Best 584 quotes in «fortune quotes» category

The lieutenant-colonel realized for the first time what most people never realize about themselves--that he was not only a victim of outrageous fortune, but one of outrageous fortune's cruelest agents as well.

The most obvious and the most distinctive features of the History of Civilisation, during the last fifty years, is the wonderful increase of industrial production by the application of machinery, the improvement of old technical processes and the invention of new ones, accompanied by an even more remarkable development of old and new means of locomotion and intercommunication. By this rapid and vast multiplication of the commodities and conveniences of existence, the general standard of comfort has been raised, the ravages of pestilence and famine have been checked, and the natural obstacles, which time and space offer to mutual intercourse, have been reduced in a manner, and to an extent, unknown to former ages. The diminution or removal of local ignorance and prejudice, the creation of common interests among the most widely separated peoples, and the strengthening of the forces of the organisation of the commonwealth against those of political or social anarchy, thus effected, have exerted an influence on the present and future fortunes of mankind the full significance of which may be divined, but cannot, as yet, be estimated at its full value.

The philosopher who travels the world in order to learn must put up with all customs, all religions, all kinds of weather and climate, all beds and all kinds of food, and leave to the voluptuous, indolent man in the capital his prejudices...his luxury...that obscene luxury that, as it never contains any real needs, creates artificial ones every day at the expense of fortune and health.

Therefore, according to the disposition of the state and the liberty Fortune allows us, we shall either extend or contract our activities; but at all events we shall stir ourselves and not be gripped and paralyzed by fear. He indeed will prove a man who, threatened by dangers on all sides, with arms and chains clattering around him, will neither endanger nor conceal his courage: for self-preservation does not entail suppressing onself. Truly, I believe, Curius Dentatus used to say that he preferred real death to living death; for the ultimate horror is to leave the number of the living before you die.

There are two types of people in life when it comes to their careers: people who visualize, and people who imitate. The people who visualize paint their own vision of what their mark is in the world, while the people who imitate can only see what the visualizers want them to.

There isn’t any way to be. I will meet you where you’ve gone. The cards are blank; the cards are empty there. If I can just have one last cut. Do you have a plan for the new? The cards be blank. The symbols be over. I will tell my fortune with the blank cards of blank. What do you see?

There is nothing encouraging about fortune and thus one must remain indifferent by it for it is a trickster desperate to be chased, chased till the very end, only to show us how miserable her path is and how inappropriate it was to choose her over effort.

There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.

The universe conspires to steer one in the direction where one can flourish. Bad or good the experience will be a lesson and a lesson learned is fortune measured by wisdom gained.

The search for wisdom is like a search for gold.

The truly fortunate person has created his own good fortune through good habits of the soul, good intentions, and good actions.

This indulgence, though not more than Catherine had hoped for, completed her conviction of being favored beyond every other human creature, in friends and fortune, circumstance and chance. Everything seemed to cooperate for her advantage.

The worm’s bad luck is the bird’s good fortune.

To any soul born of God, fortune is a default birthright...transact with a higher algorithm for prosperity on earth, as it is Heaven. Financial increase doesn't won't find its way to you, if your spirit is set to repel it...fight the spirited mindset that wars against your increase...your living inheritance." {#KOGGD excerpt}

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.

Those who won't seek their fortune in a haze must find it in a maze for fortune nests in one or the other

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. — It is not fair. — He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people’s mouths. — I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it — but fear I must.

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!

Vielleicht wird unser Vorurteil auch dadurch bestärkt, daß es – von außen gesehen – oft vom Leben Begünstigte zu sein scheinen, […] denen wir daher sozusagen das Recht nicht zusprechen wollen, daß sie erkrankten; kennt man ihre Lebensgeschichte, wird man seine Meinung revidieren müssen; letztlich leiden wir alle an nicht genügend verarbeiteter Vergangenheit; bei wem sie so beschaffen war, daß er sein Leben dennoch fruchtbar gestalten konnte, weil er aus ihr mehr Hilfen als Schädigungen mitbekam, der sollte aus der Dankbarkeit dafür Verständnis und Toleranz gegenüber den weniger Glücklichen aufbringen.

We are so surrounded with this fortune that we tend to forget that though subjectively in abundance, objectively this is a rarity.

What is the likelihood, of winning the lottery, then lose it all the next day when you step out your front door and get struck by lightning? Probably, very slim, but then anything is possible.

We take the elevator to the third floor, to the office of Dr. Harrison Chance. His name alone has put me off. Why not Dr. Victor?

