Quotes About Fortune

There is, indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions, the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint at the sight of new possessions they are about to obtain. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune they lose sight of the close connection that exists between the private fortune of each and the prosperity of all.

The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.

Misfortune is the root of good fortune; good fortune gives birth to misfortune.

To put it simply - you know, a lot of people believe that the benefit of this job is fame and fortune. I believe that you pay for the fortune through the fame. I don't buy into the notion that being famous is somehow a good thing, or an exciting thing, or a wonderful thing.

It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.

In the time it takes for her to walk from the bathhouse at the seawall of Fortune's Rocks, where she has left her boots and has discreetly pulled off her stockings, to the waterline along which the sea continually licks the pink and silver sand, she learns about desire.

Bottom line is, I didn't return to Apple to make a fortune. I've been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn't going to let it ruin my life. There's no way you could ever spend it all, and I don't view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

That power of the Gods which orders for the good things which are not uniform, and which happen contrary to expectation, is commonly called Fortune, and it is for this reason that the Goddess is especially worshipped in public by cities; for every city consists of elements which are not uniform.

War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.

Granny knew all about bad fortune-telling. It was harder than the real thing. You needed a good imagination.

We’re all good when it suits us, he used to say: that doesn’t count. It’s when you want so badly to do something wrong—when you’re about to make a fortune from a dishonest deal, or kiss the lovely lips of your neighbor’s wife, or tell a lie to get yourself out of terrible trouble—that’s when you need the rules. Your integrity is like a sword, he would say: you shouldn’t wave it until you’re about to put it to the test.

It's hard to tell our bad luck from our good luck sometimes. And most of us have wept copious tears over someone or something when if we'd understood the situation better we might have celebrated our good fortune instead.

I have such amazing memories [about The Hotel New Hampshire movie], because Tony Richardson was such an amazing director, and the subject matter was so bizarre, and yet it was the most sought-after part at that moment. And then it had the good fortune to come out on the same day as Splash.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

By the accident of fortune a man may rule the world for a time, but by virtue of love and kindness he may rule the world forever.

Fortune seldom troubles the wise man. Reason has controlled his greatest and most important affairs, controls them throughout his life, and will continue to control them.

The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.

The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other.

Give a beggar a dime and he'll bless you. Give him a dollar and he'll curse you for withholding the rest of your fortune. Poverty is a bag with a hole at the bottom.

From my tribe I take nothing, I am the maker of my own fortune.

The things you want professionally are opportunities. And through my good fortune that's what's happened. Opportunity has come to me.

Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations.

There's not a fortune to be made doing voiceover work unless you're one of the main voices on "The Simpsons". See, there's "The Simpsons", and then there's everything else.

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.

One knew in advance that life in New York would not be easy‚ but there were cheap rents in cold-water lofts without heat‚ and the excitement of being here made up for those hardships. I didn't move to New York to make a fortune.

Learning to cherish others is the best solution to our daily problems, and it is the source of all our future happiness and good fortune.

Cling tooth and nail to the following rule: Not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always to take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do. Whatever you have been expecting for some time comes as less of a shock.

Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing.

I don't need to make a fortune, I need to survive.

If man were immortal he could be perfectly sure of seeing the day when everything in which he had trusted should betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery. He would break down, at last, as every good fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does. In place of this we have death.

Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces.

I sometimes wonder if the tragedies my family has suffered are a kind of karmic price for all the fame and fortune the Bee Gees have had.

Men may second fortune, but they cannot thwart her.

For me, it's good fortune to be between two cultures. Growing up in Germany taught me a lot. I am a world citizen. Today I can adapt well no matter where I am. Even when it's not always easy.

If I traveled to the end of the rainbow as Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me the pot's at the other end.

Success is the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration,and inspiration.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, A youth to fortune and to fame unknown: Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

I have had the great good fortune of working with a true genius of yoga, Karuna Erickson, in developing a new system called Heart Yoga.

Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all.

The important thing is to firmly fix our gaze on our own weaknesses, not run away from them, but to battle them head-on and establish a solid self that nothing can sway. Hardships forge and polish our lives, so that eventually they shine with brilliant fortune and benefit. If left in its raw, unpolished form, even the most magnificent gem will not sparkle. The same applies to our lives.

Which reminds me of a fortune cookie: you often find your destiny on the path you take to avoid it.

Just as the good actor perform well whatever role the poet assigns, so too must the good man perform whatever Fortune assigns. For she, says Bion, just like a poet, sometimes assigns the leading role, sometimes that of the supporting role; sometimes that of a king, sometimes that of a beggar. Do not, therefore, being a supporting actor, desire the role of the lead.

Of all human ills, greatest is fortune's wayward tyranny.

Fortune makes him fool, whom she makes her darling.

When I joined Granada - which, you don't want to start crying about these things, but Granada was a very, very hot place to be, it was my good fortune to be there at that time - the BBC was firmly asleep.

I was never trying to write a hit. I was just trying to write good songs and get a message out, and it was my great good fortune to be popular.

Disney made a fortune out of inventing the businessman's idea of the imaginary as the contradictory of the businessman's idea of the real.