I went out to Charing Cross to see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn and quarteredöwhich was done thereöhe looking as cheerfully as any man could do in that condition† Thus it was my chance to see the King beheaded at Whitehall and to see the first blood shed in revenge for the blood of the King at Charing Cross.

-Pepys, Samuel
  Diary entry,13 Oct.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

-Pope, Alexander
An Essay on Criticism, l.362^5.

All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony, not understood; All partial evil, universal good: And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite, One truth is clear,'Whatever Is, is.'

-Pope, Alexander
RIGHT1733  An Essay on Man, epistle1, l.289^94.

He was a black Irish type, with centuries of rebelliousness behind him, and I decided to chance it.

-Priestley,J(ohn) B(oynton)
Saturn Over theWater.

Pantagrue¤  lisme†est certaine gaiete¤   d'esprit confite en me¤  pris des choses fortuites. Pantagruelism is a certain liveliness of mind made in contempt of chance happenings.

-Rabelais, Fran c° ois
  Quart Livre, Prologue de l'auteur.

Idiots are always in favour of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favour of equality.

-Shaw, George Bernard
  The IntelligentWoman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.

Fate,Time,Occasion,Chance, and Change? To these All things are subject but eternal love.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  Prometheus Unbound, act 2, sc.4, l.119^20.

The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man Passionless?öno, yet free from guilt or pain, Which were, for his will made or suffered them, Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, From chance, and death, and mutability, The clogs of that which else might oversoar The loftiest star of unascended heaven, Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  Prometheus Unbound, act 3, sc.4, l.193^204.

Dost thou look back on what hath been, As some divinely gifted man, Whose life in low estate began And on a simple village green; Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star.

-Tennyson
  In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 64, l.1^8.

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

-Thoreau, Henry David
  AWeek on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,'Sunday'.

'Alf Todd,'said Ukridge, soaring to an impressive burst of imagery,'has about as much chance as a one-armed blind man in a dark room trying to shove a pound of melted butter into a wild cat's left ear with a red-hot needle.'

-Plum
  Ukridge, ch.5.