quotations about chance
Chance. Stupid, dumb, blind chance. Just a part of the strange mechanism of the world, with its fits and coughs and starts and random collisions.
LAUREN OLIVER
Before I Fall
The best men are not those who have waited for chances, but taken them--besieged the chance, conquered the chance, and made the chance their servitor.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.
LOUIS PASTEUR
lecture, Dec. 7, 1854
But I don't believe coincidences are chance events. I think they're the times we happen to see the mysterious pattern connecting everything.
JULIE GITTUS
Saltwater Moons
Yet they, believe me, who await
No gifts from Chance, have conquer'd Fate.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
Resignation
Next him high arbiter
Chance governs all.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
Most coincidences are simply chance events that turn out to be far more probable than many people imagine.
IVARS PETERSON
The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari
What else is chance but the rude stone which receives its life from the sculptor's hand? Providence gives us chance, and man must mould it to his own designs.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Don Carlos
Times go by turns, and chances change by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.
ROBERT SOUTHWELL
Times Go By Turns
I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.
KURT VONNEGUT
The Sirens of Titan
Sometimes a wind comes up, blows you off course. You’re not ready for it, but if you’re lucky, you end up in a more interesting place than you’d planned.
NORA ROBERTS
The Calhouns