Quotes about fortune
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Adam Smith photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Hemu photo
T.S. Eliot photo
Salvador Dalí photo
David Packard photo

“Set out to build a company and make a contribution, not an empire and a fortune.”

David Packard (1912–1996) American electrical engineer, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, businessman, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense,…

Source: Bill & Dave, 2007, p. 394

Harry Turtledove photo
Hans Rosling photo
Joanna Baillie photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

The Guardian [UK] (23 May 1992)

Joseph Story photo
Justin Trudeau photo
Anzia Yezierska photo
Bell Hooks photo
Robert E. Howard photo
Thomas Hobbes photo

“Fact be vertuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth;”

The Second Part, Chapter 27, p. 153
Leviathan (1651)

Nina Paley photo
Harlan Ellison photo
Eugène Delacroix photo
Paul Simon photo
Tom DeLay photo

“Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist.”

Tom DeLay (1947) American Republican politician

From the Congressional Record, H3706 [1996 April 23] http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=93746225856+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve.
1990s

Rick Warren photo
Jane Espenson photo
Matt Dillon photo
Fay Weldon photo
Mario Vargas Llosa photo
Gillian Anderson photo

“Get out of the house. Find other human beings to communicate with. Read a book. Do yoga. Meditate. Be of service. That is one of the biggest single most things to get one out of oneself, is being of service to people who are less fortunate than ourselves.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

When asked for a motivational advice — Reddit "The Reigning Queen of TV" here. Also known as "mom." Gillian Anderson here, AMA." https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/20cavl/the_reigning_queen_of_tv_here_also_known_as_mom/#cg1tob1 (March 13, 2014)
2010s

“Fortune is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 274
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Democritus photo
André Maurois photo
William Hazlitt photo
Francis Parkman photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Jonathan Swift photo
Thiruvalluvar photo
G. K. Chesterton photo
Nicolas Steno photo

“There are those among us who would have us say that the mysteries of the brain are completely solved and little needs to be added to its knowledge. It is as if these fortunate persons had been present when this magnificent organ was created.”

Nicolas Steno (1638–1686) Pioneer in anatomy and geology, bishop

quoted in Minds Behind the Brain. A History of the Pioneers and Their Discoveries by S. Finger, 2000

Herbert Hoover photo
Winthrop Mackworth Praed photo
Denise Scott Brown photo
Ludovico Ariosto photo

“The higher up on Fortune's wheel you see
A wretch ascend, the sooner he will fall,
And where his head is now, his feet will be.”

Quanto più su l'instabil ruota vedi
Di Fortuna ire in alto il miser uomo,
Tanto più tosto hai da vedergli i piedi
Ove ora ha il capo, e far cadendo il tomo.
Canto XLV, stanza 1 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Julius Streicher photo
Stendhal photo

“In our calling, we have to choose; we must make our fortune either in this world or in the next, there is no middle way.”

Dans notre état, il faut opter; il s'agit de faire fortune dans ce monde ou dans l'autre, il n'y a pas de milieu.
Vol. I, ch. VIII
Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black) (1830)

John Buchan photo
John Oliver photo
Appius Claudius Caecus photo

“But experience has shown that to be true which Appius says in his verses, that every man is the architect of his own fortune.”
Sed res docuit id verum esse, quod in carminibus Appius ait, fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae.

Appius Claudius Caecus Roman politician

Sallust, Epistulae ad Caesarem senem, I.1.2

Aurangzeb photo

“By looting, the temples of the South and hunting out buried treasures, Mir Jumla amassed a vast fortune. The huge Hindu idols of copper were brought away in large numbers to be melted and cast into cannon…..”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

1661. Koch Bihar (Bengal) , Fathiyya-i-Ibriyya cited by Sarkar, Jadu Nath, History of Aurangzeb, quoted in Goel, S.R. Hindu temples What Happened to them https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.62677/page/n171
Quotes from late medieval histories

Warren G. Harding photo
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor photo

“Fortune have somewhat the nature of a woman; if she be too much wooed, she is the farther off.”

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) Holy Roman Emperor

Source: As quoted in The Advancement of Learning (1605), Book II, by Francis Bacon

Kunti photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“Some fortunate, prolific writers seem to be able, efficiently, to keep several projects going at once; it appears I am not one of them.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

Geek Speak Magazine Interview (2010)

Augustus De Morgan photo
Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan photo
Margot Asquith photo

“Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.”

