Quotes About Luck

Because St. Patrick’s Day is coming up

We associate St. Patrick’s Day with being lucky, but what does luck really mean? These quotes explore what it means to be lucky — and what it means to be out of luck.

1. “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” -Benjamin Franklin

2. “Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation, while bad luck is when lack of preparation meets reality.” -Eliyahu Goldratt

3. “Chance favors the prepared mind.” -Louis Pasteur

4. “Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” -Dalai Lama XIV

5. “I think we consider too much the luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt

6. “No luck was dumb because luck was just another name for miracle.” -Margaret Atwood

7. “Here’s the thing about luck. You don’t know if it’s good or bad until you have some perspective.” -Alice Hoffman

8. “Luck never gives; it only lends.” -Proverb

9. “Luck has a way of evaporating when you lean on it.” -Brandon Mull

10. “Nothing is as obnoxious as other people’s luck.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald

11. “Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit.” -R.E. Shay

12. “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. The man was born to do it, and his father was born to be the father of him and of this deed, and, by looking narrowly, you shall see there was no luck in the matter, but it was all a problem in arithmetic, or an experiment in chemistry. The curve of the flight of the moth is preordained, and all things go by number, rule, and weight.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

13. “Luck affects everything; let your hook always be cast; in the stream where you least expect it, there will be a fish.” -Ovid 14. “Luck, good or bad, is the invisible play of mind upon affairs, the effect of mental aptitudes and habits which are not in sight, but which work and bring forth their due issues.” -James Vila Blake

15. “Learn to recognize good luck when it’s waving at you, hoping to get your attention.” -Sally Koslow

16. “I broke a mirror in my house and was supposed to get seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.” -Steven Wright

17. “If one does not know to which port is sailing, no wind is favorable.” -Seneca

18. “Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.” -Ray Kroc

19. “In short, luck’s always to blame.” -Jean De La Fontaine

20. “I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” -Thomas Jefferson

21. “Luck is everything….My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I’m fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn’t make a good suspense film.” -Alfred Hitchcock

22. “The lucky or successful person has learned a simple secret. Call up, capture, evoke the feeling of success. When you feel successful and self-confident, you will act successful. Define your goal or end result. Picture it to yourself clearly and vividly. Then simply capture the feeling you would experience if the desirable goal were already an established fact. Then your internal machinery is geared for success: to guide you in making the correct muscular motions and adjustments; to supply you with creative ideas, and to do whatever else is necessary in order to make the goal an accomplished fact.” -Maxwell Maltz

23. “Put P before the word ‘luck’ and you have the password to the attainment of all your desires.” -Walter Matthews

24. “Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer’d.” -William Shakespeare

25. “We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?” -Jean Cocteau

26. “The fish is my friend too….I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars. Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky; he thought.” -Ernest Hemingway 27. “Luck is the residue of design.” -Branch Rickey

28. “I wandered everywhere, through cities and countries wide. And everywhere I went, the world was on my side.” -Roman Payne

29. “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” -Samuel Goldwyn

30. “With luck, you have other things to do than wait for lightning to strike.” -Paul Lauterbur

31. “Luck is what we make it, not what is thrust upon us. You’ve shown initiative and it has nothing to do with luck.” -George Bellairs

32. “Luck has a longer reach than wisdom.” -James Lendall Basford

33. “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” -Ronald Dahl

34. “You get out of life what you put into it. I think you need a bit of luck, but you also make a bit of luck. I think that if you’re a pretty decent person, you’ll get back what you put in.” -John Key

35. “Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.” -Earl Wilson

36. “‘Why hasn’t anyone killed him yet?’ ‘Dumb luck,’ Wit said. ‘In that I’m lucky you’re all so dumb.’” -Brandon Sanderson

37. “Luck is a goddess not to be coerced and forcibly wooed by those who seek her favors. From such masterful spirits she turns away. But it happens sometimes that, if we put our hand in hers with the humble trust of a little child, she will have pity on us, and not fail us in our hour of need.” -P.G. Wodehouse

38. “I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.” -Rex Stout

39. “I was…blaspheming my luck in a way that made my breath smell of brimstone.” -Mark Twain

40. “Go and wake up your luck.” -Persian saying

41. “Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

42. “Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.” -Seneca

43. “The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.” -Wilson Mizner

44. “Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.” -Terry Pratchett

45. “You gotta try your luck at least once a day, because you could be going around lucky all day and not even know it.” -Jimmy Dean

46. “The greatest advice that good luck has for you is this: ‘Do not look for me. I will find you.’” -Mark Benedict

47. “Luck is great, but most of life is hard work.” -Iain Duncan Smith

48. “May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light, May good luck pursue you each morning and night.” -Irish blessing

49. “It’s hard to detect good luck — it looks so much like something you’ve earned.” -Frank A. Clark

50. “I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you’re prepared for it.” -Denzel Washington

More from Kiki Wellington:

Sources:

28 Quotes About Luck To Make You Feel Lucky. KeepInspiring.me. https://www.keepinspiring.me/lucky-quotes/

Luck Quotes. BrainyQuote. https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/luck-quotes

Luck Quotes. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/luck

Luck Quotes. Notable Quotes. http://www.notable-quotes.com/l/luck_quotes.html

Luck Sayings and Quotes. Wise Sayings. https://www.wisesayings.com/luck-quotes/

Quotations about Luck. The Quote Garden. https://www.quotegarden.com/luck.html

The Best Quotes on Luck of All Time. Sources of Insight. https://sourcesofinsight.com/luck-quotes/

Top 35 Luck Quotes To Bring Some Magic Into Your Life. Kidadl. https://kidadl.com/articles/top-luck-quotes-to-bring-some-magic-into-your-life