Quotes about opportunity
page 4

“When you live for many hundreds of years, you know that every opportunity will come again.”

Source: The Golden Compass

“… one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Life, Death

“Fermina, he said, I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love, Waiting

“There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

Art, Business, Time

“Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems. In”

James C. Collins book Good to Great

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

People, Problem

“Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can
inhabit”

Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950) Italian writer

Soul, Hell

“Life's full of opportunities to make crappy decisions that feel good. And after the first one, the rest get a whole lot easier.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

Life, Feeling, Decision

“Clearly, America has no shortage of metaphorical opportunities for the poor.”

Stephen Colbert book I Am America (And So Can You!)

Source: I Am America

“Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings”

David Sedaris book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Source: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Love, Truth, Feeling, Hurt

“Opportunity, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Disappointment

“It is the act of reading itself that I miss, the opportunity to retreat further and further from the world until I have found some space, some air that isn't stale, that hasn't been breathed by my family a thousand times already.”

Nick Hornby book How to Be Good

Source: How to Be Good

World, Family, Time, Reading

“She was afraid, and the afraid, she realized, sought opportunities for bravery in love.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Source: Like Life

Love

“Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Contributions of Jane Wagner

Failure

“One man's mistake is another man's opportunity.”

Steven Brust (1955) American fantasy and science fiction author

“Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.”

Eric Roth (1945) American screenwriter

Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

Goodbye, Business, Graduation

“No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

For Men

“Limitations are possibilities…
Opportunities to perceive ourselves
Beyond our present selves…”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Songs of Enlightenment

“There are no limits when you are surrounded by people who believe in you, or by people whose expectations are not set by the short-sighted attitudes of society, or by people who help to open doors of opportunity, not close them.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson book The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

Source: The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

People, Help

“Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity”

Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer

Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

“To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Happiness

“Outliers are those who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

“I hope everyone that is reading this is having a really good day. And if you are not, just know that in every new minute that passes you have an opportunity to change that”

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

Hope, Change, Reading

“While we are alive we should sit among colored lights and taste good wines, and discuss our adventures in far places; when we are dead, the opportunity is past.”

Jack Vance (1916–2013) American mystery and speculative fiction writer

Color, Light, Wine, Past

“I wonder what becomes of lost opportunities? Perhaps our guardian angel gathers them up as we drop them, and will give them back to us in the beautiful sometime when we have grown wiser, and learned how to use them rightly.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

Beauty, Angels, Learning

“I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Thinking, Waiting

“The longer I live and the more experience I have of the world, the more I am convinced that, after all, the one thing that is most worth living for-and dying for, if need be-is the opportunity of making someone else more happy.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

Happiness, World

“Failure is hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.”

Po Bronson (1964) American writer

Money, Failure, Success

“You couldn't erase the past. You couldn't even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Life, Change, Past

“Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Education, Way

“There comes a precious moment in all of our lives when we are tapped on the shoulder and offered the opportunity to do something very special that is unique to us and our abilities, what a tragedy it would be if we are not ready or willing.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“That was the one thing she knew now. Some chances came and went, and if you missed them, you could spend the rest of your life standing alone, waiting for an opportunity that had already passed you by.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Angel Falls

Life, Chance, Waiting

“Love flourishes in expectation. Expectation strolls through the spacious fields of Time towards Opportunity.”

Umberto Eco book The Island of the Day Before

Source: The Island of the Day Before

Love, Time

“A fair and just society offers equality of opportunity to all. But it cannot promise, and should not try to enforce, sameness.”

Christina Hoff Sommers (1950) American author and philosopher

“There are no mistakes in life,
only lessons. There is no such thing as a negative experience, only
opportunities to grow, learn and advance along the road of selfmastery.
From struggle comes strength. Even pain can be a wonderful teacher”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Life, Pain, Learning, Teachers

“Crowds of questions stream through me like lines of people exiting a soccer ground or a concert. They push and shove and trip. Some make their way around. Some remain in their seats, waiting for their opportunity.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

People, Way, Question, Waiting

“It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Success

“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)
Context: We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood — it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late."

