Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes

A man may plan as much as he wants to, but nothing of consequence is likely to come of it until the magician circumstance steps in and takes the matter off his hands.

The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley

Much in our lives is chance.

I don't believe in fate," she said at last. "But I do believe in...loopholes. I think a lot of what keeps the world going is the result of accidents — happy or otherwise — and taking advantage of these.

All of the very important events in my life happen by chance.

Every single moment is a coincidence.

No amount of thought can ever reveal what comes unexpectedly.

For me, everything has always been an accident.

Good consequences are sometimes the result of mistakes.

He [the historian] should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.

There is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations.

What's crazy about my life is that the biggest things that have happened just happen.

Life was a swarm of accidents waiting in the treetops, descending upon any living thing that passed, ready to eat them alive. You swam in a river of chance and coincidence. You clung to the happiest accidents- the rest you let float by.

Making plans is a game. Life chooses for you.

I love to think about chance - about how one little overheard word, one pebble in a shoe, can change the universe.

It is often to the wary that the events in life are unexpected. Looser types-people who are not busy weighing and measuring every little thing-are used to accidents, coincidences, chance, things getting out of hand, things sneaking up on them. They are the happy children of life, to whom life happens for better or worse.

After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents - a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life.

Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance.

That's the thing about destiny: It can't be predicted, and it's usually pretty odd.

So much of life is happenstance. It makes me laugh when I go to a bookstore and see all those titles about controlling your life. You're lucky if you can control your bladder.

Everything's serendipitous and there's no way of knowing who's going to get sick or who's going to get hit by a bus or who's going to fall in love and who's going to get pregnant. All the things that happen, it's up for grabs so it's kind of an exercise in surrender in a way.

I think that's as far as you have to think, everything happens as a coincidence. It either happens or it doesn't. It's hard to map out a strategic plan by saying, 'If I do that, that's going to get me to the next level.' I think that's the wrong way to go into movies as an actor. It doesn't happen for me that way.

The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we're not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.

I believe that life is chaotic, a jumble of accidents, ambitions, misconceptions, bold intentions, lazy happenstances, and unintended consequences, yet I also believe that there are connections that illuminate our world, revealing its endless mystery and wonder.

Chance is a name for our ignorance.