
Other
A collection of quotes on the topic of luck, good, goodness, bad luck.
Other
“Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.”
“They’ll stone ya and then they’ll say, “good luck””
Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
“It's awful bad luck to bring a woman aboard the ship."
"It's awful worse luck not to.”
The Guardian - October 11, 2006 http://www.danradcliffe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23&Itemid=28
Lloyd George is portrayed as saying this, as George Nathaniel Curzon was making a complaint against Raymond Poincaré in the Turkish TV series, Kurtuluş (1994), but no prior citation of such a statement has yet been found.
Misattributed
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLc_MC7NQek&t=0s "2017 Personality 04/05: Heroic and Shamanic Initiations"
“Nothing happens by chance, my friend… No such thing as luck.”
Nothing by Chance: A Gypsy Pilot's Adventures in Modern America (1969)
Context: Nothing happens by chance, my friend... No such thing as luck. A meaning behind every little thing, and such a meaning behind this. Part for you, part for me, we may not see it all real clear right now, but we will, before long.
“Confidence is similar to luck. You can't hold it forever at your service!”
“Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad.”
The Black Prince (1973); 2003, p. 10.
“It's only through sheer force and luck that she's yet to take over the world.”
Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton: The Epilogue II
“Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.”
Source: Lords and Ladies
“In short, luck's always to blame.”
Bref, la fortune a toujours tort.
Book V (1688), fable 11 ( Luck and the Young Child http://books.google.com/books?id=onoa71F7TJ4C&q=%22bref+la+fortune+a+toujours+tort%22&pg=PA141#v=onepage)
Fables (1668–1679)
“I trust to luck and do nothing but work, hoping that all will end well.”
3 February 1944
(1942 - 1944)
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Has been attributed to Seneca since the 1990s (eg. Gregory K. Ericksen, (1999), Women entrepreneurs only: 12 women entrepreneurs tell the stories of their success, page ix.). Other books ascribe the saying to either Darrell K. Royal (former American football player, born 1924) or Elmer G. Letterman (Insurance salesman and writer, 1897-1982). However, it is unlikely either man originated the saying. A version that reads "He is lucky who realizes that luck is the point where preparation meets opportunity" can be found (unattributed) in the 1912 The Youth's Companion: Volume 86. The quote might be a distortion of the following passage by Seneca (who makes no mention of "luck" and is in fact quoting his friend Demetrius the Cynic):<blockquote>"The best wrestler," he would say, "is not he who has learned thoroughly all the tricks and twists of the art, which are seldom met with in actual wrestling, but he who has well and carefully trained himself in one or two of them, and watches keenly for an opportunity of practising them." — Seneca, On Benefits, vii. 1 http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Benefits4.html</blockquote>
Disputed
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book I, Ch. 2.
Quoted by Barbara Leaming, "Orson Welles: The Unfulfilled Promise". The New York Times, July 14, 1985.
Quoted in "The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire" - by John Toland - History - 2003.
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 (2010), p. 380
Unpublished (and probably unsent) letter to the Providence Journal (13 April 1934), quoted in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy, edited by J. T. Joshi, pp. 115-116
Non-Fiction, Letters
Knox College Commencement Address (4 June 2005)
2005
Book The Second Bounce of the Ball (2007)
“In war, luck is half in everything.”
Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
remark by Monet – between 1900 and 1920 – on his 'Water lilies' paintings; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 132
1900 - 1920
P.A.M. Dirac, "Pretty Mathematics," International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 21, Issue 8–9, August 1982, p. 603 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02650229#page-1
Source: The Philosophy of Misery (1846), Chapter I
Source: Quest for prosperity: the life of a Japanese industrialist. 1988, p. 58
BBC Radio Debate on the Existence of God, Russell vs. Copleston (1948)
1940s
1850s, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (1859)
"Notes about Music" (29 March 1946) http://web.archive.org/19991001055247/www.geocities.com/Nashville/3448/music.html also quoted in A Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen (2000) by Bryan K. Garman, p. 244
Context: I have hoped as many hopes and dreamed so many dreams, seen them swept aside by weather, and blown away by men, washed away in my own mistakes, that — I use to wonder if it wouldn't be better just to haul off and quit hoping. Just protect my own inner brain, my own mind and heart, by drawing it up into a hard knot, and not having any more hopes or dreams at all. Pull in my feelings, and call back all of my sentiments — and not let any earthly event move me in either direction, either cause me to hate, to fear, to love, to care, to take sides, to argue the matter at all — and, yet … there are certain good times, and pleasures that I never can forget, no matter how much I want to, because the pleasures, and the displeasures, the good times and the bad, are really all there is to me.
And these pleasures that you cannot ever forget are the yeast that always starts working in your mind again, and it gets in your thoughts again, and in your eyes again, and then, all at once, no matter what has happened to you, you are building a brand new world again, based and built on the mistakes, the wreck, the hard luck and trouble of the old one.
“It's courage, not luck, that takes us through to the end of the road.”
“If there's one thing on this planet you don't look like it's a bunch of good luck walkin around.”
Source: No Country for Old Men
Source: Lucky Star
“He was just a coward and that was the worst luck any man could have.”
Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), Ch. 30
“There's no luck in business. There's only drive, determination, and more drive.”
Source: Shopaholic Takes Manhattan
Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
“My bad luck got tangled up with my bad decisions, and I'm paying for it.”
Source: The Wise Man's Fear
Source: Midwinterblood
“I wish you way more than luck.”
Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
Source: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
“My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a Quaker.”
“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it”
“It would be unthinkably bad luck to be betrayed by a rumbling stomach.”
Source: The Burning Bridge
Source: Magic Burns