This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The wise man is little inconvenienced by fortune: things that matter are under the control of his own judgment and reason." - Epicurus NULL
"A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others; for men's minds will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand by depressing another's fortune." - Francis Bacon
"The folly of one man is the fortune of another. For no man prospers so suddenlyu a by others’ errors." - Francis Bacon
"Chiefly, the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands." - Francis Bacon
"Fortune helps him that's willing to help himself." - French Proverbs
"A kingdom is more easyly gotten than kept. For to get is the gift of fortune, but to keepe is the power of prudency and wisdome." - George Pettie
"I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those disasters which break down the spirit of man and prostrate him in the dust seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their character that at times it approaches to sublimity." - George Washington
"We create our fortune, for so the universe was wrought. Thought is another name for fate; choose they your destiny and wait, for love brings love, and hate brings hate." - Henry Van Dyke
"A reputation for good judgment, for fair dealing, for truth, and for rectitude, is itself a fortune." - Henry Ward Beecher
"A fortune is usually the greatest of misfortunes to children. It takes the muscles out of the limbs, the brain out of the head, and virtue out of the heart... In this world, it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Fortune is ever seen accompanying industry." - James Goldsmith
"Fortune and misfortune are like the twisted strands of a rope." - Japanese Proverbs
"Fortune befriends the bold." - John Dryden
"Contentment produces, in some measure, all those effects the alchemist ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire of them. If it cannot remove the disquietudes arising from a man's mind, body or fortune, it makes him easy under them." - Joseph Addison
"Fortune is glass; just when it gleams brightest it shatters." - Latin Proverbs
"For not only is Fortune herself blind, but she generally causes those men to be blind whose interest she has more particularly embraced. Therefore they are often haughty and arrogant; nor is there anything more intolerable than a prosperous fool. And hence we often see that men who were at one time affable and agreeable are completely changed by prosperity, despising their old friends, and clinging to the new." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"Fortune favors the bold." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"The altogether courageous and great spirit has, above all, two characteristics. First, he is indifferent to outward circumstances. Such a person is convinced that nothing but moral goodness and propriety are worth admiring and striving for. He knows he ought not be subject to any person, passion, or accident of fortune. His second characteristic is that when his soul has been disciplined in this way, he should do things that are not only great and highly useful, but also deeds that are arduous, laborious and fraught with danger to life and to those things that make life worthwhile." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"The most learned men have told us that only the wise man is free. What is freedom but the ability to live as one will? The man who lives as he wills is none other than the one who strives for the right, who does his duty, who plans his life with forethought, and who obeys the laws because he knows it is good for him, and not out of fear. Everything he says, does, or thinks is spontaneous and free. His tasks and conduct begin and end in himself, because nothing has so much influence over him as his own counsel and decision. Even the supreme power of fortune is submissive to him. The wise poet has reminded us that fortune is molded for each man by the manner of his life. Only the wise man does nothing against his will, or with regret and by compulsion. Thought this truth deserves to be discussed at greater length, it is nevertheless proverbial that no one is free except the wise. Evil men are nothing but slaves." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"Wisdom is the only thing which can relieve us from the sway of the passions and the fear of danger, and which can teach us to bear the injuries of fortune itself with moderation, and which shows us all the ways which lead to tranquillity." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"Without doubt, the highest privilege of wealth is the opportunity it affords for doing good, without giving up one’s fortune." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"Man's life is ruled by fortune, not by wisdom." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"When we are happy, we are less self-focused, we like others more, and we want to share our good fortune even with strangers. When we are down, though, we become distrustful, turn inward, and focus defensively on our own needs. Looking out for Number One is more characteristic of sadness than of well-being." - Martin Seligman, Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman
"The fact is that life has become a sweepstake. Millions of people who have lost the sense of being able to make anything of the collective effort of shaping their economic society, now expect fortune to descend like the pie from the sky." - Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
"Fortune and Love befriend the bold." - Ovid, formally Publius Ovidius Naso NULL
"All fortune belongs to him who has a contented mind. Is not the whole earth covered with leather for him whose feet are encased in shoes?" - Panchatantra or The Panchatantra NULL
"Seeing that all men desire happiness, and happiness, as has been shown, is gained by a use, and a right use, of the things of life, and the right use of them, and good fortune in the use of them, is given by knowledge, the inference is that everybody ought by all means to try and make himself as wise as he can." - Plato NULL
"All warriors may see an example of their common frailty, and learn a lesson that there is nothing durable or constant? For what time can men select to think themselves secure, when that of victory itself forces us more than any to dread our own fortune?" - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes m ore conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"It is perhaps not to be wondered at, since fortune is ever changing her course and time is infinite, that the same incidents should occur many times, spontaneously. For, if the multitude of elements is unlimited, fortune has in the abundance of her material an ample provider of coincidences; and if, on the other hand, there is a limited number of elements from which events are interwoven, the same things must happen many times, being brought to pass by the same agencies. " - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"Nothing is more intractable than man when in felicity, nor anything more docile, when he has been reduced and humbled by fortune." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"In human life there is a constant change of fortune; and it is unreasonable to expect an exemption from the common fate. Life itself decays, and all things are daily changing." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"The study of history is in the truest sense an education and a training for political life... The most instructive, or rather the only, method of learning to bear with dignity the vicissitudes of fortune is to recall the catastrophes of others." - Polybius NULL
"Government has come to be a trade, and is managed solely on commercial principles. A man plunges into politics to make his fortune, and only cares that the world shall last his days." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective nature?" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Nature is no sentimentalist, does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman, but swallows your ships like a grain of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadwood, or canals, or statues, or songs." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Troubles are usually the brooms and shovels that smooth the road to a good man’s fortune, of which he little dreams; and many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away hunger." - Saint Basil, aka Basil of Caesarea, Saint Basil the Great NULL
"Temperance, that virtue without pride, and fortune without envy, that gives indolence of body with an equality of mind; the best guardian of youth and support of old age; the precept of reason as well as religion, and physician of the soul as well as the body; the tutelary goddess of health and universal medicine of life." - William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
"Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune." - Socrates NULL
"Men never think their fortune too great, nor their wit too little." - Thomas Fuller
"One month in the school of affliction will teach thee more than the great precepts of Aristotle in seven years; for thou canst never judge rightly of human affairs, unless thou has first felt the blows, and found out the deceits of fortune." - Thomas Fuller