quotations about fortune
The wheel of Fortune, like that of a ship, is full of spokes, and sometimes flies so sharply round as to crush those who have become puffed up with her favours, so that they burst at the first tap; whilst such as are nourished, instead of bloated, by the stream of prosperity, escape by slipping between the spokes until the pressure has passed, their moderation providing their safeguard.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims
I must claim Fortune is a perverse hag until she kisses me upon the lips.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Fortune may raise up or abuse the ordinary mortal, but the sage and the soldier should have minds beyond her control.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
Tale of the Crusaders
We should enjoy good fortune while we have it, like the fruits of autumn.
EPICTETUS
Fragments
Fortune has been considered the guardian divinity of fools; and, on this score, she has been accused of blindness; but it should rather be adduced as a proof of her sagacity, when she helps those who cannot help themselves.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Fortune makes a fool of him whom she favors too much.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
Fortune is a finite resource, and all the hard work can fall apart at the drop of a dime if Lady Luck decides to turn the tides in someone else's favour.
ANONYMOUS
"L for Luck", World SBK, June 13, 2019
Fortune, like a coy mistress, loves to yield her favors, though she makes us wrest them from her.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
A fool having enjoyed good fortune like intoxication to a great amount becomes more foolish.
EPICTETUS
Fragments
For God's love, take things patiently, have sense,
Think! We are prisoners and shall always be.
Fortune has given us this adversity,
Some wicked planetary dispensation,
Some Saturn's trick or evil constellation
Has given us this, and Heaven, though we had sworn
The contrary, so stood when we were born.
We must endure it, that's the long and short.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
The Canterbury Tales
Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.
SAMUEL SMILES
Self-Help
Fortune makes many loans, but gives no presents.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
They say fortune is a woman and capricious. But sometimes she is a good woman, and gives to those who merit.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
Those who have been indulged by fortune and have always thought of calamity as what happens to others, feel a blind incredulous rage at the reversal of their lot, and half believe that their wild cries will alter the course of the storm.
GEORGE ELIOT
Daniel Deronda
I am the child of Fortune, the giver of good, and I shall not be shamed. She is my mother; my sisters are the Seasons; my rising and my falling match with theirs.
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus Rex