Luck

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."

Sourced

• 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."

• Fortune turns all things to the advantage of those on whom she smiles.
  • François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxim No. 60, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1678)

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

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

• Fortis fortuna adiuvat
  Fortune favours the brave.
  • Terence (195-159 BC), Phormio, 203; variant translation: Fortune favors the bold.

• 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

Unsourced

• Do you feel lucky, punk?!
  • Dirty Harry

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

• I don't need luck, sarge. I was born lucky!
  • Pvt. Reiben in Saving Private Ryan

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

• In my experience, there's no such thing as luck.
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars series

• 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 is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
  • Seneca, Roman dramatist

• Luck...protects fools, small children and ships named Enterprise.
  • Cmdr. Will Riker from 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

• Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances. Real men believe in cause and effect.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
  • William Shakespeare

• The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; and the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.
  • Saadi

• The harder I work, the luckier I get.
  • Samuel Goldwyn

• The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.
  • Molière

• The prudent man really frames his own fortunes for himself.
  • Plautus