Fortune-tellers are put in jail because they deceive; they should be hanged, did they tell the truth. How dull were life, could it be read ahead! Only a weak nature, such as his, would say with Hartley Coleridge, “Happiness is the exclusion of all hap, that is, chance.” More virile are the
words of Charles James Fox, inveterate gambler that he was, “The next best thing to winning is to lose.” The uncertainty of the future is the only stimulus to exertion, and its obscurity is the source of our chief delights.
Always expect a change of luck. Then, if it is from good to bad, you will be prepared for it; and if from bad to good, you will have enjoyed the pleasure of expecting it, as well as its arrival.
“Give your son luck and throw him in the sea,” says a Spanish proverb.
There are men who succeed through their misfortunes rather than their good fortunes.