Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.
Work hard, not in grunt work, but in chasing such opportunities and maximizing exposure to them. This makes living in big cities invaluable because you increase the odds of serendipitous encounters--you gain exposure to the envelope of serendipity
...maximize the serendipity around you.
What is the most overrated skill for an entrepreneur?
The most overrated skill is skill. Luck is more important. The entrepreneur gets credit for being this genius, when really he was just at the right place at the right time.
Unlucky people are stuck in routines. When they see something new, they want no part of it. Lucky people always want something new. They're prepared to take risks and relaxed enough to see the opportunities in the first place.
Instead of being more organized or controlling in your approach, allow for serendipity. Happy accidents happen when you look side to side or up, not always forward. Don't stop planning. Rather step out of the tunnel. Put yourself in situations that allow for the unexpected. Life is situationally driven. Learning happens in context. Be ready when opportunities arise. The more space you've cleared in your life for something new, the more right things will happen. More or less.
It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.
Every human heartbeat, he’d said many times, is a universe of possibilities. And it seemed to me that I finally understood exactly what he’d meant. He’d been trying to tell me that every human will has the power to transform its fate. I’d always thought that fate was something unchangeable: fixed for every one of us at birth, and as constant as the circuit of stars. But I suddenly realised that life is stranger and more beautiful than that. The truth is that no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter now good or bad the luck, you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love
Luck is preparation meeting opportunity
I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it. Everyone has bad breaks, but everyone also has opportunities. The man who can smile at his breaks and grab his chances gets on.
To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.
I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.
On the outcome of World War II: It was the nation and the race dwelling all 'round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the lion's roar. I also hope that I sometimes suggested to the lion the right place to use his claws.
For there 's nae luck about the house, There 's nae luck at a'; There 's little pleasure in the house When our gudeman 's awa'.
What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient, but restless mind, of sacrificing one's ease or vanity, of uniting a love of detail to foresight, and of passing through hard times bravely and cheerfully.
You ruined my life. I lost my wife, my kid, my work. I lost everything all because of a little bad luck. You gotta pay for that man, you gotta pay. Otherwise there's no justice in this world, otherwise it's all meaningless. You can't just do something, and then pretend you didn't, that it didn't happen, that somehow you weren't involved. You were, you did. It's your fault. And now you gotta die for it.
Some day my ship will come in, and with my luck I'll be at the airport.
Most of the folks I know who have good luck seem to have good judgment too.
Good luck is with the man who doesn't include it in his plan.
The meeting of preparation with opportunity generates the offspring we call luck.
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it.
I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.
This would be a tricky operation, no doubt of that, and a mistake would probably be fatal. So many things he had done over the years would have been fatal, had his luck not been strongly good. He had cheated death dozens of times, but that did not mean he could take it as a given. A man needed only one fatal mistake to end the game
I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
