John Dryden Quotes

Fortune's unjust; she ruins oft the brave, and him who should be victor, makes the slave.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

Fate can be one mean god at times.

The bitter dregs of Fortune's cup to drain.

The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune.

Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

Doing what's right is no guarantee against misfortune.

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

The two grand tyrants of the Earth, Time and Chance.

Those who have no sense of right, reason or religion, have a natural propensity to make use of their strength to the destruction of such as are weaker than they.

In the West, it was believed that attitude and ambition saved you. In Africa, we had learned that no one was immune to capricious tragedy.

Of all human ills, greatest is fortune's wayward tyranny.

Fortune is an evil chain to the body, and vice to the soul.

For God's love, take things patiently, have sense, Think! We are prisoners and shall always be. Fortune has given us this adversity, Some wicked planetary dispensation, Some Saturn's trick or evil constellation Has given us this, and Heaven, though we had sworn The contrary, so stood when we were born. We must endure it, that's the long and short.

I have come to realize that destiny can hurt a person as much as it can bless him.

Fate's such a shrewish thing.

Many men, seemingly impelled by fortune, hasten forward to meet misfortune half way.

Fate weaves the darkness, which is perhaps why she weaves so badly.

When luck ain't with you it's against you." ~pg 92

A good man's fortune may grow out at heels.

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

They say fortune is a woman and capricious. But sometimes she is a good woman, and gives to those who merit.

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