Fortune Quotes - Page 14

• To be thrown upon one's own resources is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previosly unsusceptible.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Moving, Character, Energy

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• Life's a wheel of fortune and it's my chance to spin it.

  Tupac Shakur

  Rapper, Thug Life, Wheels

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• Cling tooth and nail to the following rule: Not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always to take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do. Whatever you have been expecting for some time comes as less of a shock.

  Seneca the Younger

  Time, Attitude, Adversity

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• Strangers are welcome because there is room enough for them all, and therefore the old Inhabitants are not jealous of them; the Laws protect them sufficiently so that they have no need of the Patronage of great Men; and every one will enjoy securely the Profits of his Industry. But if he does not bring a Fortune with him, he must work and be industrious to live.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Jealous, Men, Law

  Benjamin Franklin (1839). “The Life and Miscellaneous Writings of Benjamin Franklin”, p.78

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• Whenever fortune wishes to joke, she lifts people from what is humble to the highest extremity of affairs.

  Juvenal

  Forgiveness, Humble, People

  "Satires". Book by Juvenal, III, line 39, 1890.

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• Fortune does not change [people], it unmasks them.

  Suzanne Curchod

  Money, People, Doe

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• According to an old French motto, Noblesse oblige - one must live up to one's name. The Rothschilds' condition of life has imposed on them a second motto: Richesse oblige - one must live up to one's fortune.

  Guy de Rothschild

  Family, Money, Responsibility

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• Workers must root out the idea that by keeping the results of their labors to themselves a fortune will be assured to them. Patent fees are so much wasted money. The flying machine of the future will not be born fully fledged and capable of a flight for 1,000 miles or so. Like everything else it must be evolved gradually. The first difficulty is to get a thing that will fly at all. When this is made, a full description should be published as an aid to others. Excellence of design and workmanship will always defy competition.

  Lawrence Hargrave

  Future, Science, Ideas

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• Whatever the Benefits of Fortune are , they yet require a Palate fit to relish and taste them; 'Tis Fruition, and not Possession, that renders us Happy.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Appreciation, Benefits, Taste

  "Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne".

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• We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground.

  Mark Twain

  Mom, Baby, Common

  Mark Twain, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays”, p.2170, GENERAL PRESS

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• One of the most important lessons that experience teaches is that, on the whole, success depends more upon character than upon either intellect or fortune.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Life, Motivational, Character

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• You cannot tell whether a person is good or bad by his vicissitudes in life. Good and bad fortune are matters of fate.

  Yamamoto Tsunetomo

  Good Life, War, Fate

  Miyamoto Musashi, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Inazo Nitobe (2010). “Honor: Samurai Philosophy of Life - The Essential Samurai Collection; The Book of Five Rings, Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai, Bushido: The Soul of Japan.”, p.63, Bottom of the Hill

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• One should never risk one's whole fortune unless supported by one's entire forces.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  War, Risk, Should

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• We are ready to try our fortunes to the last man.

  William Shakespeare

  War, Men, Trying

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• Government has come to be a trade, and is managed solely on commercial principles. A man plunges into politics to make his fortune, and only cares that the world shall last his days.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Liberty, Principles

  Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1888). “The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, L834-l872”

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• O, once in each man's life, at least, Good luck knocks at his door; And wit to seize the flitting guest Need never hunger more. But while the loitering idler waits. Good luck beside his fire, The bold heart storms at fortune's gates, And conquers its desire.

  John L. Bates

  Heart, Good Luck, Men

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• When fortune has been abolished, when every profession is open to everyone, an ambitious man may think it is easy to launch himself on a great career and feel that he has been called to no common destiny. But this is a delusion which experience quickly corrects.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Depressing, Destiny, Men

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• For not many men, the proverb saith, can love a friend whom fortune prospereth unenvying.

  Aeschylus

  Love, Men, Falling In Love

  Aeschylus (2013). “Agamemnon in Plain and Simple English (Translated)”, p.88, BookCaps Study Guides

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• I am the maker of my own fortune, and Oh! that I could make that of my Red People, and of my country, as great as the conceptions of my mind, when I think of the spirit that rules the universe. I would not then come to Governor Harrison to ask him to tear up the treaty, and to obliterate the landmark, but I would say to him, "Sir, you have the liberty to return to your own country."

  Tecumseh

  Country, Thinking, Justice

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• It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massive tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Suicide, Suicidal, Virtue

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• In the same manner, having been reduced by disorder, and sunk to their utmost state of depression, unable to descend lower, they, of necessity, reascend; and thus from good they gradually decline to evil, and from evil again return to good. The reason is, that valor produces peace; peace, repose; repose, disorder; disorder, ruin; so from disorder order springs; from order virtue, and from this, glory and good fortune.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Art, Spring, War

  "Florentine Histories" by Niccolò Machiavelli, book V, chapter 1, 1526.

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• God and nature have thrown all human fortunes into the midst of mankind; and they are thus attainable rather by rapine than by industry, by wicked actions rather than by good. Hence it is that men feed upon each other, and those who cannot defend themselves must be worried.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Art, War, Men

  Niccolo Machiavelli (2018). “History of Florence and the Affairs of Italy”, p.115, Ozymandias Press

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• The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it. From this arises the changes in their fortunes; for as men desire, some to have more, some in fear of losing their acquisition, there ensues enmity and war, from which results the ruin of that province and the elevation of another.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Art, War, Men

  "Discourses on Livy". Book by Niccolo Machiavelli, Book 1, Ch. 37, (as translated by LJ Walker and B Crick, 1517.

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• I assert once again as a truth to which history as a whole bears witness that men may second their fortune, but cannot oppose it; that they may weave its warp, but cannot break it. Yet they should never give up, because there is always hope, though they know not the end and more towards it along roads which cross one another and as yet are unexplored; and since there is hope, they should not despair, no matter what fortune brings or in what travail they find themselves.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Art, Giving Up, War

  "Discourses on Livy" by Niccolò Machiavelli, book 2, ch. 29, as translated by LJ Walker and B Crick, 1517.

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• The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment a thing becomes connected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes an interesting thing.

  William James

  Educational, Philosophy, Men

  William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.78, Nuvision Pubns

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