Luck

Victory awaits him who has everything in order — luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck. ~ Roald Amundsen

Luck is a chance happening, or that which happens beyond a person's control, and can be referred to as "good luck" or "bad luck".

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Quotes

Alphabetized by author

Victory awaits him who has everything in order — luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck.
- Roald Amundsen, in The South Pole (1912)

No amount of careful planning can beat pure luck.
- Anonymous (?) proverbial saying, source: Klara Landau[1]

I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.
- Coleman Cox, in Listen to this (1922)
- Unsourced variant: The harder I work, the luckier I get.
- Sometimes mistakenly attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Stephen Leacock, or Samuel Goldwyn

Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: It was somebody's name, or he happened to be there at the time, or, it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, in The Conduct of Life (1860); this has also been paraphrased as "Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances. Real men believe in cause and effect".

In my experience, there's no such thing as luck.
- George Lucas, depicting an expression of Obi-Wan Kenobi, in Star Wars (1977)

No one I met at this time — doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow-patients — failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives it is the luckiest creature alive. I could not help thinking that it would be even luckier not to be hit at all.
- George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia.

The harder I practice, the luckier I get.
- Gary Player, as quoted in "Gary Player: take it from the man in black: rats save lives, caning isn't all bad, and we make our own breaks" by Guy Yocom, in Golf Digest (October 2002)

Luck is the residue of design.
- Branch Rickey, as quoted in Psychology Applied to Work : An Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology (1982) by Paul M. Muchinsky, p.482; this has often become paraphrased as : "Luck is the residue of hard work and design".

As Bob Dylan forgot to say, "To live outside the law, you must be lucky."
- Spider Robinson, in Callahan's Key (2000)

I don't need luck, Sarge. I was born lucky!
- Robert Rodat, depicting "Pvt. Reiben" in Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Luck can only get you so far.
- J. K. Rowling, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; Hermione Granger referring to a luck potion Felix Felicis

Good luck in most cases comes through the misfortune of others.
- Sir John Young “Jackie” Stewart (b. 1939), Scottish racing driver, businessman. From his interview with Martyn Lewis, in Lewis’ book, Reflections on Success (1997), p. 938

The only thing I ever learned was that some people are lucky and other people aren't and not even a graduate of the Harvard Business School can say why.
- Kurt Vonnegut, as quoted in "The Sirens of Titan" by character Noel Constant

We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.
- Nero Wolfe in The Rubber Band (1936) by Rex Stout

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 484.

O, once in each man's life, at least,
Good luck knocks at his door;
And wit to seize the flitting guest
Need never hunger more.
But while the loitering idler waits
Good luck beside his fire,
The bold heart storms at fortune's gates,
And conquers its desire.
- Lewis J. Bates, Good Luck

As ill-luck would have it.
- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605-15), Part I, Book I, Chapter II

As they who make
Good luck a god count all unlucky men.
- George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book I

A farmer travelling with his load
Picked up a horseshoe on the road,
And nailed it fast to his barn door,
That luck might down upon him pour;
That every blessing known in life
Might crown his homestead and his wife,
And never any kind of harm
Descend upon his growing farm.
- James T. Fields, The Lucky Horseshoe

Now for good lucke, cast an old shooe after mee.
- John Heywood, Proverbs, Part I, Chapter IX

Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it.
- Douglas Jerrold, Jerrold's Wit, Meeting Trouble Half-Way

Felix ille tamen corvo quoque rarior albo.
- A lucky man is rarer than a white crow.
- Juvenal, Satires, VII. 202

Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847), Part I, Stanza 2

"Then here goes another," says he, "to make sure,
For there's luck in odd numbers," says Rory O'More.
- Samuel Lover, Rory O'More

Good luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth
The fairy ladies danced upon the hearth.
- John Milton, At a Vacation Exercise in the College

By the luckiest stars.
- William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act I, scene 3, line 252

When mine hours were nice and lucky.
- William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1600s), Act III, scene 13, line 179

And good luck go with thee.
- William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act IV, scene 3, line 11

As good luck would have it.
- William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (c. 1597; published 1602), Act III, scene 5, line 83

Good luck lies in odd numbers * * * They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.
- William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (c. 1597; published 1602), Act V, scene 1, line 2

And wheresoe'er thou move, good luck
Shall fling her old shoe after.
- Alfred Tennyson, Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue, Stanza 27

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Unsourced

The universe runs on a strict mathematical equation of cause and effect, luck is being the right number
- David Belcher

Luck favors the prepared
- Louis Pasteur

...Do I feel lucky?
- Dirty Harry.

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

I have a lot of luck, it's just not always good luck.
- Carter Terry

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's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart.
- King Charles in Pippin.

Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us lose, so long as she never makes us lose our honesty and our independence.
- Alexander Pope

Luck be a lady tonight.
- Guys and Dolls, as song of Sky Masterson

Luck favors the prepared, darling.
- Edna Mode in The Incredibles, originally from Louis Pasteur

Luck... protects fools, small children and ships named Enterprise.
- William Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Men live at the mercy of forces they cannot control. Belief in fortune and luck, good and evil, is one of the most widespread and persistent of human beliefs.
- John Dewey