Good Luck Poems
Leprechauns, castles, good luck and laughter.Lullabies, dreams and love ever after. Poems and songs with pipes and drums. A thousand welcomes when anyone comes... That's the Irish for you!
Irish SayingsThis is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.... There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.
William ShakespeareTrue luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table; luckiest is he who knows just when to rise and go home.
John HayReverence, humility, contentment, gratitude and hearing the good Dhamma, this is the best good luck
BuddhaFor a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.
Ernest HemingwayGood luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
James Russell LowellI think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.
Franklin D. RooseveltWe must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
Jean CocteauThere is much good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We are children, playing or quarrelling on the line.
E. M. ForsterLuck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.
Alfred HitchcockBeing deeply learned and skilled, being well trained and using well spoken words; this is good luck.
BuddhaLeaves
I went looking for God
but I found you instead.
Bad luck or destiny,
you decide.
Buried in the muck,
the soot of the city,
sorrow for an appetite,
devil on your left shoulder,
angel on your right.
You, with your thorny rhythms
and tragic, midnight melodies.
My heart never tried
to commit suicide before.
Originally published in Literati Magazine, Winter 2005
Copyright © Lisa Zaran, 2005
Epitaph
No matter how he toil and strive
The fate of every man alive
With luck will be to lie alone,
His empty name cut in a stone.
Grim time the fairest fame will flout,
But though his name be blotted out,
And he forgotten with his peers,
His stone may wear a year of years.
No matter how we sow and reap
The end of all is endless sleep;
From strife a merciful release,
From life the crowning prize of Peace.
Modern Love XIX: No State Is Enviable
No state is enviable. To the luck alone
Of some few favoured men I would put claim.
I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame.
Have I not felt her heart as 'twere my own
Beat thro' me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell!
But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I let
My Love's old time-piece to another set,
Swear it can't stop, and must for ever swell?
Sure, that's one way Love drifts into the mart
Where goat-legged buyers throng. I see not plain:--
My meaning is, it must not be again.
Great God! the maddest gambler throws his heart.
If any state be enviable on earth,
'Tis yon born idiot's, who, as days go by,
Still rubs his hands before him, like a fly,
In a queer sort of meditative mirth.
Luck
once
we were young
at this
machine. . .
drinking
smoking
typing
it was a most
splendid
miraculous
time
still
is
only now
instead of
moving toward
time
it
moves toward
us
makes each word
drill
into the
paper
clear
fast
hard
feeding a
closing
space.
My Portion is Defeat -- today --
A paler luck than Victory --
Less Paeans -- fewer Bells --
The Drums don't follow Me -- with tunes --
Defeat -- a somewhat slower -- means --
More Arduous than Balls --
'Tis populous with Bone and stain --
And Men too straight to stoop again --,
And Piles of solid Moan --
And Chips of Blank -- in Boyish Eyes --
And scraps of Prayer --
And Death's surprise,
Stamped visible -- in Stone --
There's somewhat prouder, over there --
The Trumpets tell it to the Air --
How different Victory
To Him who has it -- and the One
Who to have had it, would have been
Contender -- to die --
Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid.
John DeweyBeyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck -- but, most of all, endurance.
James Arthur BaldwinLuck is not chance --
It's Toil --
Fortune's expensive smile
Is earned --
The Father of the Mine
Is that old-fashioned Coin
We spurned --
Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!
Luigi Pirandello
