Who thinks that fortune cannot change her mind,
Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind.
Second Book of Horace, Satire II. A. POPE.
Will Fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
She either gives a stomach, and no food—
Such are the poor in health: or else a feast,
And takes away the stomach—such are the rich,
That have abundance and enjoy it not.
K. Henry IV., Pt. II. Act iv. Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Under heaven's high cope
Fortune is god—all you endure and do
Depends on circumstance as much as you.
Epigrams. From the Greek. P.B. SHELLEY.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Julius Caesar, Act iv. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear;
As seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.
White Devil, Act v. Sc. 6. J. WEBSTER.
Oh, how portentous is prosperity!
How comet-like, it threatens while it shines.
Night Thoughts, Night V. DR. E. YOUNG.
I have set my life up on a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
King Richard III., Act v. Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
Blessed are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger,
To sound what stop she please.
Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
King Henry V., Act iv. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.