Fortune Quotes - Page 37

• It is often the easiest move that completes the game. Fortune is like the lady whom a lover carried off from all his rivals by putting an additional lace upon his liveries.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Moving, Games, Rivals

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• Birds sing in vain to the ear, flowers bloom in vain to the eye, of mortified vanity and galled ambition. He who would know repose in retirement must carry into retirement his destiny, integral and serene, as the Caesars transported the statue of Fortune into the chamber they chose for their sleep.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Retirement, Flower, Ambition

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• A fortune won in a day is lost in a day; a fortune won slowly, and slowly compacted, seems to acquire from the hand that won it the property of endurance.

  J. G. Holland

  Hands, Endurance, Wealth

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• Fortune is like a coquette; if you don't run after her, she will run after you.

  Josh Billings

  Running, Coquette, Ifs

  Josh Billings (1874). “Josh Billings' Wit and Humor”, p.151

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• When we see the shameful fortunes amassed in all quarters of the globe, are we not impelled to exclaim that Judas' thirty pieces of silver have fructified across the centuries?

  Sophie Swetchine

  Pieces, Riches, Silver

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• There is no misfortune, but to bear it nobly is good fortune.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Bears, Good Fortune, Misfortunes

  Marcus Aurelius (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Marcus Aurelius (Illustrated)”, p.51, Delphi Classics

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• Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases; being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Hurt, Soul, Mistress

  Michel de Montaigne, William Hazlitt (1860). “The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy”, p.145

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• Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wise, Fool, Made

  Michel de Montaigne (1872). “All the Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne”, p.741

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• What is taken from the fortune, also, may haply be so much lifted from the soul. The greatness of a loss, as the proverb suggests, is determinable, not so much by what we have lost, as by what we have left.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Taken, Loss, Greatness

  Christian Nestell Bovee (1862). “Intuitions and Summaries of Thought”, p.29

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• Which is more worthwhile earning: a large fortune or the esteem and gratitude of the nation? This question is prompted anew by the death of ex-Secretary of the Interior [Franklin K.] Lane. He remained in public service, doing most noble work, until his means became absolutely exhausted, and he died before having had the opportunity to reaccumulate any bank account.... He died leaving no estate whatsoever. Is what he did leave more to be desired, more to be coveted, than a fortune reaching into six or seven figures?

  B. C. Forbes

  Gratitude, Mean, Opportunity

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• The majority of America's colossal fortunes have been made by entering industries in their early stages and developing leadership in them.... Think of what opportunities the present and the future contain in such fields as ship-building and ship-owning, aircraft, electrical development, the oil industry, different branches of the automotive industry, foreign trade, international banking, invention, the chemical industry, moving pictures, color photography, and, one night add, labor leadership.

  B. C. Forbes

  Photography, Moving, Thinking

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• Interest, ambition, fortune, time, temper, love, all kill friendship.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Friendship, Ambition, Temper

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• How much in this world is charged to chance or fortune, or veiled under a more devout name, and accorded to Providence; while, when we come to look honestly into affairs, we find it to be a debt of our own accumulation, and one which we must inevitably pay.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Names, Looks, Debt

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• Life is a problem. Not merely a premiss from which we start, but a goal towards which we proceed. It is an opportunity for us not merely to get, but to attain; not simply to have, but to be. Its standard of failure or success is not outward fortune, but inward possession.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Life, Opportunity, Goal

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• The loss of fortune to a true man is but the trumpet challenge to renewed exertion, not the thunder stroke of destruction.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Loss, Men, Challenges

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• Neither the gifts nor the blows of fortune equal those of nature.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Blow, Equal

  Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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• We are forced to respect the gifts of nature, which study and fortune cannot give.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Giving, Study

  Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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• The favorites of fortune or of fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Ambition, Eye, Pedestal

  Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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• Activity makes more men's fortunes than cautiousness.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Men, Cautiousness, Action

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• A vast industry of stockbrokers, financial planners, and investment advisers skims a fortune for themselves off the top in exchange for passing their clients' money on to people who, as a whole, cannot possibly outperform the market.

  Michael Lewis

  People, Investing, Clients

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• Many a woman shudders... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians.

  Sarah Moore Grimke

  Art, Army, Intellectual

  "The Female Experience". Book by Gerda Lerner (Chapter 87), 1977.

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• That is a most wretched fortune which is without an enemy.

  Publilius Syrus

  Enemy, Wretched

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• A great fortune enslaves its owner.

  Publilius Syrus

  Owners

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• Fortune is like glass; she breaks when she is brightest.

  Publilius Syrus

  Glasses, Break

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• Fortune is never satisfied with bringing one sorrow.

  Publilius Syrus

  Sorrow, Satisfied

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