“When some incident has shattered the career you’ve mapped out for yourself, a folly, a crime or a misfortune, you mustn’t think you’re down and out. It may be a stroke of luck, and when you look back years later you may say to yourself that you wouldn’t for anything in the world exchange the new life disaster has forced upon you for the dull, humdrum existence you would have led if circumstances hadn’t intervened.” IfsThinkingWorldYearsLooksMayExistenceCareersCrimeCircumstancesDown AndLuckDisasterDullFollyMisfortunesStrokesNew LifeIncidentsShatteredHumdrum Author:W. Somerset Maugham
“We feel public misfortunes just so far as they affect our private circumstances, and nothing of this nature appeals more directly to us than the loss of money.” FeelsLossCircumstancesAppealsMisfortunes Author:Livy
“If we can sympathise only with the utterly blameless, then we can sympathise with no one, for all of us have contributed to our own misfortunes - it is a consequence of the human condition that we should. But it does nobody any favours to disguise from him the origins of his misfortunes, and pretend that they are all external to him in circumstances in which they are not.” IfsShouldHumansDoeConditionsCircumstancesConsequenceMisfortunesHuman ConditionDisguiseFavourBlameless Author:Anthony Daniels
“Convinced that character is all and circumstances nothing, [the Puritan] sees in the poverty of those who fall by the way, not a misfortune to be pitied and relieved, but a moral failing to be condemned, and in riches, not an object of suspicion ... but the blessing which rewards the triumph of energy and will.” WayCharacterFallEnergyMoralPovertyFailingObjectsCircumstancesBlessingRewardsRichesConvincedTriumphMisfortunesSuspicionRelievedPuritan Book:Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism Source: Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism
“What men usually say of misfortunes, that they never come alone, may with equal truth be said of good fortune; nay, of other circumstances which gather round us in a harmonious way, whether it arise from a kind of fatality, or that man has the power of attracting to himself things that are mutually related.” MenWayKindMaySaidCircumstancesTruth IsEqualFortuneRoundsAriseRelatedMisfortunesGood FortuneHarmoniousMe AloneFatality Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude, or endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life but for the circumstance which gave them a being.” HeartQualityCircumstancesEnduranceMisfortunesFortitudeIngenuity Book:The history of Henry Esmond, esq Source: The history of Henry Esmond, esq