What good were fate and fortune anyway? If there was some sort of plan she was supposed to follow, it was unreadable to her and impossible to stick to. She was tired of fate, which was probably just a made-up concept invented by humans to feel like something or someone was guiding them anyway. God, spirits, cookies, whatever. She was so sick of buying into the idea that there was actually meaning behind any of this. It was just her, blind and alone, making a mess of her life on her own, thank you very much.

What i'm saying is that the sun always rises. Fortune's a mix of good and bad luck. Like they say/ good luck and bad luck are strands of the same rope.

We cannot change the past, she thought. How we long to sometimes, trying to work out how horror might have been averted by a fluke of fortune, a kind intercession, wisdom not yet granted.

What if it becomes less about how we look and more about how much we care? What if it becomes less about how much money we earn and more about how much we share our good fortune? Imagine a world where who we are in our hearts is the ultimate status symbol.

What luck has gave you will probably leave you.

When we are rich and famous and powerful, we do not want to die. On the other hand, if we are miserable and suffering, we want to die and leave it all. But can joy or misery last forever? There is a saying, "All celebrations must end sometime." Any wish to live forever or die immediately is often a whim of the moment. How do we know that, although we are happy now, we may not be sad the next day, or sad now but may be happy soon? Given that good and ill, fortune and misfortune come in their own way, we should not cling to life or embrace death. Life and death will come of their own. Why be greedy about life and afraid of death?

When you start exercising choices, as against embracing opportunities, you become your own God, leaving precious little in the hands of Almighty!

While the differences between love and hate can be blurred and difficult to decipher at times, the dichotomy of denial and acceptance are much more distinct. One is halting and aggressively rejects all truth, while the other is more passive and at peace – welcoming whatever truth is in waiting, whether fortunate or tragic.

Where do we find happiness? Unfortunately, the common belief with most people is that happiness is something that happens to them when conditions are just right rather than something that happens through them when they choose to make space for it. While outer conditions may stimulate the feeling of happiness, it can never come from anywhere other than within us. Authentic happiness isn't something we can go out and get, buy, borrow, or steal. Nor can any form of artificial sensory stimulus generate true happiness; it's only something we can be, and it's a choice we make with every breath we take.

...you will open your hands and feel the sweat on your palms and perhaps you will remember that you were born without lifelines on your hand, without fortune, life, or love: you were born, you will be born with a smooth palm, but all you have to do is be born; after a few hours, that blank surface will be filled with signs, lines, portents. You will die with your dense lines worn out, but all you have to do is die for all trace of your destiny to disappear from your hands after a few hours. Chaos has no plural.

Who was more conscious than the soldier of capricious fortune, of the random roll of the dice?

Your darkest experiences often lead you to your brightest fortunes.

You can't prevent what you can't predict.

You see the first thing we love is a scene. For love at first sight requires the very sign of its suddenness; and of all things, it is the scene which seems to be seen best for the first time: a curtain parts and what had not yet ever been seen is devoured by the eyes: the scene consecrates the object I am going to love. The context is the constellation of elements, harmoniously arranged that encompass the experience of the amorous subject... Love at first sight is always spoken in the past tense. The scene is perfectly adapted to this temporal phenomenon: distinct, abrupt, framed, it is already a memory (the nature of a photograph is not to represent but to memorialize)... this scene has all the magnificence of an accident: I cannot get over having had this good fortune: to meet what matches my desire. The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject's dream of total union with the loved being: The longing for consummation with the other... In this moment, everything is suspended: time, law, prohibition: nothing is exhausted, nothing is wanted: all desires are abolished, for they seem definitively fulfilled... A moment of affirmation; for a certain time, though a finite one, a deranged interval, something has been successful: I have been fulfilled (all my desires abolished by the plenitude of their satisfaction).

Adversity reveals the genius of a general; good fortune conceals it.

Activity makes more men's fortunes than cautiousness.

A first-generation fortune is the most likely to be given away, but once a fortune is inherited it's less likely that a very high percentage will go back to society.

A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature.

A great fortune is a great slavery.

A great fortune enslaves its owner.

A great mind becomes a great fortune.

All the vices lead to fortune when they are joined with the vilest of all--avarice. This is the secret of life.

A happy marriage is still the greatest treasure within the gift of fortune.

All fortune is good fortune; for it either rewards, disciplines, amends, or punishes, and so is either useful or just.

Ah Fortune, what god is more cruel to us than thou! How thou delightest ever to make sport of human life!

Alas! the joys that fortune brings Are trifling, and decay, And those who prize the trifling things, More trifling still than they.

Ambition is ever tempered by experience. Otherwise, fortune makes fools of us all.

Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us.