Fortune
idea · 16 works · 30 mentions · 72 anchored passages
also in the atlas: Fortune the deity
fortune · good fortune · chance · she · luck · Fortune that attends you · God's hands · Heaven · O Fortune · al-dawlah
in the texts
Letters to Lucilius
The personified, unstable power governing external goods, contrasted with inner virtue.
Fortune has raised no man so high that she did not threaten him with as much as she had granted him.
"What Fortune has made yours is not your own.
Fortune does not overthrow;
On the Crown
Power governing outcomes beyond the statesman's control.
The statesman declares his judgement before the event, and accepts responsibility to his followers, to fortune, to the chances of the hour, to every critic of his policy.
For if you condemn Ctesiphon on the ground of my political delinquency, you yourselves will be adjudged as wrongdoers, not as men who owed the calamities they have suffered to the unkindness of fortune.
But, he might say, I was not at the helm —nor was I in command of the army— and I could not control fortune, but fortune controls all.
Exordia
The personified power of chance or luck, credited with governing the success or failure of policies and events beyond human control or calculation.
for in many things the whim of Fortune prevails and there are many plausible reasons why everything does not turn out according to plan, men being but men.
But, as things are, you most enjoy listening to those who say what you wish to hear, yet often you charge them with deceiving you if everything does not turn out the way you would like, not taking this into account, that of the task of studying and calculating the best measures, within human limitations, and of explaining them to you, each man is himself the arbiter, but of their execution and pro …
For, to begin with, Fortune—to whom be thanks—arranges much of your business to take care of itself, so well that you would pray for nothing better, because little of it would be in good shape through such foresight as is exercised by those in authority.
Consolation to Helvia
The personified, capricious power that grants and withdraws external goods, treated throughout as untrustworthy and ultimately powerless over the mind.
Well, then, did Marcellus bear his exile, and the change of place changed nothing in his mind, although poverty followed it.
and besides, I feared that Fortune, though vanquished by me, might yet vanquish someone of mine.
They have bidden me stand unremittingly, like one posted on guard, and to foresee all the assaults of Fortune, all her onsets, long before they fall.
Consolation to Polybius
Personified capricious power governing human fortunes, repeatedly blamed and addressed throughout the consolation.
O unbridled Fortune, what sport you make for yourself out of the woes of men!
Keep your hands off this man, Fortune, and do not show your power over him save in that part in which you do good!
This, beyond doubt, you were aiming at, unbridled Fortune—to show that against you no one, not even by Caesar, can be defended.
On Tranquillity of Mind
The personified power governing chance, wealth, and circumstance, discussed as something to be guarded against through inner preparation.
If fortune prevails and cuts off his power to act, let him not at once turn his back and flee unarmed in search of hiding, as if there were any place where fortune could not pursue him, but let him take on his duties more sparingly and, with discrimination, find some way in which he may be useful to the state.
However the state, then, presents itself, however fortune allows, so shall we either spread ourselves out or draw ourselves in;
This Diogenes saw, a man of vast spirit, and he so arranged matters that nothing could be snatched from him.
Adab al-wazīr
Fortune (al-dawlah) and luck, at once the dynastic state, the turn of favour that reverses, and the one good that no resolve or prudence can procure.
do good while fortune (al-dawlah) is yours, and good will be done to you when fortune is against you;
among the signs of a state's (al-dawlah) endurance is the scarcity of heedlessness.
good fortune comes to the one who does not come to it.
Answer to Philip’s Letter
The power of success or favorable circumstance in political affairs.
And yet in many respects our good fortune is to be preferred to Philip’s.
Because, men of Athens, at present his prosperity overshadows all such shortcomings, for success has a strange power of obscuring and covering men’s failings;
For our prosperity is inherited from our ancestors, and is of an earlier date than the prosperity not only of Philip, but, roughly speaking, of all the kings that have ever reigned in Macedonia.
First Olynthiac
Favorable circumstance that must be recognized and used prudently.
For not only if someone comes forward with a well-considered plan, could you hear and accept it, but also I count it part of your good fortune that more than one speaker may be inspired with suitable suggestions on the spur of the moment, so that out of the multitude of proposals the choice of the best should not be difficult.
If a man keeps what he gains, he is duly grateful to fortune;
Consolation to Marcia
The personified power of chance and change that distributes suffering and goods without regard to merit, treated throughout as an active, capricious agent.
If I did not know, Marcia, that you have withdrawn as far from weakness of a woman's mind as from the other vices, and that your character is looked upon as a kind of model from antiquity, I would not dare to confront your grief—the grief to which even men willingly cling and lie brooding—nor would I have conceived the hope that, at so unfavourable a time, before so hostile a judge, on a charge so …
Will you now be reconciled with Fortune, Marcia, if she has not even from you held back the darts which she drove into the Scipios and the mothers and daughters of the Scipios, with which she assailed the Caesars?
“You will not deceive me, Fortune, nor catch me off guard or careless.
On Benefits
Personified chance or luck, listed among the names applied to the single divine power
It is no benefit which looks to fortune.
On Providence
Personified fortune or chance circumstance, depicted as an adversary who deliberately seeks out the strongest men to test.
We must offer ourselves to fortune, that against her we may be hardened by her very self;
Fortune does the same:
On the Shortness of Life
Personified fortune or chance, depicted as a force from which the wise man is exempt and which governs the uncertain future.
For this last is the one over which Fortune has lost her power, which can be brought back under no man’s control.
for though nothing from without assail or shake it, Fortune of herself collapses upon herself.
Nothing is delegated from it, nothing scattered here and there, nothing handed over to Fortune, nothing lost through neglect, nothing subtracted by lavishness, nothing superfluous;
On the Steadfastness of the Wise Man
Personified force of chance and worldly circumstance, depicted as powerless against virtue and excluded from the wise man's inner domain.
No, nor at the hand of fortune, who, as often as she has closed with virtue, has never withdrawn on equal terms.
For things brought to their height have no room for growth, and fortune snatches away nothing except what she gave;
but across this empty threshold, free of porters, fortune does not pass.
Antigone
The unstable condition that overturns Creon's former blessedness into ruin.
Fortune sets upright and Fortune sinks the lucky and unlucky from day to day, and no one can prophesy to men concerning the order that has just been established.
But if there is no joy along with all of that, I would not pay even the shadow of smoke for all the rest, compared with joy.
Oedipus Tyrannus
The unpredictable power invoked by Jocasta and Oedipus as an alternative or complement to prophetic knowledge.
What should a mortal man fear, for whom the decrees of Fortune are supreme, and who has clear foresight of nothing?
But I, who hold myself son of Fortune that gives good, will not be dishonored.