OPPORTUNITY QUOTES IV

quotations about opportunity

Opportunity is the great bawd.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Poor Richard's Almanac, 1735

Tags: Benjamin Franklin


To come before the opportunity, is to come before the bird is hatched; and to come after the opportunity is to come when the bird is flown. There is no calling back time, when it is once past.

JOHN FLAVEL

The Herald of Gospel Liberty, September 22, 1921


Our most significant opportunities will be found in times of greatest difficulty.

THOMAS S. MONSON

Pathways to Perfection


To think and to will without doing, when there is opportunity, is like a flame enclosed in a vessel and goes out; also like seed cast upon the sand, which fails to grow, and so perishes with its power of germination.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell

Tags: Emanuel Swedenborg


Sometimes, you need a door slammed in your face before you can hear opportunity knock.

JAMES GEARY

Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists


Danger will wink on opportunity.

JOHN MILTON

Comus

Tags: John Milton


The man who sees an opportunity and does nothing is asleep with his eyes open.

BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON

Dune: House Corrino

Tags: Brian Herbert


Bad chances were better than no chances.

STEPHEN KING

Under the Dome

Tags: Stephen King


Did Mr. Woolworth, who created a chain of more than one thousand five and ten cent stores, wait on opportunity? Did Thomas A. Edison and thousands of men and women who have achieved big things wait on opportunity? Decidedly not! They either created their own opportunity or prepared themselves to receive it when it presented itself.

WALTER MATTHEWS

"Opportunity", Human Life from Many Angles


To be a great man it is necessary to turn to account all opportunities.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: Francois de La Rochefoucauld


Opportunity to a statesman is as the just degree of heat to chemists; it perfects all the work.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING

attributed, Day's Collacon


Opportunities are importunities; they are like flowers that fade at night; seize them, therefore, while they last.

G. S. BOWES

attributed, Day's Collacon


Individual opportunity is a powerful component of American ideology, powerful enough to elicit support for the system from all quarters, even from many exploited and unorganized workers who are at their bosses' mercy. If workers destined to be used up and discarded by employers cling nevertheless to "the American Way," it is not because they are ignorant of their destiny, but because they sense it. They feel that their only ray of hope for a satisfying life emanates from the "opportunity" the American system provides.

JEFF SCHMIDT

Disciplined Minds


Oft does the mind wish for lost opportunities.

PETRONIUS

attributed, Day's Collacon


While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS

Maxims

Tags: Publilius Syrus


No great man ever complains of want of opportunity--no, nor of any want except of being wanting to himself.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1838-1842

Tags: Ralph Waldo Emerson


Your opportunity is just as good, perhaps even better, than any other man's. Get to work where you are. And get to work right now.

WILLIAM A. RADFORD

Cement World, April 15, 1908


It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready to take advantage of them.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography

Tags: Theodore Roosevelt


Opportunity knocks once at every man's door and then keeps on knocking.

GEORGE ADE

"The Undecided Bachelor", Knocking the Neighbors

Tags: George Ade


Master of human destinies am I!
Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk: I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden once at every gate!
If sleeping, wake: if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire and conquer every foe
Save death: but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore--
I answer not, and I return no more!

JOHN J. INGALLS

"Opportunity"