Margot Asquith (1864–1945) Anglo-Scottish socialite, author and wit

The Autobiography of Margot Asquith (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963) p. 249. (1922).

Jeff Flake photo
Guru Arjan photo
Arundhati Roy photo

“The tradition of "turkey pardoning" in the US is a wonderful allegory for new racism. Every year, the National Turkey Federation presents the US president with a turkey for Thanksgiving. Every year, in a show of ceremonial magnanimity, the president spares that particular bird (and eats another one). After receiving the presidential pardon, the Chosen One is sent to Frying Pan Park in Virginia to live out its natural life. The rest of the 50 million turkeys raised for Thanksgiving are slaughtered and eaten on Thanksgiving Day. ConAgra Foods, the company that has won the Presidential Turkey contract, says it trains the lucky birds to be sociable, to interact with dignitaries, school children and the press.

That's how new racism in the corporate era works. A few carefully bred turkeys - the local elites of various countries, a community of wealthy immigrants, investment bankers, the occasional Colin Powell, or Condoleezza Rice, some singers, some writers (like myself) - are given absolution and a pass to Frying Pan Park.
The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, have their water and electricity connections cut, and die of AIDS. Basically, they're for the pot. But the fortunate fowls in Frying Pan Park are doing fine. Some of them even work for the IMF and the World Trade Organisation - so who can accuse those organisations of being anti-turkey? Some serve as board members on the Turkey Choosing Committee - so who can say that turkeys are against Thanksgiving? They participate in it! Who can say the poor are anti-corporate globalisation? There's a stampede to get into Frying Pan Park. So what if most perish on the way?”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

From a speech http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/569/569p12.htm given at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, 16 January 2004
Speeches

Alan Shepard photo
Thomas Browne photo
N. Gregory Mankiw photo
Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd photo

“One I have loved, uneluding, dearly possessed,
Two I have wooed, by greater praise be they blessed –
Three, yea, and four, with fortune lavish of gold,
Five maidens I've won their white flesh fair to behold,
And six more bright than the sun on my city's strong walls
With never a treacherous rede to blemish delight;
Seven by heaven! though hardly won was the fight –
Yea eight of whom I have sung: but to bridle the tongue
Lest heedless a careless word slip – the teeth they are strong!”

Keueisy vun dunn diwyrnawd;
keueisy dwy, handid mwy eu molawd;
keueisy deir a pheddir a phawd;
keueisy bymp o rei gwymp eu gwyngnawd;
keueisy chwech heb odech pechawd;
gwen glaer uch gwengaer yt ym daerhawd;
keueisy sseith ac ef gweith gordygnawd;
keueisy wyth yn hal pwyth peth or wawd yr geint;
ys da deint rac tauaed.
"Gorhoffedd" (The Boast), line 75; translation from Robert Gurney Bardic Heritage (London: Chatto & Windus, 1969) p. 41.

Martin Farquhar Tupper photo

“Who shall guess what I may be?
Who can tell my fortune to me?
For, bravest and brightest that ever was sung
May be — and shall be — the lot of the young!”

Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–1889) English writer and poet

The Song of Sixteen, l. 1-4.
Ballads for the Times (1851)

Thomas Piketty photo

“Fortune is like glass—the brighter the glitter, the more easily broken.”
Fortuna vitrea est: tum cum splendet frangitur.

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 280
Sentences

Winston S. Churchill photo
Diogenes Laërtius photo

“He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Bion, 50.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 4: The Academy

Pliny the Younger photo

“Such are the vicissitudes of our mortal lot: misfortune is born of prosperity, and good fortune of ill-luck.”
Habet has vices conditio mortalium, ut adversa ex secundis, ex adversis secunda nascantur.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

V.
Panegyricus

Gloria Estefan photo
Richard Cobden photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Attributed to Hitler, without source, in a 1992 book of quotations https://books.google.com/books?id=FwICBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT96&dq=%22the+people+they+administer+don%27t+think%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic_p2MxqfLAhUBE2MKHTC-CgQQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20people%20they%20administer%20don't%20think%22&f=false.
Disputed

“Fortunes made buying and selling securities have underwritten economic revolutions.”

