Fortune - Quotes

A Change of Fortune hurts a wise Man no more than a Change of the Moon. - Benjamin Franklin

A fool having enjoyed good fortune like intoxication to a great amount becomes more foolish. - Epictetus

A great fortune is a great slavery. - Unknown

A wise man turns chance into good fortune. - Thomas Fuller

Behind every great fortune there is a crime. - Honore de Balzac

By working one can bend fortune. She is fond of crafty men. - Gustave Flaubert

Change yourself and fortune will change. - Portuguese Proverb

Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands. - Francis Bacon

Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance. - Virgil

Diligence is the mother of good fortune. - Benjamin Disraeli

Every man is the architect of his own fortune. - Sallust

Fortune and misfortune are two buckets in the same well. - German Proverb

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered. - William Shakespeare

Fortune does not change men; it unmasks them. - Suzanne Necker

Fortune favours the audacious. - Desiderius Erasmus

Fortune favours the bold. - Virgil

Fortune favours the prepared mind. - Louis Pasteur

Fortune has been considered the guardian divinity of fools; and, on this score, she has been accused of blindness; but it should rather be adduced as a proof of her sagacity, when she helps those who cannot help themselves. - Charles Caleb Colton

Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators. - Samuel Smiles

Fortune has something of the nature of a woman. If she is too intensely wooed, she commonly goes the further away. - Charles V

Fortune is a great deceiver. She sells very dear the things she seems to give us. - Vincent Voiture

Fortune is ever seen accompanying industry. - Oliver Goldsmith

Fortune is like glass – the brighter the glitter, the more easily broken. - Publilius Syrus

Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave. - James Russell Lowell

Fortune knocks at every man's door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighbouring saloon and does not hear her. - Mark Twain

Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience. - Unknown

Fortune makes a fool of him whom she favours too much. - Publilius Syrus

Fortune may flatter us, but she herself is not to be flattered. - Edward Counsel

Fortune may raise up or abuse the ordinary mortal, but the sage and the soldier should have minds beyond her control. - Sir Walter Scott

Fortune never seems so blind to any as to those on whom she bestows no favours. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Fortune rarely accompanies anyone to the door. - Goethe

Fortune sells her wares; she never gives them. In some form or other, we pay for her favours; or we go empty away. - Amelia E. Barr

Fortune sides with him who dares. - Virgil

Fortune sometimes knocks like a schoolmistress, but then she teaches when she does. - Edward Counsel

Fortune sometimes turns round like a mill wheel and he who was yesterday at the top lies today at the bottom. -  Miquel de Cervantes

Fortune, in the distribution of her gifts, resembles a good fellow throwing pennies into the air for children to scramble after. She does not cast to this and to that one according to their respective merits, but leaves chance and their own activity to determine who shall get the most of her bounty. - Christian Nestell Bovee

Fortune, like a coy mistress, loves to yield her favours, though she makes us wrest them from her. - Christian Nestell Bovee

Fortune, the great commandress of the world, hath diverse ways to advance her followers: To some she gives honour without deserving; to other some, deserving without honour; some wit, some wealth, - and some, wit without wealth; some wealth without wit; some nor wit nor wealth. - George Chapman

Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces. - Julius Caesar

Fortunes are wrung from the smallest of things that once were ignored, turning men into kings. - Edwin Leibfreed

Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune. - Arthur Schopenhauer

Good fortune and evil fortune come to all things alike in this world of time. - Moasi

He has not acquired a fortune, the fortune has acquired him. - Bion

He is truly a happy man who can, upon all occasions, reconcile himself to his fortune. - Norman MacDonald

He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner. - Benjamin Franklin

If Fortune calls, offer her a seat. - Unknown

If a man looks sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible. - Francis Bacon

If a man's fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him. - Horace

Industry, perseverance and frugality make fortune yield. - Benjamin Franklin

It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because in herself she is nothing, but is ruled by prudence. - John Dryden 

It is vain to complain of fortune while we fail in policy and conduct. - Norman MacDonald

It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

No man's fortune can be an end worthy of his being. - Francis Bacon

No one is satisfied with his fortune, nor dissatisfied with his intellect. - Antoinette Deshoulieres

People are architects of their own fortune. - Spanish Proverb

Raillery against fortune is the common eloquence of disappointment and misguided ambition. - Norman MacDonald

The brave man carves out his fortune and every man is the son of his own works. - Miguel De Cervantes

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The day of fortune is like a harvest day, we must be busy when the corn is ripe. - Goethe

The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it. - Seneca

The life which is implicated with fortune (depends on fortune) is like a winter torrent: for it is turbulent, and full of mud, and difficult to cross, and tyrannical, and noisy, and of short duration. - Epictetus

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

The mould of a man’s fortune is in his own hands. - Francis Bacon

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence and merit. - Jonathan Swift

The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends. - Cicero

The way of fortune is like the milky way in the sky; which is a number of smaller stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together; so, it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate. - Francis Bacon, Sr.

There is frequently a poison in fortune's gifts. - Edward Counsel

There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change. - Euripides

Those who have been indulged by fortune and have always thought of calamity as what happens to others, feel a blind incredulous rage at the reversal of their lot, and half believe that their wild cries will alter the course of the storm. - George Eliot

To attract good fortune, spend a new penny on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon. - Chinese Proverb

To be a great man one should know how to profit by every phase of fortune. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We always take credit for the good and attribute the bad to fortune. - Charles Kuralt

We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts. - Dean Koontz

We should enjoy good fortune while we have it, like the fruits of autumn. - Epictetus

We should manage our fortunes as we do our health – enjoy it when good, be patient when it is bad. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Whatever difference may appear in men's fortunes, there is nevertheless a certain compensation of good and ill that makes all equal. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Whatever fortune has raised to a height, she has raised only to cast it down. - Seneca

When a fortune comes without calling, it's apt to leave without asking. - George Horace Lorimer

When fortune turns against you, even jelly breaks your teeth. - Iranian Proverb

When fortune wishes to bring mighty events to a successful conclusion, she selects some man of spirit and ability who knows how to seize the opportunity she offers. - Niccolo Machiavelli