Unlucky Quotes - Page 5

• There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of life—life's "experiences"—are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never know one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side.

  Mark Twain

  Experience, Wish, Way

  Mark Twain (2015). “Mark Twain's Essays: Top Essays”, p.181, 谷月社

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• Those who were unlucky in life in spite of their skills would eventually rise. The lucky fool might have benefited from some luck in life; over the longer run he would slowly converge to the state of a less-lucky idiot. Each one would revert to his long-term properties.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Running, Skills, Long

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2008). “Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets”, p.58, Random House

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• I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme. . .

  William Shakespeare

  Jealous, Deeds, Letters

  'Othello' (1602-4) act 5, sc. 2, l. 338

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• People would be a lot more skeptical if they understood that there is an incredible amount of chance in the results that you observe for active managers. So the distribution of outcomes is enormously wide - but that's exactly what you'd expect by chance with lots of active managers who hold imperfectly diversified portfolios. The really good portfolios contain a lot of really lucky picks, and the really bad portfolios contain a lot of really unlucky picks as well as some really bad ones.

  Eugene Fama

  People, Would Be, Lucky

  "A Father of Modern Finance" by Rebecca Rolfes, www.chicagobooth.edu. 2013.

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• the child unlucky in his little State,
  Some hearth where freedom is excluded,
  A hive whose honey is fear and worry,
  Feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape

  W. H. Auden

  Children, Fear, Worry

  W. H. Auden, “In Memory Of Sigmund Freud”

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• For this reason, if you believe proverbs, let me tell you the common one: "It is unlucky to marry in May.

  Ovid

  Believe, May, Common

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• There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage, and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Clever, People, Able

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• Things worthwhile generally don’t just happen. Luck is a fact, but should not be a factor. Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best. Negligence or indifference are usually reviewed from an unlucky seat. The law of cause and effect and causality both work the same with inexorable exactitudes. Luck is the residue of design.

  Branch Rickey

  Good Luck, Law, Design

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• Woe to the unlucky man who as a child is taught, even as a portion of his creed, what his grown reason must forswear.

  James Anthony Froude

  Children, Men, Woe

  James Anthony Froude (1849). “The nemesis of faith”, p.124

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• We all have heard it claimed that 13 is an 'unlucky number.' Indeed, there are many hotels in America that for this very reason claim not to have a 13th floor, in the sense that there is no button bearing the label '13' in their elevators (I recently stayed in one in New York, in fact).

  Douglas Hofstadter

  New York, Numbers, America

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• For 13 to be unlucky would require there to be some kind of cosmic intelligence that counts things that humans count and that also makes certain things happen on certain dates or in certain places according to whether the number 13 'is involved' or not (whatever 'is involved' might mean).

  Douglas Hofstadter

  Mean, Numbers, Might

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• There was no protection, no quota system when it came to luck. It was like that moment in math when a child learns that the odds of heads or tails is always one-in-two, no matter how many times one has flipped the coin and gotten heads. Every flip, the odds are the same. Every day, you could be unlucky all over again.

  Laura Lippman

  Children, Math, Odds

  "I'd Know You Anywhere". Book by Laura Lippman, 2010.

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• Thus we see that the all important thing is not killing or giving life, drinking or not drinking, living in the town or the country, being unlucky or lucky, winning or losing. It is how we win, how we lose, how we live or die, finally, how we choose.

  Reginald Horace Blyth

  Life, Country, Drinking

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• Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.

  Michael Lewis

  Luck, Debt, Obligation

  "Don’t Eat Fortune’s Cookie". Princeton University’s 2012 Baccalaureate Remarks, www.princeton.edu. June 3, 2012.

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• No accidents are so unlucky [bad] but that the wise may draw some advantage [good] from them.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Wise, Gratitude, May

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• I was lucky enough to be fairly quick at understanding what was taught, but unlucky enough not to be really interested in it, so I always got my exams but never had the scholar's love of learning for its own sake.

  Maeve Binchy

  Understanding, Lucky, Sake

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• Every one and every single time is different, and I didn't have C-sections, which I don't know if that's lucky or unlucky, but I was able to feel every contraction. You forget what it feels like. God's got a great way of making women forget what it's like because we would never go through it again.

  Monica Potter

  Different, Lucky, Able

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• It is our custom to say that someone is 'lucky' or 'unlucky' if they meet with fortunate or unfortunate circumstances, respectively. It is, however, too simplistic to think in terms of random 'luck.' Even from a scientific point of view, this is not a sufficient explanation.

  Dalai Lama

  Thinking, Views, Luck

  The Dalai Lama (2001). “Answers: Discussions with Western Buddhists”, p.108, Shambhala

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• To say that certainly America was very lucky to get a large amount of land, and the native Indians were extremely unlucky to have white men coming over here, is one thing. But to say that the whole of the American prosperity was based on exploiting the indigenous population would be a great mistake.

  Amartya Sen

  Mistake, Men, White Man

  Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. September 29, 2011.

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• If you think of the public lives of people who've been unlucky, it seems showbiz is some tumultuous crazy world but some are fortunate and some unfortunate. All I can do is keep striving to be better.

  Harry Connick, Jr.

  Crazy, Thinking, People

  Source: www.patheos.com

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• Everybody would like to be good, that's the silly thing, everybody always likes it when they're having a nice time or when they're happy or when it's sunny, they all dig it; but then they go and forget about it, they never really try to make it nice. They think that it just comes along and it's nice if you're lucky, or if you're unlucky it's bad for you.

  George Harrison

  Nice, Silly, Thinking

  Source: www.fifthestate.org

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• If you have certain problems with your brain but are raised in a good home, you might turn out okay. If your brain is fine and your home is terrible, you might still turn out fine. But if you have mild brain damage and end up with a bad home life, you're tossing the dice for a very unlucky synergy.

  David Eagleman

  Home, Brain, Might

  Source: www.goodreads.com

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• To go straight to the deepest depth, I went for Hegel; what unclear thoughtless flow of words I was to find there! My unlucky star led me from Hegel to Schopenhauer . . . Even in Kant there were many things that I could grasp so little that given his general acuity of mind I almost suspected that he was pulling the reader's leg or was even an imposter.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Hope, Stars, Mind

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• As for me, I am unfortunate enough not to posses a happy temperament like Najdorf, who views every happening in a rosy light and avoids any possibility of self-criticism. I am one of those unlucky skeptics who never overlook the dark side of even the happiest experience.

  Savielly Tartakower

  Dark, Light, Self

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• We're just animals, creatures smart enough and unlucky enough to have figured out we're alive, and we're going to die without ever knowing any purpose. We can pretend all we want and we can wish all we want, but that basic existential fact remains—we can't know.

  James Redfield

  Smart, Animal, Knowing

  James Redfield (2011). “The Tenth Insight: A Pocket Guide (Storycuts)”, p.49, Random House

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