Don Marquis Quotes

Some people are so fond of ill luck that they run halfway to meet it.

No man is happy; he is at best fortunate.

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.

Ultimately, you choose to be happy or miserable. The reality is that although you are free to choose, you can't choose the consequences of your choices. They're preloaded. It's a package deal.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

For in all adversity of fortune the worst sort of misery is to have been happy.

Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable.

None think the great unhappy, but the great.

We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealth, who are wretched.

It is almost impossible for anyone, even the most ineffective among us, to continue to choose misery after becoming aware that it is a choice.

When a man arrives at great prosperity God did it: when he falls into disaster he did it himself.

Most men spend the best part of their lives making the remaining part wretched.

I don't think unhappiness is fated.

Life is full of chances and changes, and the most prosperous of men may in the evening of his days meet with great misfortunes.

Man is extraordinarily clever in preventing himself from being happy; it would seem that the less able he is to endure misfortune the more apt he is to attach himself to it.

How many people does each of us know who claim to seek happiness but freely choose paths inevitably leading to misery?

Those who wander in the world avowedly and purposely in pursuit of happiness, who view every scene of present joy with an eye to what may succeed, certainly are more liable to disappointment, misfortune and unhappiness, than those who give up their fate to chance and take the goods and evils of fortune as they come, without making happiness their study, or misery their foresight.

You see misery, you see misfortune, you see pain, you see suffering. It's all part of the fatalistic way of looking at life.

The generality of men expend the early part of their lives in contributing to render the latter part miserable.

God deals us all different hands. How we play 'em is up to us.

In omni adversitate fortunæ, infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse felicem In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.

We do not what we ought; What we ought not, we do; And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through; But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers.

Good and bad fortune are found severally to visit those who have the most of the one or the other.

Misery and misfortune is all one; and of misfortune fortune hath only the gift.

We should not speak of one that prospers well As happy, till his life have run its course, And reached its goal. An evil spirit's gift In shortest time has oft laid low the state Of one full rich in great prosperity, When the change comes, and so the Gods appoint.