William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

Well, we all are what we are, I guess you might say by an accident of birth.

You know, I think in some kinds of ways, we are all born into stuff that gives us no choice.

Luck cannot change birth.

Before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt: one's family.

Birth and ancestry, and that which we have not ourselves achieved, we can scarcely call our own.

There's always luck involved in things, luck is involved in life; you're born a certain way, you're born in a certain location, you're born - country, there's always luck. And some people disagree that there's no such thing as luck, well, I'll take them on anytime you want.

Yes, there's a luck in most things; and in none more than being born at the right time.

I was thinking about how fleeting and precious life is. Life is also arbitrary. For example, the choices that you make, the luck of being born into the right bed, to parents who support and help you and who love you. That doesn't always happen - and then, what happens when it doesn't?

I'm a great believer in fate. I think things happen in spite of, and despite, yourself.

There are good people who are dealt a bad hand by fate, and bad people who live long, comfortable, privileged lives. A small twist of fate can save or end a life; random chance is a permanent, powerful player in each of our lives, and in human history as well.

Life is ruthless, and its bestowal of fortune arbitrary and capricious. I'd been born to morons, and mine was a shabby life.

Every night and every morn Some to misery are born; Every morn and every night Some are born to sweet delight.

Whatever we do, whatever our backgrounds, we've all had some kind of advantage somewhere along the way. Some break that might have gone to someone else. Some edge or inside track we couldn't have counted on.

Nobody chooses where they're born. And, of course, I would know.

I was lucky by birth.

Fate is not in man but around him

Fortune, the great commandress of the world, Hath divers ways to advance her followers: To some she gives honor without deserving; To other some, deserving without honor; Some wit, some wealth,--and some, wit without wealth; Some wealth without wit; some nor wit nor wealth.

If a man really has charge of his destiny at all, he should have something to say about getting born; and I only came through by a hair's-breadth. What had I to do with this momentous first step? In the language of the lawyer, I was not even a party of the second part.

I’m a believer in luck and think the social conditions you’re born into provide the opportunity for you to prove your luck. And I suppose I’ve been lucky.

I didn't know what I wanted to Be...A sense that I had permanently botched things already, embarked on the trip without the map. and it scared me too, that I might end up as a mother of 3 working in a psychiatrist's office, or renting surfboards...I guess I saw their lives as failed somehow, absent of the Big Win...What is fate was an inherited trait? What if luck came through the genetic line, and the ability to "succeed" at your chosen "direction" was handed down, just like the family china? Maybe I was destined to be a weed too.

I am a combination of my entire family.

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.

The foundation of your life is luck. Hard work and talent make up the difference.

Whether or not belive in Fate comes down to one thing: who you blame when something goes wrong. Do you think it's your fault - that if you'd tried better, worked harder, it wouldn't have happened? Or do you just chalk it up to circumstance? I know poeple who'll hear about the people who died, and will say that it was God's will. I know people who'll say it was bad luck. And then there's my personal favorite: They were just in the wrong place at hte wrong time. Then again, you could say the same thing about me, couldn't you?