Luck Quotes - Page 21

• When I started 70 odd years ago I was told that to be a success you've got to have talent, personality and luck. I've had 99.9 percent luck and the other miniscule percentage would be having had the luck to have a little bit of talent, being able to stand upright and that's it. It's all luck.

  Roger Moore

  Years, Personality, Would Be

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• Folks as have no mind to be o' use have allays the luck to be out o' the road when there's anything to be done.

  George Eliot

  Mind, Use, Done

  George Eliot (2016). “Adam Bede”, p.143, George Eliot

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• Things don't happen because they're bad or good, else all eggs would be addled or none at all, and at the most it is but six to the dozen. There's good chances and bad chances, and nobody's luck is pulled only by one string.

  George Eliot

  Eggs, Would Be, Dozen

  George Eliot (1866). “Felix Holt: The Radical”, p.16

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• Luck, if it mean nothing more than an event of which the cause is not apparent, is a term that may be employed without error; but if it means, as it generally does, an event which has no cause at all, a mere chance, it is a bad word, a heathen term; drop it from your vocabulary; trust nothing to luck, nor expect anything from it; avoid all practical use or dependence upon this or its kindred words, fate, chance, fortune.

  John Angell James

  Mean, Fate, Errors

  John Angell James (1851). “The young man's friend and guide through life to immortality”, p.180

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• We can't afford to stand pat while the world races by. The United States of America did not become the most prosperous nation on Earth by sheer luck or happenstance. We got here because each time a generation of Americans has faced a changing world, we have changed with it. We have not feared our future; we have shaped it.

  Barack Obama

  America, Race, World

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• I learned early that business is business and politics is politics. The proof is how few important businessmen have made good politicians. They may think that they are very smart about everything because they made millions of dollars by digging a hole in the ground and finding oil, but the talent and luck needed to become rich are not the same talent and luck needed to succeed on Parliament Hill.

  Jean Chretien

  Smart, Thinking, Digging A Hole

  "Straight from the Heart". Book by Jean Chretien, 1985.

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• There's one bright spot in the generally gloomy picture know as the Pacific Conflict Zone. According to my calculations, by the year 2500 or so we should have killed off every last member of our species who is stupid enough to take part in so futile a pastime as this war between "ideals," and with luck they won't have left their genes behind because they'll typically have been killed at an age when society thinks they're too young to assume the responsibility of childbearing. After that we may get some peace and quiet for a change.

  John Brunner

  War, Stupid, Responsibility

  "Stand on Zanzibar". Book by John Brunner, 1968.

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• Luck usually visits me at 2 am on a cold morning when, red-eyed and bone-weary, I am pouring over law books preparing a case. It never visits me when I am at the cinema, on a golf course or reclining in an easy chair.

  Louis Nizer

  Morning, Book, Golf

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• There is one common condition for the lot of women in Western civilization and all other civilizations that we know about for certain, and that is, woman as a sex is disliked and persecuted, while as an individual she is liked, loved, and even, with reasonable luck, sometimes worshipped.

  Rebecca West

  Sex, Women, Civilization

  Speech to the Fabian Society in 1928. "Dame Rebecca West Dies in London" by Linda Charlton, archive.nytimes.com. March 16, 1983.

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• The year 1999, seventh month, [or simply "sept"] From the sky will come a great King of Terror. To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols, Before and after Mars to reign by good luck.

  Nostradamus

  Kings, Good Luck, Years

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• The success that comes from my books is not something I feel very comfortable with. Past a certain point you have to accept the idea that the success is a lot to do with the timing and luck and that divorces you from it massively. There are aspects of it that I haven't got used to at all. But I've enjoyed some parts of it massively. It relates to the same reason I did a lot of backpacking — partly for the experience — it's something to tell my grandkids. It's a weird chain of events to have in your life.

  Alex Garland

  Book, Divorce, Past

  "Beach nut". Interview with Sue Wheat, www.salon.com. February 11, 2000.

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• People think that creativity is largely a matter of talent, experience, or luck. They are wrong. Talent, experience, and luck are all key elements, but there is something more fundamental, accessible, and powerful that you can use to multiply your creative effect.

  Richard Koch

  Powerful, Creativity, Thinking

  Richard Koch (2003). “The 80/20 Individual: How to Build on the 20% of What You do Best”, p.12, Crown Business

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• Most private traders on a losing streak keep trying to trade their way out of a hole. A loser thinks a successful trade is just around the corner, and that his luck is about to turn. He keeps putting on more trades and increases his size, all the while digging himself a deeper hole in the ice. The sensible thing to do would be to reduce your trading size and then stop and review your system.

  Alexander Elder

  Successful, Thinking, Ice

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• I go to Las Vegas--or at least I went to Las Vegas--because even though I knew everything that was sinister, calculating, and evil about it, I loved Las Vegas. Only in Vegas could I dare to fantasize that I was a Friend of Frank. Or that I was throwing the dice at Dino's favorite table. Or that I might luck out and sip bourbon with Rickles after his last lounge show. The D.I. oozed that kind of heady fantasy.

  Marc Cooper

  Vegas, Evil, Tables

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• We underestimate the distance between ourselves and others. Not just inferential distance, but distances of temperament and ability, distances of situation and resource, distances of unspoken knowledge and unnoticed skills and luck, distances of interior landscape.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Distance, Skills, Landscape

  "Beware of Other-Optimizing". lesswrong.com. April 10, 2009.

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• Believing there's no such thing as luck is very unlucky. Like, the worst. Beyond stealing someone's lucky four-leaf clover.

  Caprice Crane

  Believe, Four, Stealing

  Caprice Crane (2011). “With a Little Luck: A Novel”, p.4, Bantam

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• If the influence of luck is a delusion, then all I can say is that the delusion is virtually universal.

  Felix Dennis

  Influence, Delusion, Universal

  Felix Dennis (2008). “How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets”, p.59, Penguin

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• Victory is for them, not for us. We have not made profit out of our country's misfortune. Victory does not bring us luck.

  Ba Jin

  Country, Victory, Doe

  "The Cold Nights". Book by Ba Jin, 1947.

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• Good luck and bad luck are strands of the same rope.

  Sakura Tsukuba

  Good Luck, Rope, Bad Luck

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• There may be such a thing as habitual luck. People who are said to be lucky at cards probably have certain hidden talents for those games in which skill plays a role. It is like hidden parameters in physics, this ability that does not surface and that I like to call "habitual luck".

  Stanislaw Ulam

  Games, Play, Skills

  "Adventures of a Mathematician" by Stanislaw Ulam, Third Edition, (p. 119), 1991.

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• The power of your thoughts can influence how events turn out. I'm a positive person - when bad things happen, I can see the silver lining. As a result I think I am very lucky, even though I probably have as much bad luck as anyone else, and that translates into seeing opportunity.

  Natalie Massenet

  Opportunity, Thinking, Events

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• In the last analysis, luck comes only to the well prepared.

  Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

  Lasts, Analysis, Investing

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• California officials want to contain a measles outbreak that originated in Disneyland last month. They are in luck because everyone who is exposed to it is still in line at Space Mountain.

  Conan O'Brien

  California, Space, Mountain

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• Good luck finding a place to park in New York City. And when you do, good luck figuring out the parking signs, restrictions, and prohibitions. It is so complicated. It has gotten so bad, I never park my car without a lawyer.

  David Letterman

  New York, Good Luck, Cities

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• How do you become enlightened? I don't know: Luck, karma, skill, friends in high places, friends in low places.

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Buddhism, Skills

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