Luck

“ Luck! Why, of course, there never was such luck as mine! I used to be unlucky at cards. Unlucky at cards, lucky in love, they say. Well, I have been more lucky than most men in love, and here now are cards turning in my favour. I have now won twice running. I have a hundred and twenty pounds more in my pocket than when I came to town this morning. There seems to be absolutely no end to my luck. If that fool Kate had taken the fifty, of course I could not have played, and, of course, if I had not played I could not have won. My good fortune is almost miraculous. ”

“ Strokes of luck, especially of these dimensions, are so very rare. It is like being present at a pantomime that doesn't leave off, and watching the good fairy touching one gray dull unhappy thing after another into radiance and smiles. ”

“ It may be said, and sometimes foolishly is said, that luck is everything; but in nineteen cases out of twenty what is called luck is simply a combination of opportunity, and of the readiness and quickness to turn that opportunity to advantage. ”

“ God was a whimsical, abstract, mad thing called Luck. As to how one happened to be born--whether a sucker or a robber--was a gamble to begin with; Luck dealt out the cards, and the little babies picked up the hands allotted them. Protest was vain. Those were their cards and they had to play them, willy-nilly, hunchbacked or straight backed, crippled or clean-limbed, addle-pated or clear-headed. There was no fairness in it. The cards most picked up put them into the sucker class; the cards of a few enabled them to become robbers. The playing of the cards was life--the crowd of players, society. ”

“ I waved my hands and said, "Oh, you have the reputation, you know, for extraordinary luck."
"That isn't the same thing as always winning. Besides, I HAVEN'T extraordinary luck, never HAVE had. Good heavens!" ”

“ Was the Gold-Beater's luck going to attend his very vigorous and now virile son? There is no such thing as luck; follow the smoke of the so-called "lucky" and we soon conclude that they earn what they get by sheer force of intense action. ”

“ Was it only luck which had given Rudyard Byng those three millions? It could not be just that alone. She remembered her grandfather used to say that luck was a powerful ingredient in the successful career of every man, but that the man was on the spot to take the luck, knew when to take it, and how to use it. "The lucky man is the man that sits up watching for the windfall while other men are sleeping"—that was the way he had put it. ”

“ Again, a disaster which destroys a single individual may alter the whole course of a survivor's career. But the devotees of the Goddess of Luck do not mean this at all. They hold that some men are born lucky and others unlucky, as though some Fortune presided at their birth; and that, irrespective of all merits, success goes to those on whom Fortune smiles and defeat to those on whom she frowns. Or at least luck is regarded as a kind of attribute of a man like a capacity for arithmetic or games. ”

“ This belief in the good or bad prognostications to be derived from dreams about ordure, was very widely disseminated. “Luck, or Good Luck. To tread in Sir Reverence; to be bewrayed; an allusion to the proverb, ‘Sh-tt-n luck is good luck.’”— (“Grose, Dict. of Buckish Slang,” London, 1811.)
“Inasmuch as the sun of morning, or spring, comes out of the dark-blue bird of night, we can understand the popular Italian and German superstition, that when the excrement of a bird falls upon a man it is an omen of good luck. ”

“ I say,” cried he, aloud, and turning to me, “you've had to my own knowledge as good as a dozen chances, and you've never succeeded in one of them.”
“It's all true,” said I, sorrowfully.
“Owing to luck, of course,” said he, scornfully; “luck makes a man lazy, keeps him in bed when he ought to be up and at work; luck makes him idle, and gets him plucked for his examinations. I tell you this, sir: I 'd rather a man would give me a fillip on the nose than talk to me about luck. If there's a word in the language I detest and hate, it is luck.” ”

