45+ Quotes About Luck That Even Cynics Will Appreciate

What does it mean to have “good luck” or “bad luck”? That’s a concept that’s been hotly debated by people for centuries, and subsequently, the questions surrounding it seem endless. Is luck like karma? Or more of a blessing? Is it something you are inherently gifted more of if you’re, say, Irish? Is there really such a thing as “luck of the Irish,” or is luck just another word for superstition? Is luck just a person’s hustle (or lack thereof)? If you work hard, will you be given more luck or good luck? Can your “bad luck” be attributed to a lack of motivation? We don’t know the answers to any of these questions. One thing we do know? Many people wiser than us have said some pretty insightful things on the subject. The result is lots o’ lucky quotes.

We will say, though, that it’s hard to imagine luck singling out certain people — like those who work their butts off and are still met with catastrophe after catastrophe without having ever done anything quote-unquote bad. So, it seems that luck might be some mix of all these ideas. Maybe you can make your own luck. But you can also be born into it by being part of the “right” family legacy. And, you know, luck is also pretty relative. We might consider Prince Harry to be lucky, but let’s not forget that tragedy has struck him and molded him, too. No singular person is always lucky or unlucky because no one’s life is 100 percent stable, without highs and lows.

Luck, like life, is a bit of a rollercoaster. And we’re just along for the ride, like the people who said all of these lucky quotes below.

Lucky Quotes on Bad Luck

1. “When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles but in showers.” — Mark Twain
2. “If you have a bad luck at the dawn, you had a bad luck. If you keep having bad luck all day, you are the bad luck.” — Amit Kalantri
3. “The deepest thing in anyone is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.” — Gertrude Stein
4. “There is no thing known as bad luck. There is luck, or no luck at all.” — Jeffrey Fry
5. “Bad luck either destroys you or it makes you the man you really are.” — Miguel Torres
6. “You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” — Cormac McCarthy
7. “You never can tell whether bad luck may not, after all, turn out to be good luck.” — Winston Churchill
8. “Not many people have had as much bad luck as I have, but not many people have had as much good luck, either.” — Tig Notaro
9. “The only good luck many great men ever had was being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.” — Channing Pollock
10. “You can spoil your good luck with your stupidity, but even with all the smartness in the world, you can never outrun your bad luck.” — Shon Mehta
11. “The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.” — Harry Golden
12. “Luck is the residue of design.” — Branch Rickey

Best Good Luck Quotes

1. “Because of ignorance, we often attribute to good genes — and therefore good luck — fruits of things such as exercise, reading, meditation, and fasting.” — Mokokoma Mokhonoana
2. “Good luck needs no explanation.” — Shirley Temple
3. “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” — Benjamin Franklin
4. “Those who have succeeded at anything and don’t mention luck are kidding themselves.” — Larry King
5. “A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.” — Eric Hoffer
6. “The amount of good luck coming your way depends on your willingness to act.” — Barbara Sher
7. “Well, I was never in luck’s way long.” — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
8. “It’s hard to detect good luck; it looks so much like something you’ve earned.” — Frank A. Clark
9. “Good luck has its storms.” — George Lucas
10. “Learn to recognize good luck when it’s waving at you, hoping to get your attention.” — Sally Koslow

Lucky in Love Quotes

1. “Bad luck with women is a determined man’s road to success. For every affliction, he makes, out of indignation, yet another advancement in order to exceed the man that the woman chose over him. This goes to show that great men are made great because they once learned how to fight the feeling of rejection.” — Criss Jami
2. “Don’t be afraid of losing someone who doesn’t feel lucky to have you.” — Anonymous
3. “Some people are lucky to find love. Others must settle for being liked.” — Seja Majeed
4. “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” — A.A. Milne
5. “Everybody loves an accent. If you’ve been unlucky in love, consider pulling up stakes and moving to another country. Then you’ll be the one with a neat foreign accent.” — Marilyn vos Savant
6. “Maybe that’s what love meant, both people thinking they were the lucky one.” — Meera Syal
7. “Lucky in love is lucky enough.” — Anonymous
8. “I’m lucky in love with my best friend/Lucky to have been where I have been/Lucky to be coming home again.” — Jason Mraz
9. “You have to remember what’s most important in life. I am loved by so many people and have a wonderful job. I know I am incredibly blessed. I am a completely lucky human being.” — Troian Bellisario
10. “Every single person is a beautiful human being, and we’re lucky. That’s what gives you longevity. You have to love the people that you work with.” — Katee Sackhoff

More Lucky Quotes on Good (and Bad) Fortune

1. “Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.” — Orson Welles
2. “Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
3. “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” — Seneca the Younger
4. “We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?” — Jean Cocteau
5. “Luck has a peculiar habit of favoring those who do not depend on it.” — George S. Clason
6. “Luck is not chance, it’s toil; fortune’s expensive smile is earned.” — Emily Dickinson
7. “Most of us regard good luck as our right, and bad luck as a betrayal of that right.” — William Feather
8. “I sometimes think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
9. “If a man who can’t count finds a four-leaf clover, is he lucky?” — Stanislaw Lem
10. “Here’s the thing about luck: You don’t know if it’s good or bad until you have some perspective.” — Alice Hoffman
11. “Life is full of luck, like getting dealt a good hand, or simply by being in the right place at the right time. Some people get luck handed to them, a second chance, a save. It can happen heroically, or by a simple coincidence, but there are those who don’t get luck on a shiny platter who end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, who don’t get saved.” — Jessica Sorensen, The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden
12. “And then, as if written by the hand of a bad novelist, an incredible thing happened.” — Jonathan Stroud, The Amulet of Samarkand
13. “Luck has a way of evaporating when you lean on it.” — Brandon Mull, Keys to the Demon Prison
14. “Luck is what we make it, not what is thrust upon us. You’ve shown initiative, and it has nothing to do with luck.” — George Bellairs
15. “Beware what you wish for unless you have the grace to hope that your luck can be shared.” — Christopher Hitchens

Looking for more quotes that’ll inspire a positive outlook on life? Check out our words of encouragement, strength quotes, and more!