Aaron C. Brown (1956) American financial analyst

Source: The Poker Face of Wall Street (2006), Chapter 4, A Brief History of Risk Denial, p. 82 (See also: Rothchilds..)

Colin Wilson photo
Benvenuto Cellini photo

“I own it is a common saying, that every reverse of fortune teaches us how to behave on another occasion; but that is not true, as the circumstances which attend each event are different, and such as could not be foreseen.”

Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) Florentine sculptor and goldsmith

http://books.google.com/books?id=FnAEAAAAYAAJ&q=%22I+own+it+is+a+common+saying+that+every+reverse+of+fortune+teaches+us+how+to+behave+on+another+occasion+but+that+is+not+true+as+the+circumstances+which+attend+each+event+are+different+and+such+as+could+not+be+foreseen%22&pg=PA321#v=onepage
Gli è ben vero che si dice Tu imparerai per un'altra volta: questo non vale perchè la vien sempre con modi diversi e non mai immaginati.
http://books.google.com/books?id=AIEOAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Gli+%C3%A8+ben+vero+che+si+dice+Tu+imparerai+per+un'altra+volta+questo+non+vale+perch%C3%A8+la+vien+sempre+con+modi+diversi+e+non+mai+immaginati%22&pg=PA181#v=onepage
Autobiography, vol. 2, ch. 9

Benjamin Franklin photo

“Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

"On True Happiness", Pennsylvania Gazette (20 November 1735).
1730s

Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde Deshoulières photo

“No one is satisfied with his fortune, nor dissatisfied with his intellect.”

Nul n'est content de sa fortune;
Ni mécontent de son esprit.
from Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 690

Chiaki Mukai photo
Friedrich List photo

“We have already observed that the fortunes or misfortunes of individuals are dependent upon the maintenance of the independence and progress of the whole nation.”

Friedrich List (1789–1846) German economist with dual American citizenship

Source: The Natural System of Political Economy (1837), p. 33

James Fenimore Cooper photo
Akihito photo
Phyllis Schlafly photo

“American women are the most fortunate class of people who ever lived on the face of the earth. We can do anything we want to do.”

Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016) American activist

Cultural Conservatism and the Religious Right https://www.c-span.org/video/?c3858491/phyllis-schlafly, C-SPAN.org (April 4, 2012)

Erick Avari photo

“I have learned so much from every director and actor I have ever worked with. I have been fortunate to have worked with some of the greats of our era and I was always cognizant of the fact that I was getting a free education every time at bat. I think you learn so much from just observing and being privy to the conversations that move the creative process forward.”

Erick Avari (1952) Indian actor

Playing Elrktra's Father and Encountering The Mummy: A Chat with Actor Erick Avari https://podcastingthemsoftly.com/2015/11/17/playing-elektras-father-and-encountering-the-mummy-a-chat-with-actor-erick-avari/ (November 17, 2015)

Andrew Dickson White photo
Martin Landau photo
F. Anstey photo
Glen Cook photo
Linda McQuaig photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“3400. Men never think their Fortune too great, nor their Wit too little.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Nigel Cumberland photo

“You might look at someone successful and think they got lucky – a case of being in the right place at the right time perhaps? The truth is, every piece of good fortune is the result of hours, or even years, of hard work and preparation.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Lawrence H. Summers photo

“…it’s important to remember how fortunate we are as a country to have a currency and a bond market that is seen in every way as a source of strength and it’s a huge responsibility for us to keep it that way.”

Lawrence H. Summers (1954) Former US Secretary of the Treasury

Tom Braithwaite (April 9, 2009) "Summers sees end to ‘sense of free-fall’" http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f4f1ac1c-2537-11de-8a66-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1, Financial Times
2000s

Newton Lee photo
Mukesh Ambani photo
Ben Gibbard photo
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge photo

“We’re very lucky. You know, we have lots of things that we are very fortunate to have. You know, we have a house, you know? We have, you know, all these sort of nice things around us. And so, you know, we’re grateful for that because so many people don’t have that. We have, you know, relative stability and stuff like that. And, you know, lots of things that, you know, everyone would, you know, love to have.”

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (1982) a member of the British royal family

Response to the question "What’s the coolest thing about being a prince?" in an interview with Matt Lauer of NBC News, as quoted in FishbowlNY (15 June 2007) http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/whats-the-coolest-thing-about-being-a-prince_b5228