“ If you adopt a talisman and put your faith in it, you immediately prepare your mind for receiving an abundance of good fortune. Reject all talismans and argue that there is no such thing as luck, and you straightway set going the mental machinery which looks on the dark side of things and which misses every slice of luck that comes along. Therefore, we say, with emphasis, take to yourself a talisman, a mascot, a charm—call it what you will—and you will never regret it.
Of talismans, there are countless varieties; some are known the world over, others are the particular choice of individuals. ”

“ Our luck in all our past has been enormous, the greatest luck on the whole, assuredly, that any race has ever had; but it has never been a conscious reaction or a gathered fruition, as one may say; it has just been a singular felicity of position and of temperament, and this felicity has made us observe and perceive and reflect much less than it has made us directly act and profit and enjoy: enjoy of course by attending tremendously to all the business involved in our position. ”

“ Do you believe that the possible element of good luck or bad luck—if there is such a thing as luck—has influenced your career or persisted for or against you to such an extent that you were forced to attribute results to the operation of the aforesaid good luck or bad luck? ”

“ Good luck to you!”
“Edward,” I said, “it is not luck which counts in this world, but rather a steady, dogged determination to do one’s duty; a persistent effort to keep one’s position in society; to mingle, so far as possible, with those of a superior station in life.” ”

“ Outbid him, outjockey him, overreach him, but never forget to make him believe he knows more of the game than you do. If you have any success over him, ascribe it to 'luck,' mere 'luck.' The most envious of men will forgive 'luck,' all the more if they despise the fellow who has profited by it. ”

“ Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him the news of a legacy; labor turns out at six o'clock, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence. Luck whines; labor whistles. Luck relies on chance; labor, on character."
There is no luck, for all practical purposes, to him who is not striving, and whose senses are not all eagerly attent. What are called accidental discoveries are almost invariably made by those who are looking for something. A man incurs about as much risk of being struck by lightning as by accidental luck. ”

“ The whole world becomes to you but one great green cloth, and everything in it a question of luck! Will the bad run continue here? Will good fortune stand much longer to you? These are the questions ever rising to your mind. ”

“ XV. True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table: Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home. XVI. Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of your virtues; But in your secret heart 'tis of your faults you are proud. XVII. Try not to beat back the current, yet be not drowned in its waters; Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few. ”

“ The privations you have imposed upon yourself, and the long nights that you have devoted to work, are luck. Luck, as a great English moralist puts it, means rising at six in the morning; luck means spending tenpence when you earn a shilling; luck means minding your own business and not meddling with other people's. ”

“ Many a one would be thankful to have as good reasons for contentment as he who had Good Luck for his godfather.
If he fell, Good Luck popped something soft in the way to break his fall; if he fought, Good Luck directed his blows, or tripped up his adversary; if he got into a scrape, Good Luck helped him out of it; and if ever Misfortune met him, Good Luck contrived to hustle her on the pathway till his godson got safely by. ”

“ Haven't you worked year after year and now should a just reward come as an astonishment?"
"It's all luck," said the consumptive, looking at his thin hands lying on the counterpane. "If a man has luck early in life, he's likely to pay for it later; and if he has bad luck till along toward middle life, the chances are that he will pick up. I had my luck early; I sang my song and finished it." His wife looked at him beseechingly. "I'm not complaining," he added. "It's no more than just. You and the young lady were speaking about a book, Mr. Lyman. How long did it take you to write it?" ”

“ It will be the last time I shall ever see her unless good fortune lies in this letter, and for that I hardly dare hope. You know that when a man's luck has been against him for a long time, it kills the very roots of hope and brings him almost to doubt certainty. Soon after I have seen my friend, Le Grand, I shall write to you in cipher, of which I shall leave you the key. If I see a prospect of fortune worthy of Frances, I shall ask her to wait a time for me, but if my ill fortune pursues me, I shall never again be heard from by any one in England. ”

“ Good Lord, I've had bad luck enough in my life! Everything isn't pleasure; life is a mixture. But I don't care: I'm always hoping, and sometimes I'm wrong. This time, Hulin, something good's come to me. The wind has shifted, and luck is with us. ”

“ It is luck—luck from the stars—not to be beset by clusters of people, people who do their thinking outside their heads, ‘cheerful’ people, people who say ‘pardon me’: all the damning sorts scattered about obstructing one’s view of the horizons. ”

“ Cause and effect are always hugging one another. To doubt one's luck, is to doubt it nearly always. I want to impress her with my good luck, for what impression is more favourable? Faint heart never won fairy prawns. That corner looks full of miraculous draught. ”

“ True, it was not altogether blind, for he applied wit and skill and strength; but behind it all was the everlasting Luck, the thing that at times turned on its votaries and crushed the wise while it blessed the fools--Luck, the thing all men sought and dreamed to conquer. And so he. Deep in his life-processes Life itself sang the siren song of its own majesty, ever a-whisper and urgent, counseling him that he could achieve more than other men, win out where they failed, ride to success where they perished. ”

“ One goes on recognizing the landmarks of the predecessors, excited, amused, taking the hard luck and the good luck together—the kicks and the half-pence, as the saying is—the picturesque common lot that holds so many possibilities for the deserving or perhaps for the lucky. ”

“ Now if fortune began creation, it has been by luck and chance that each step in the upward development was made; and luck, chance, and fortune are the sum of all intelligence, design, wisdom, love, and life that is or is to come. In which case the essential nature of the creative power and the supreme intelligence is luck, for the first cause must terminate in the last effect. ”

“ Faint heart never won anything, and as for luck, it belonged to those who adventured with various chances, and of the blind paths that led away from their feet into the future, chose one, and another, and so kept on good terms with possibility. ”

“ It's my luck.'
"'There are men, Kearny,' said I gravely, 'who pass through life blaming upon luck and chance the mistakes that result from their own faults and incompetency. I do not say that you are such a man. ”

“ Fortune smiles upon those who roll up their sleeves and put their shoulders to the wheel; upon men who are not afraid of dreary, dry, irksome drudgery, men of nerve and grit who do not turn aside for dirt and detail.
The youth should be taught that "he alone is great, who, by a life heroic, conquers fate;" that "diligence is the mother of good luck;" that, nine times out of ten, what we call luck or fate is but a mere bugbear of the indolent, the languid, the purposeless, the careless, the indifferent; that the man who fails, as a rule, does not see or seize his opportunity. ”

“ The results which followed came not so much, perhaps, from luck, as from forethought and careful calculation.
For success does not, as a rule, come by chance, and when one fails there is a reason for it. ”

“ Now, there are human beings who, in the great things they say and do, seldom fail of having this great, vague backing. There are others whom the grand current for the most part sets against. It is part of the great fact of Luck—the indubitable fact that there are men, women, ships, horses, railway-engines, whole railways, which are lucky, and others which are unlucky. I do not believe in the common theory of Luck, but no thoughtful or observant man can deny the fact of it. ”

“ But, he thought, I keep them with precision. Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready. ”

“ I have often been tempted to think that luckiness and unluckiness are a sort of subjective properties which we bring with us into the world, like health, strength, a finely organized brain, and so on; and whose preponderating power must always attract things magnetically to themselves. Like all other properties, this of luckiness may be cultivated or let to lie dormant, may be increased or diminished. The will does much; and thence the proverbs, Nothing venture nothing have, (Wagen gewinnt:) Boldness and luck go together, (Kühnheit gehört zum Glück.) ”

“ I believe in Luck, and Ill Luck, as facts; of course I do not believe the theory which common consent builds upon these facts. There is, of course, no such thing as chance; this world is driven with far too tight a rein to permit of anything whatsoever falling out in a way properly fortuitous. ”

“ Even then, luck will disappear like smoke in a wind unless you can also demonstrate that you possess wisdom, patience and courage.
What you think is good luck, may keep company with you for a short time, but will speedily desert you if you do not make good. ”