“Opportunity, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.”
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
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Ambrose Bierce 204
American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabu… 1842–1914Related quotes

This seems to be a paraphrase sumarizing a speech at the Carrie Tuggle Institute, Birmingham, as described in Thinking Black: Some of the Nation's Best Black Columnists Speak Their Mind (1997) by DeWayne Wickham
Misattributed

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 167.

“We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.”
Tancred, Chapter 46.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

1860s, Speech to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio (1861), Commercial version

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 62.
Context: Oh, wonderful teacher! Oh, favored disciples! Oh, famous school — that built no marble halls, and collected no grand library, but turned all life into opportunity; made houses and streets and seaside and mountain-tops, places of discipline and recitation and delight! Oh, blest example — shining this day on the pages of history — our example, our dream, our desire!

Source: 1910s, An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), ch. 1.