Life, History, Time

“Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the martingale of man. The more we have ventured the more we gain, when we know how to wait.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Three Musketeers

Source: The Three Musketeers

Time, Waiting

“I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn’t been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn’t have been lucky.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun."”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), Ch.2 : My Folks, p. 13.
Context: Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun." We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.

Children, Sun, Mother's Day, For Mother

“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

“Indubitably, Magick is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgement and practice than in any other branch of physics.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography

Art, Error, Science

“Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Life

“Life is not about negative circumstances that happen to you, it's about what you do with the golden opportunities hidden within!”

Rhonda Byrne (1951) Australian writer and producer

Source: Hero

Life

“Great opportunities may come once in a lifetime, but small opportunities surround us every day.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

“At least as a single woman, I had time to pursue my own interests, read voraciously, and travel when opportunity presented.”

Tasha Alexander (1969) American writer

Source: And Only to Deceive

Travel, Time, Reading

“You take every opportunity given you in this world, even if you have too many opportunities. One day, the opportunities stop, you know.”

John Irving book The Hotel New Hampshire

Source: The Hotel New Hampshire

World

“I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

“Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared. a”

George S. Clason (1874–1957) British businessman and writer

Time

“Life is like an escalator. You see, it carries you on regardless. And you might as well enjoy the view and seize every opportunity while you're passing. Otherwise, it'll be too late.”

Sophie Kinsella book Twenties Girl

Source: Twenties Girl

Life

“When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world — no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.”

Sören Kierkegaard book Works of Love

Source: Works of Love

Love, World, Beauty

“Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Problem

“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Life

“Never miss an opportunity to show your love, especially to those close to you, because we are always at our most cautious with them for fear of being hurt.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Love, Fear, Hurt

“God is in the résumé-building business. He is always using past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day: How To Survive And Thrive When Opportunity Roars

God, Business, Past, Future

“Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible. We're not giving up. We're waiting for a better opportunity to win.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

Suicide, Waiting

“acquisition of skills requires a regular environment, an adequate opportunity to practice, and rapid and unequivocal feedback about the correctness of thoughts and actions.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

“Hippo in a skirt: this was a comic reference to one of Solomon's principal wives, the one from Moab. Childish? Yes. But in the days before printing we had limited opportunities for satire.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Ring of Solomon

Source: The Ring of Solomon

“I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

As quoted in Oprah, in Her Words : Our American Princess (2008) by Tuchy Palmieri, p. 71

Love, Life, Fear

“I see my life as an unfolding set of opportunities to awaken.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Life

“I've found that what most people call luck is often little more than raw talent combined with the ability to make the most of opportunities. (Talon Karrde)”

Timothy Zahn Heir to the Empire

Source: Heir to the Empire

People

“There's no such thing as luck. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.”

Amy Hempel (1951) Short story writer

“To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine success--the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history--with a society that provides opportunities for all.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Happiness, World, History, Birth

“She had that rare virtue of never existing completely except for that opportune moment”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

“This defines entrepreneur and entrepreneurship - the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles

Search, Change

“It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Travel

“Opportunity may knock only once but temptation leans on the door bell”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Source: Oprah Winfrey Speaks: Insights from the World's Most Influential Voice

“Men think that self-sacrifice is the most charming of all the cardinal virtues for women, and in order to keep it in healthy working order, they make opportunities for its illustration as often as possible. I would fain teach women that self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton book The Woman's Bible

The Woman's Bible (1898)
Source: The Woman's Bible: A Classic Feminist Perspective

Women, Men, Thinking

“What --- you don't believe in true love?" Petra asked. "The kind that can then be parlayed into awesome merchandising opportunities?"
- "Beauty Queens”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Love, Beauty

“Not all is certainty in our world, Karigan. If it were there'd be no opportunity for faith; and then it would be a very dull existence.”

