Quotes About Luck

The entire notion of biography is grounded in the arbitrary ascription of a causal relation between specified traits and subsequent events. Now consider the cemetery. The graveyard of failed persons will be full of people who shared the following traits: courage, risk taking, optimism, et cetera. Just like the population of millionaires. There may be some differences in skills, but what truly separates the two is for the most part a single factor: luck. Plain luck.

There may be some differences in skills, but what truly separates the two is for the most part a single factor: luck. Plain luck.

just as we tend to underestimate the role of luck in life in general, we tend to overestimate it in games of chance.

The biotech company seemed to follow implicitly, though not explicitly, Louis Pasteur's adage about creating luck by sheer exposure. "Luck favors the prepared," Pasteur said, and, like all great discoverers, he knew something about accidental discoveries. The best way to get maximal exposure is to keep researching. Collect opportunities—on that, later.

Who gets rewarded, the central banker who avoids a recession or the one who comes to "correct" his predecessors' faults and happens to be there during some economic recovery? Who is more valuable, the politician who avoids a war or the one who starts a new one (and is lucky enough to win)?

This same point can be generalized to life: maximize the serendipity around you.

I am not saying that Warren Buffett is not skilled; only that a large population of random investors will almost necessarily produce someone with his track records just by luck.

we have a tendency to underestimate the role of randomness in human affairs

though we play down the role of chance, especially when it comes to our own discoveries.

I found luck in the most unexpected of places. It is as if there were two planets: the one in which we actually live and the one, considerably more deterministic, on which people are convinced we live.

Nobody accepts randomness in his own success, only in his failure.

I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative," John Stuart Mill once complained. This problem is chronic: if you tell people that the key to success is not always skills, they think that you are telling them that it is never skills, always luck.

enjoy our blessings, and try to preserve, by becoming more conservative, what we got by luck.

I may never know if Onassis was skilled or lucky, though I am convinced that his charm opened doors for him

otherwise the odds would be too low to get here just by luck.

With a little bit of luck a computer virus will wipe out all records and free people from their past mistakes.

Ainoa asia, jota onnetar ei säätele, on käyttäytymiseni.

One needs to go out and buy a lottery ticket in order to win. Does it mean that the work involved in the trip to the store caused the winning?

the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or "incentives" for skill.

chance favors the prepared

that which came with the help of luck could be taken away by luck (and often rapidly and unexpectedly at that). The flipside, which deserves to be considered as well (in fact it is even more of our concern), is that things that come with little help from luck are more resistant to randomness.

The bias lowers our perception of the risks we incurred in the past, particularly for those of us who were lucky to have survived them. Your

Monte Carlo (the old name for a roulette wheel)

There is one world in which I believe the habit of mistaking luck for skill is most prevalent—and most conspicuous—and that is the world of markets. By