Quotes on Luck

This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away; go. They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.

I do not believe that the Good Lord plays dice.

It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail.

I want a different world. One where I don't wake up thinking I'm so lucky to be able to feed my daughter, and able to give people a clean drink of water. I don't want images of starving babies at the breast in my mind. I want that to change. And if I want that, I had better do something about it.

He [the golfer] must have the courage to keep trying in the face of ill luck or disappointment, and timidity to appreciate and appraise the dangers of each stroke, and to curb the desire to take chances beyond reasonable hope of success.

I have a feeling that when my ship comes in I'll be at the airport.

The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.

In this business if you're good, you're right six times out of ten. You're never going to be right nine times out of ten.

Don't minimize the importance of luck in determining life's course.

Luck generally comes to those who look for it, and my notion is that it taps, once in a lifetime, at everybody's door, but if industry does not open it luck goes away.

Luck? Sure. But only after long practice and only with the ability to think under pressure.

I was thinking of my patients, and how the worst moment for them was when they discovered they were masters of their own fate. It was not a matter of bad or good luck. When they could no longer blame fate, they were in despair.

To get anywhere, or even to live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer.

Luck is the residue of design.

It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.

When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers.

Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world.

Luck is indeed where preparation meets opportunity.

Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being severely tested." The boy remembered an old proverb from his country. It said that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.

I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn’t been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn’t have been lucky.

There is no such thing as luck, merely opportunity meeting preparedness. George S. Patton Jr.