Kristen Britain The High King's Tomb

Source: The High King's Tomb

World, Faith

“I guess nothing puts a damper on a one-night stand as much as your friend pointing out all the opportunities where you might have been killed.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Night

“Being a doctor at Johns Hopkins does not make me any better in God's sight than the individual who has not had the opportunity to gain such an education but who still works hard.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

God, Education

“Never lose an opportunity for seeing something beautiful for beauty is God s handwriting.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

God, Beauty

“Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”

Roger von Oech (1948) Creativity theorist and inventor

Failure, Learning

“I could dance with you till the cows come home. Better still, I'll dance with the cows and you come home."
Groucho Marx was never one to pass up an opportunity for a play on words and this occurs in his dialogue of the 1933 film Duck Soup:”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Home, Dance

“Just because you had every right to feel sorry for yourself didn't mean you ever took the opportunity to do so.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Feeling

“As long as a thing is unknown, it belongs to us in a way that well-known things do not. For we have the opportunity to fill the empty, unknown spaces for ourselves, and in them there is room for imagination and for hope.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Hope, Way, Imagination

“They are all alike you know. They hold their tongues for years and you think you're safe, but when the opportunity comes they remember everything.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

Thinking

“Sometimes new opportunity means new opposition. Not everything God asks us to do will be comfortable.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

God

“Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Twentieth Century Faith : Hope and Survival (1972), p. 61
1970s

Children, People, Age, Religion

“Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/09/28/25-best-warren-buffett-quotes.aspx "25 Best Warren Buffett Quotes" The Motley Fool (28 September 2014)
Quotes from the press

“The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Distant

“I hoped we never had to realize all the opportunities we missed in this life.”

Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist

Source: The Year of Pleasures

Life, Hope

“The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek
opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you
desire.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

“Life is a gift and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

Life, Relationship

“How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die? (88)”

Stephen Levine (1937–2016) American poet and author

Source: A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

“Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

“Do you forget that I am your sister?”
“No; I’ve never been granted the opportunity to forget it.”

Georgette Heyer book Frederica

Source: Frederica

Sister, Forgetting

“It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

“It sometimes is a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection from the object of it, she may loose the opportunity of fixing him.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“The most wonderful opportunity which life offers is to be human.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Life

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting—a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Though attributed to Emerson in Edwards' A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), p. 37, this quote originates in Politics for the People (1848) by Charles Kingsley.
Misattributed

God, Beauty, Flowers

“If we have the opportunity to be generous with our hearts, ourselves, we have no idea of the depth and breadth of love's reach.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

Love, Idea, Heart

“because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Nobel lecture (8 December 1982) http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_nobel.html Variant: races condemned to 100 years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude Context: The most prosperous countries have succeeded in accumulating powers of destruction such as to annihilate, a hundred times over, not only all the human beings that have existed to this day, but also the totality of all living beings that have ever drawn breath on this planet of misfortune. On a day like today, my master William Faulkner said, "I decline to accept the end of man." I would fall unworthy of standing in this place that was his, if I were not fully aware that the colossal tragedy he refused to recognize thirty-two years ago is now, for the first time since the beginning of humanity, nothing more than a simple scientific possiblity. Faced with this awesome reality that must have seemed a mere utopia through all of human time, we, the inventors of tales, who will believe anything, feel entitled to believe that it is not yet too late to engage in the creation of the opposite utopia. A new and sweeping utopia of life, where no one will be able to decide for others how they die, where love will prove true and happiness be possible, and where the races condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have, at last and forever, a second opportunity on earth.

Solitude

“With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Feeling

“You suffer the blow, but you capitalize on the opportunity left in its wake.”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

Source: Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

Suffering

“American political opportunities are loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Richard Dawkins on militant atheism http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html, (February 2002) Context: We've reached a truly remarkable situation: a grotesque mismatch between the American intelligencia and the American electorate. A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe which is held by the vast majority of top American scientists, and probably the majority of the intelligencia generally, is so abhorrent to the American electorate that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public. If I'm right, this means that high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it: the intelligencia, unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.

Intelligence

“We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

World, Peaceful

“Each day is a new opportunity. I chose to make this day a great one.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

People, Time, Relationship, Romantic

Quotes about opportunity page 4

Quotes about opportunity
page 4