Go forward with joyful confidence.
As they who make Good luck a god count all unlucky men.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that those who attribute their success solely to luck often overlook the struggles of those who are less fortunate.
George Eliot's quote reflects on the tendency of individuals who believe in the power of 'good luck' to judge others. It highlights the idea that those who consider luck as an essential factor in success often disregard the hardships and difficulties faced by those deemed 'unlucky', fostering a lack of empathy and understanding for different life circumstances. This perspective encourages a more compassionate view of success and acknowledges that effort and resilience play a critical role in achieving one's goals.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about resilience and hard work, this quote could be used to illustrate how success often requires more than just luck.
More from George Eliot
All quotes βYou must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well.
She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel β that she had to endure this wide hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth.
Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.
I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence.
Similar quotes
I think once I made up my mind that I was allergic to alcohol, and that's what I learned, it made sense to me. And I think it was kind of pointed out that you know if you were allergic to strawberries, you wouldn't eat strawberries. And that made sense to me.
Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't.
Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.
For what can be more noble than to slay oneself? Not literally. Not with a blade in the guts. But to extinguish the selfish self within, that part which looks only to its own preservation, to save its own skin. That, I saw, was the victory you Spartans had gained over yourselves. That was the glue. It was what you had learned and it made me stay, to learn it too.
Not the senses I have but what I do with them is my kingdom.
There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.