Good fortune Quotes

Some material things make my life more enjoyable; many, however, would not. I like having an expensive private plane, but owning a half-dozen homes would be a burden. Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends. My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest. Both my children and I won what I call the ovarian lottery. (For starters, the odds against my 1930 birth taking place in the U.S. were at least 30 to 1. My being male and white also removed huge obstacles that a majority of Americans then faced.) My luck was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted results, though overall it serves our country well. Ive worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions. In short, fates distribution of long straws is wildly capricious. The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs. My pledge starts us down that course.

Warren Edward Buffett

Prosperity can change man's nature; and seldom is any one cautious enough to resist the effects of good fortune.

Curtis Rufus Quintus

Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow.

Dorothy Thompson

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness its opposite never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

After falling for a very long time, as I surmise after the fact (I was falling so fast that I must have lost track), all I can remember is that I found myself under a tree. I was entangled in three or four rather large branches I had broken in my fall. An apple had squashed against my face and made it all wet with its juice. Fortunately, as you will soon learn, this place was the Garden of Eden, and the tree I had fallen into was none other than the Tree of Life. You would be quite right to think I would have been killed a thousand times over but for this miraculous good fortune.

Cyrano Hercule Savinien de Bergerac

One must not try to trick misfortune, but resign oneself to it with good grace.

Aristophanes