quotations about fortune
Fortune is like the market, where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Delays," Essays
If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Fortune," Essays
Fortune's a fickle jade. If she does not say yes the first five times you ask her, ask her twenty-five times. After a while she will favor you, for she loves importunity.
FRANK CRANE
"Ten Success Hunches," Four Minute Essays
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Only he has a right to complain of undeserved misfortune, that is unwilling to accept undeserved good fortune.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
He that hath no ill Fortune will be troubled with good.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1754
The life which is implicated with fortune (depends on fortune) is like a winter torrent: for it is turbulent, and full of mud, and difficult to cross, and tyrannical, and noisy, and of short duration.
EPICTETUS
Fragments
Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me,
I have a soul that, like an ample shield,
Can take in all, and verge enough for more....
Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate's....
Souls know no conquerors.
JOHN DRYDEN
Don Sebastian
He that waits upon Fortune, is never sure of a Dinner.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1734
Oh, wheel of fortune
Please don't pass me by
Let me know the magic
Of a kiss and a sigh
DINAH WASHINGTON
"Wheel of Fortune"
Forbear harping on what was of yore, for it is the common lot of mortals to sustain the ups and downs of fortune.
AESOP
"The Charger and the Miller", Aesop's Fables
[Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?
CHINUA ACHEBE
A Man of the People
On Fortune's cap we are not the very button.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
Fortune, until now kind to me, begins to wear a frowning face.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Merope
Raillery against fortune is the common eloquence of disappointment and misguided ambition.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
A good fortune may forbode a bad luck, which may in turn disguise a good fortune.
CHINESE PROVERB
All good fortune is a gift of the gods, and you don't win the favor of the ancient gods by being good, but by being bold.
ANITA BROOKNER
The Paris Review, fall 1987
Fortune cast a curse
I knew it would
Fortune bury you
I knew it would
LITTLE DRAGON
"Fortune", Machine Dreams
We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Thomas
What is Fortune, what is Fame?
Futile gold and phantom name--
Riches buried in a cave,
Glory written on a grave.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"The Talisman"