“ Prosperity depends, as we all know, in great measure upon energy and good sense, but it also depends not a little upon pure luck—that is to say, upon connections which are in such a tangle that it is more easy to say that they do not exist, than to try to trace them. ”
Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh (1903). copy citation
| Author | Samuel Butler |
|---|---|
| Source | The Way of All Flesh |
| Topic | luck energy |
| Date | 1903 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2084/2084-h/2084-h.htm |
Context
“He had never had more than £250 a year, even in the times of his affluence, so that a profit of £5 a week, if it could be maintained steadily, would place him where he had been as far as income went, and, though he should have to feed two mouths instead of one, yet his expenses in other ways were so much curtailed by his changed social position, that, take it all round, his income was practically what it had been a twelvemonth before. The next thing to do was to increase it, and put by money.
Prosperity depends, as we all know, in great measure upon energy and good sense, but it also depends not a little upon pure luck—that is to say, upon connections which are in such a tangle that it is more easy to say that they do not exist, than to try to trace them. A neighbourhood may have an excellent reputation as being likely to be a rising one, and yet may become suddenly eclipsed by another, which no one would have thought so promising. A fever hospital may divert the stream of business, or a new station attract it;”
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