Quotes on Fortune

I find my zenith doth depend upon A most auspicious star, whose influence If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes Will ever after droop.

Let us rejoice at the many unexplored fields in which there is unlimited fame and fortune to the successful explorer . . .

In man's life, time is but a moment; being, a flux; sense is dim; the material frame corruptible; soul, an eddy of breath; fortune a thing inscrutable, and fame precarious.

There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him.

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.

What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?

We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.

We are unreasonably desirous to separate the goods of life from those evils which Providence has connected with them, and to catch advantages without paying the price at which they are offered to us. Every man wishes to be rich, but very few have the powers necessary to raise a sudden fortune, either by new discoveries, or by superiority of skill in any necessary employment; and among lower understandings many want the firmness and industry requisite to regular gain and gradual acquisitions.

It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one; but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune. . . .

There is no fortune so strong that money cannot take it.

Fortune, not wisdom, rules lives.

Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally, I would we could do so for her benefits are mightily misplaced and the bountiful blind girl doth most mistake in her gifts to women. 'Tis true for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly. Nay, now thou goest from Fortunes office to Natures. Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature.

Fortune reigns in gifts of the world.

The Englishman who has lost his fortune is said to have died of a broken heart.

Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.

When fortune surprises us by giving us some great office without having gradually led us to expect it, or without having raised our hopes, it is well nigh impossible to occupy it well, and to appear worthy to fill it.

I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.

The happiness and unhappiness of men depends as much on their ethics as on fortune.

There is a common tendency to ignore the poor or to develop some rationalisation for the good fortune of the fortunate.

Whatever you have received more than others-in health, in talents, in ability, in success, in a pleasant childhood, in harmonious conditions of home life-all this you must not take to yourself as a matter of course. In gratitude for your good fortune, you must remember in return some sacrifice of your own life for another life.

Freedom is not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms.