Fortune Quotes - Page 22

• I thought about societies where exceptional fortunes are built up in industries with very little connection to out sincere and significant needs, industries where it is difficult to escape from the disparity between a seriousness of means and a triviality of ends.

  Alain de Botton

  Mean, Connections, Needs

  Alain de Botton (2009). “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work”, p.73, Penguin UK

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• No woman can be a beauty without a fortune.

  George Farquhar

  'The Beaux' Stratagem' (1707) act 2, sc. 2

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• [Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?

  Chinua Achebe

  Men, Juicy, Mouths

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• I used to refer to myself as Typhoid Mary. It wasn't that I was jinxed, I just seemed to bring ill fortune to anybody I was close to.

  Nigella Lawson

  Used, Typhoid, Mary

  "Reality Bites". Interview with Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. September 02, 2002.

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• Mom-and-pop businesses have the same issues as the Fortune 500. The difference is that big companies spend millions on consultants to fix them.

  Christopher Myers

  Mom, Issues, Differences

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• My greatest fortune was that I was ordered to take up art for the good of my health

  Kyffin Williams

  Art

  Kyffin Williams (1973). “Across the straits: an autobiography”, Gerald Duckworth & Company

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• Seeking those elusive individuals is like mining for rare gems. It will take hard work, patience, and a persistent attitude. To find that rich seam of colourful stones, you will have to chip through dirt and rock. You will have to learn how to hold rubble in your hands and see the fortune inside.

  Chris Murray

  Attitude, Hard Work, Rocks

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• Nothing is more certain than uncertainties: / Fortune is full of fresh variety; / Constant in nothing but inconstancy.

  Richard Barnfield

  Certain, Constant, Inconstancy

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• Men marry for fortune, and sometimes to please their fancy; but, much oftener than is suspected, they consider what the world will say of it--how such a woman in their friends' eyes will look at the head of a table. Hence we see so many insipid beauties made wives of, that could not have struck the particular fancy of any man that had any fancy at all.

  Charles Lamb

  Eye, Men, Wife

  Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb (1913). “Miscellaneous prose (1798-1834)”

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• It is men of desperate fortunes on the one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who go abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road.

  Daniel Defoe

  Adventure, Men, Hands

  Daniel Defoe (1719). “The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner”, p.10

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• Every man is the maker of his own fortune

  Gertrude Stein

  Men, Makers, Every Man

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• People who make a living off other people's fortunes or misfortunes are parasites.

  Frank Sinatra

  People, Parasites, Misfortunes

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• See your disappointments as good fortune. One plan's deflation is another's inflation.

  Jean Cocteau

  Disappointment, Deflation, Plans

  "Diary of an Unknown". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1988.

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• There are such beings in the world -- perhaps one in a thousand -- as the creature you and I should think perfection; where grace and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart and understanding; but such a person may not come in your way, or, if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a man of fortune, the near relation of your particular friend, and belonging to your own county.

  Jane Austen

  Heart, Son, Men

  Jane Austen (2017). “Jane Austen's correspondence and letters: The complete and definitive edition”, p.152, BoD - Books on Demand

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• When Philip had news brought him of divers and eminent successes in one day, "O Fortune!" said he, "for all these so great kindnesses do me some small mischief.

  Plutarch

  Kindness, One Day, News

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.194

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• Ought a man to be confident that he deserves his good fortune, and think much of himself when he has overcome a nation, or city, or empire; or does fortune give this as an example to the victor also of the uncertainty of human affairs, which never continue in one stay? For what time can there be for us mortals to feel confident, when our victories over others especially compel us to dread fortune, and while we are exulting, the reflection that the fatal day comes now to one, now to another, in regular succession, dashes our joy.

  Plutarch

  Men, Thinking, Reflection

  Plutarch (2012). “Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Complete”, p.371, Simon and Schuster

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• For God's love, take things patiently, have sense, Think! We are prisoners and shall always be. Fortune has given us this adversity, Some wicked planetary dispensation, Some Saturn's trick or evil constellation Has given us this, and Heaven, though we had sworn The contrary, so stood when we were born. We must endure it, that's the long and short.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Adversity, Thinking, Long

  Geoffrey Chaucer (1966). “The Canterbury Tales”

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• For of fortunes sharp adversitee The worst kynde of infortune is this, A man to han ben in prosperitee, And it remembren, whan it passed is.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Men, Worst

  'Troilus and Criseyde' bk. 3, l. 1625.

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• I had a great dislike to the annoyances entailed by baggage; and it was always with some feeling of elation that I cut myself free from everything but what I could carry about me. Like children, portmanteaus and trunks are hostages to fortune.

  Herbert Spencer

  Children, Cutting, Feelings

  Herbert Spencer (1904). “An Autobiography: By Herbert Spencer”

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• The most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life; in which they govern themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience, quickness of memory, and inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good or evil fortune, and the errors of one another.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Memories, Men, Errors

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan”, p.45, Simon and Schuster

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• Fact be vertuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth

  Thomas Hobbes

  Facts, Vicious

  Thomas Hobbes (2015). “Leviathan”, p.561, Thomas Hobbes

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• Show me a country where the bombs had to fallShow me the ruins of buildings so tallAnd I'll show you a young landWith many reasons whyThere but for fortune, go you or IYou or I.

  Phil Ochs

  Country, Bombs, Ruins

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• Our own actions are the accidents of fortune that we sometimes place to the credit of luck or misfortune.

  James Ellis

  Luck, Credit, Action

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• Dame Fortune is a fickle gipsy, And always blind, and often tipsy; Sometimes for years and years together, She 'll bless you with the sunniest weather, Bestowing honour, pudding, pence, You can't imagine why or whence; Then in a moment Presto, pass! Your joys are withered like the grass

  Winthrop Mackworth Praed

  Years, Weather, Joy

  Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1852). “Lillian: And Other Poems”, p.64

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• In particular, it is absurd to hope to banish envy of other people's possessions or fortunes, if only because the spirit of envy can lead to emulation and ambition and have positive consequences.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Ambition, People, Envy

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.74, Atlantic Books Ltd

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