luck

A physicist visits a colleague and notices a horseshoe hanging on the wall above the entrance. 'Do you really believe that a horseshoe brings luck?' he asks. 'No,' replies the colleague, 'but I've been told that it works even if you don't believe in it.'

Good luck, Mr. Gorsky!

As ill luck would have it.

Luck means the hardships and privations which you have not hesitated to endure, the long nights you have devoted to work. Luck means the appointments you have never failed to keep; the trains you have never failed to catch.

I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard work and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't.

The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all. Happiness, in the ancient, noble sense, means self-fulfillment-and is given to those who use to the fullest whatever talents God or luck or fate bestowed upon them.

I hope I have a little talent, but a lot of it was luck. I went through setbacks. People said I looked too young, people said I wasn't good, nobody said, 'Come here, baby, we're going to make you a star.' Early on, when I'd say, 'Can I do some anchoring?' people would look at me like I was crazy.

I've had enough success for two lifetimes. My success is talent put together with hard work and luck.

Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid.

Good and bad luck is a synonym in the great majority of instances, for good and bad judgment.