30 Quotes on Luck-Making

To celebrate this fine blog’s sexy new slogan and focus, I put together 30 quotes on luck-making. You’ll notice a single theme runs through these quotes: work and effort cause luck. Luck alone is worthless. Like a surge protector without electricity. Fix-a-flat without tires.  A blog without a blogger.

Okay, I’m stretching it. On with the quotes. Enjoy!

1. I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. Thomas Jefferson
2. Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. Ralph Waldo Emerson
3. Diligence is the mother of good luck. Benjamin Franklin
4. Luck is merely an illusion, trusted by the ignorant and chased by the foolish. Timothy Zahn
5. The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself. Douglas MacArthur
6. The worst cynicism: a belief in luck. Joyce Carol Oates
7. We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like? Jean Cocteau
8. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
9. Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid. John Dewey
10. Luck is believing you’re lucky.” Tennessee Williams
11. “Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.” Oprah Winfrey
12. People always call it luck when you’ve acted more sensibly than they have. Anne Tyler
13. There is no luck except where there is discipline. Irish Proverb
14. Don’t minimize the importance of luck in determining life’s course. Alex Trebek
15. Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure. Earl Wilson
16. Things happen to you out of luck, and if you get to stick around it’s because you’re talented. Whoopi Goldberg
17. One-half of life is luck; the other half is discipline – and that’s the important half, for without discipline you wouldn’t know what to do with luck. Carl Zuckmayer
18. Art depends on luck and talent. Francis Ford Coppola
19. I love acting and making your own luck. You have to recreate yourself, I guess. Although, I don’t know how. Dennis Quaid
20. I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it… The man who can smile at his breaks and grab his chances gets on.  Samuel Goldwyn
21. To the soldier, luck is merely another word for skill. Patrick MacGill
22. In the long run, you make your own luck – good, bad, or indifferent. Loretta Lynn
23. Inspiration is one thing and you can’t control it, but hard work is what keeps the ship moving. Good luck means, work hard. Keep up the good work. Kevin Eubanks
24. What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient but restless mind, of sacrificing one’s ease or vanity, or uniting a love of detail to foresight, and of passing through hard times bravely and cheerfully. Victor Cherbuliez
25. It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it. Baltasar Gracian
26. Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast; in the stream where you least expect it, there will be a fish. Ovid
27. Luck consists largely of hanging on by your fingernails until things start to go your way. Aaron Allston
28. The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work. Harry Golden
29. True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table; luckiest is he who knows just when to rise and go home. John Hay
30. The day you decide to do, it is your lucky day.  Japanese Proverb