman Cox, 1922 [quoteinvestigator.com]
Luck has a peculiar habit of connecting with the man on the move... ~L. W. Allwyn-Schmidt, 1919
Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: It was somebody's name, or he happened to be there at the time, or, it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect. The man was born to do it, and his father was born to be the father of him and of this deed, and, by looking narrowly, you shall see there was no luck in the matter, but it was all a problem in arithmetic, or an experiment in chemistry. The curve of the flight of the moth is preordained, and all things go by number, rule, and weight. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I was... blaspheming my luck in a way that made my breath smell of brimstone. ~Mark Twain, 1913
He was a lucky man, and the lucky man is the man the world delights to honour. ~Cecilia Blake, "A Never-to-be-forgotten Day," Cecile Raye: An Autobiography, 1868
Fortune makes many loans, but gives no presents. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
I heard a fellow say, this morn, "I've had hard luck since I was born." Yet he was fixed with hands and feet, and health so good 'twas hard to beat. While he bemoaned his gloomy fate, and tried to keep his grouch on straight, and while some maudlin tears he shed, an ailing cripple forged ahead, ambition glowing in his eyes, and gathered in a handsome prize. A blind man, groping in the dark, in human annals made his mark. A sick man, toiling with his pen, produced a book that drew from men so loud a burst of honest praise, as cheered the balance of his days. A thousand brave, undaunted chaps, borne down by grievous handicaps, were struggling up life's rugged steep, too full of hopeful plans to weep. How pitiful the man who stands, with active lungs and idle hands, complaining of the luck he's had, since he was but a knee-high lad! ~Walt Mason (1862–1939), "The Luckless Man"
No one will dispute me when I say that the only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work. ~Harry Golden
If you feel you are down on your luck, check the level of your effort. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
He who is always unlucky, had better do nothing. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
When Providence favors, you can make a safe voyage on a twig. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
Fortune has more power over a man than his own forethought. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.... They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. ~William Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, c.1600
Happiness is a well-balanced combination of love, labour, and luck. ~Mary Wilson Little, Reveries of a Paragrapher, 1897
A rainbow on Friday is the best of luck. It will cure a broken promise. ~Folk-Lore from Maryland, collected by Annie Weston Whitney and Caroline Canfield Bullock, 1925
It is good luck to be born on Friday. ~Folk-Lore from Maryland, collected by Annie Weston Whitney and Caroline Canfield Bullock, 1925
It is good luck to be born on the 26th day of the month. ~Folk-Lore from Maryland, collected by Annie Weston Whitney and Caroline Canfield Bullock, 1925
...it may interest those who wish to marry to know that the luckiest day and month for marriages is by superstitious people held to be the thirty-first of December. ~"All the Year Round: December," All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal Conducted by Charles Dickens, 1887
Fortune is a centaur —
half man, half luck.
~Terri Guillemets, "Hoofprints," 2019
In science as in the lottery, luck favors he who wagers the most — that is... the one who is tilling constantly the ground in his garden. If Pasteur discovered bacterial vaccines by accident, he was assisted by genius. ~Santiago Ramón y Cajal, "What Newcomers to Biological Research Should Know," Advice for a Young Investigator, 1899, translated by Neely Swanson and Larry W. Swanson, 1999