Quotes About Fortune

“Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Most of us have the good or bad fortune of seeing our lives fall apart so slowly we barely notice. ”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Oh, I am fortune's fool!”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

“In Madeleine's face was a stupidity Mitchell had never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and the beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

“Would you like to know your future?

If your answer is yes, think again. Not knowing is the greatest life motivator.

So enjoy, endure, survive each moment as it comes to you in its proper sequence -- a surprise.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“At the end of the street was a large glass box with a female mannequin inside it, dressed as a gypsy fortune teller.

“Now,” said Wednesday, “at the start of any quest or enterprise it behooves us to consult the Norns.”

He dropped a coin into the slot. With jagged, mechanical motions, the gypsy lifted her arm and lowered it once more. A slip of paper chunked out of the slot.

Wednesday took it, read it, grunted, folded it up and put it in his pocket.

“Aren’t you going to show it to me? I’ll show you mine,” said Shadow.

“A man’s fortune is his own affair,” said Wednesday, stiffly. “I would not ask to see yours.”

Shadow put his own coin into the slot. He took his slip of paper. He read it.

EVERY ENDING IS A NEW BEGINNING.
YOUR LUCKY NUMBER IS NONE.
YOUR LUCKY COLOUR IS DEAD.
Motto:
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON.

Shadow made a face. He folded the fortune up and put it inside his pocket.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“I regained my soul through literature after those times I'd lost it to wild-eyed gypsy girls on the European streets.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“The visions are fragmented and a dark cloud spreads like spilt ink across the pages of possible futures.”
― Garth Nix, Lirael

“Diligence is the mother of good fortune.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“Today is an ephemeral ghost...

A strange amazing day that comes only once every four years. For the rest of the time it does not "exist."

In mundane terms, it marks a "leap" in time, when the calendar is adjusted to make up for extra seconds accumulated over the preceding three years due to the rotation of the earth. A day of temporal tune up!

But this day holds another secret—it contains one of those truly rare moments of delightful transience and light uncertainty that only exist on the razor edge of things, along a buzzing plane of quantum probability...

A day of unlocked potential.

Will you or won't you? Should you or shouldn't you?

Use this day to do something daring, extraordinary and unlike yourself. Take a chance and shape a different pattern in your personal cloud of probability!”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Each meeting occurs at the precise moment for which it was meant. Usually, when it will have the greatest impact on our lives.”
― Nadia Scrieva, Fathoms of Forgiveness

“The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but
we have been a long time on the way.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“This was how it was with travel: one city gives you gifts, another robs you. One gives you the heart’s affections, the other destroys your soul. Cities and countries are as alive and feeling, as fickle and uncertain as people. Their degrees of love and devotion are as varying as with any human relation. Just as one is good, another is bad.”
― Roman Payne, Cities & Countries

“Yet, when these facts are seen side by side with other facts in the case, it is difficult not to become lost in superstitious awe. Their very absurdity seems to prohibit the use of the words 'chance' and 'coincidence.' For the sceptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman Law, it is administered with sub-human inefficiency.”
― Eric Ambler, A Coffin for Dimitrios

“We are always in a hurry to be happy, M. Danglars; for when we have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“[I]t is not by being richer or more powerful that a man becomes better; one is a matter of fortune, the other of virtue. Nor should she deem herself other than venal who weds a rich man rather than a poor, and desires more things in her husband than himself. Assuredly, whomsoever this concupiscence leads into marriage deserves payment rather than affection.”
― Héloïse d'Argenteuil, The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse

“Fortune favours the brave, sir," said Carrot cheerfully.

"Good. Good. Pleased to hear it, captain. What is her position vis a vis heavily armed, well prepared and excessively manned armies?"

"Oh, no–one's ever heard of Fortune favouring them, sir."

"According to General Tacticus, it's because they favour themselves," said Vimes. He opened the battered book. Bits of paper and string indicated his many bookmarks. "In fact, men, the general has this to say about ensuring against defeat when outnumbered, out–weaponed and outpositioned. It is..." he turned the page, "'Don't Have a Battle.'"

"Sounds like a clever man," said Jenkins. He pointed to the yellow horizon.

"See all that stuff in the air?" he said. "What do you think that is?"

"Mist?" said Vimes.

"Hah, yes. Klatchian mist! It's a sandstorm! The sand blows about all the time. Vicious stuff. If you want to sharpen your sword, just hold it up in the air."

"Oh."

"And it's just as well because otherwise you'd see Mount Gebra. And below it is what they call the Fist of Gebra. It's a town but there's a bloody great fort, walls thirty feet thick. 's like a big city all by itself. 's got room inside for thousands of armed men, war elephants, battle camels, everything. And if you saw that, you'd want me to turn round right now. Whats your famous general got to say about it, eh?"

"I think I saw something..." said Vimes. He flicked to another page. "Ah, yes, he says, 'After the first battle of Sto Lat, I formulated a policy which has stood me in good stead in other battles. It is this: if the enemy has an impregnable stronghold, see he stays there.'"

"That's a lot of help," said Jenkins.

Vimes slipped the book into a pocket.

"So, Constable Visit, there's a god on our side, is there?"

"Certainly, sir."

"But probably also a god on their side as well?"

"Very likely, sir. There's a god on every side."

"Let's hope they balance out, then.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the sum of his own works.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“Luck is not as random as you think.

Before that lottery ticket won the jackpot, someone had to buy it.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“I often think how unfairly life's good fortune is sometimes distributed. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Fortune's fool! How we humans lie upon beauty like lizards upon a sun-baked rock.”
― Roman Payne

“That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate?”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.”
― Helen Keller

“The people come from everywhere, from five hundred miles, to find their fortunes. By fortune is an ugly, two-faced goddess. When you have lived with her handiwork for half a generation, you hardly notice anymore. You forget that this is not the way life has to be. You cease to marvel at just how much evil man con conjure by existing.”
― Glen Cook, Water Sleeps

“Hazard has conditioned us to live in hazard. All our pleasures are dependant upon it. Even though I arrange for a pleasure; and look forward to it, my eventual enjoyment of it is still a matter of hazard. Wherever time passes, there is hazard. You may die before you turn the next page.”
― John Fowles, Aristos

“As long as he deceived himself about the truth, he could blame fortune and have confidence in the future. Now the clouds of madness were closing round his mind.”
― Hermann Bahr

“Ist nicht eigentliches Ziel von Roman und Museum, unsere Erinnerungen so aufrichtig wie möglich zu erzählen und dadurch unser Glück in das Glück anderer zu verwandeln?”
― Orhan Pamuk, Masumiyet Müzesi

“Show pity I beg you...
We have today been struck down by fortune
But tomorrow it may be your own turn to die.”
― Guiseppe Verdi