Source: Euphues (Arber [1580]), P. 104. Compare: "The main chance", William Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI, act i, sc. 1.; Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part ii' canto ii.; John Dryden, Persius, satire vi.
“… the fear of God together with a keen eye for the main chance.”
Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) American philosopher
Chap XXXV. (Among the traits Barton Perry lists as being possessed by Americans and inherited from British Puritans.)
The Present Conflict of Ideals: A Study of the Philosophical Background of the World War (1918)
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
Home Burial (1915)
Context: A man must partly give up being a man
With womenfolk. We could have some arrangement
By which I'd bind myself to keep hands off
Anything special you're a-mind to name.
Though I don't like such things 'twixt those that love.
Two that don't love can't live together without them.
But two that do can't live together with them."
She moved the latch a little. "Don't — don't go.
Don't carry it to someone else this time.
Tell me about it if it's something human.
Let me into your grief. I'm not so much
Unlike other folks as your standing there
Apart would make me out. Give me my chance.
“I know what's what, and have always taken care of the main chance.”
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 9.
“Good soldiers stay alive by being unsentimental and having a quick eye for the main chance.”
Michael Shea book Nifft the Lean
Part 2, “The Pearls of the Vampire Queen,” Chapter 8 (p. 105)
Nifft the Lean (1982)
“The censorship is such on television in the US that films like mine don't stand a chance.”
John Pilger (1939) Australian journalist
(2002) [author, http://www.sprword.com/mustwatch.html, Must Watch - Sprword.com - Spread the Word, Sprword.com, 2007-02-13, 2010-01-14]
“Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”
Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic
William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician
Introduction, The Nature of Probability Theory, p. 3.
An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition)
Charles E. Gannon (1960) American novelist
Source: Trial by Fire (2014), Chapter 56 (p. 814)
