Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Destiny bears us to our lot, and destiny is perhaps our own will.

You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible. Dicing from one year to the next with the things you love, what you risk reveals what you value.

Like women, life is unpredictable and a huge risk.

There's no guarantee of winning, even if you are the best players and the best team.

Chance is better than choice; it is more lordly. Chance is God, choice is man.

Fate occasionally touches us all in ways we don't always understand.

There are those who hold that there is a pattern to all that is said and done in this world, that no thing happens without reason nor out of time. As to that, I cannot speak, for I have seen too many threads cut short to believe it, but of a surety, I have seen too the weft of my fate shuttled on the loom. If there is a pattern, I do not think there is anyone among us who can stand at a great enough distance to discern it; yet I will not say that it is not so.

Indeed, none but the Deity can tell what is good luck and what is bad before the returns are all in.

There is a nick in Fortune's restless wheel For each man's good.

It is our custom to say that someone is 'lucky' or 'unlucky' if they meet with fortunate or unfortunate circumstances, respectively. It is, however, too simplistic to think in terms of random 'luck.' Even from a scientific point of view, this is not a sufficient explanation.

The judgment of the world stands upon matter of fortune.

Men may second fortune, but they cannot thwart her.

All things are in fate, yet all things are not decreed by fate.

I also don't believe that "everything happens for a reason," which is in a similar category of world-views.

No wonder, said an Ancient, that chance has so much power over us, since it is by chance that we live.

All fortune is good fortune; for it either rewards, disciplines, amends, or punishes, and so is either useful or just.

Nature makes merit, and fortune puts it to work.

There is no luck in life, everything happens for a reason. Every little thing that you do... leads up to a bigger thing. And that's the story of my life.

Fate is unpenetrated causes.

It is the mark of an inexperienced man not to believe in luck.

there's no such thing as luck. Nothing ever just happens to anybody. ... nothing can really happen to a person till he lets it happen.

Luck's the word those with poor hearts use for ka.

As we are, so we do; and as we do, so is it done to us; we are the builders of our fortunes.

My life is so random. Certain things I can't even explain. There's a thing about being lucky and... I feel like certain things are just, like, in your cards. I'm just walking the path that's already set.