Como te dec|¤a al principio, nadie hace nada y, naturalmente, soy yo,es elPresidente delaRep u¤ blica elque lo tiene que hacer todo, aunque salga como el cohetero. Con decir que si no fuera por m |¤ no existir|¤a la fortuna, ya que hasta de diosa ciega tengo que hacer en la loter|¤a. But, as I told you, nobody ever does a thing, and so naturally it is I, the President of the Republic, who has to do everything, and take all the blame as well.You might almost say that if it weren't for me Fortune wouldn't exist, as I have even to take the part of the blind goddess in the lottery.

-Asturias, Miguel AŁ   ngel
  El sen‹  or presidente ( The President,1963), pt.3, ch.37.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

-Austen,Jane
  Pride and Prejudice, ch.1, opening lines.

Without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.

-Austen,Jane
  Pride and Prejudice, ch.22.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for theyare impediments to great enterprises, eitherof virtue or mischief.Certainly thebest works, and ofgreatest meritfor thepublic, haveproceededfromthe unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.8,'Of Marriage and the Single Life'.

Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.40,'Of Fortune'.

If a man look sharply, and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.40,'Of Fortune'.

Calamity, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering.Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

-Bierce, Ambrose Gwinett
  The Cynic's Word Book. Retitled  The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

Nam in omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum est genus infortunii, fuisse felicem. In all adversity of fortune, the most wretched kind is once to have been happy. 138

-Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus
  De consolatione philosophiae, bk.2, pt.4 (translated by V E Watts).

What a world is this, and how does fortune banter us!

-Bolingbroke, Henry StJohn, 1st Viscount
  Letter to  Jonathan Swift, 3  Aug.

I am not now in fortune's power He that is down can fall no lower.

-Butler, Samuel
  Hudibras, pt.1, canto 3, l.871^2.

A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under the sun.

-Carlyle,Thomas
  Chartism, ch.4.

I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling, I've felt all its favours and found its decay; Sweet was its blessing, kind its caressing, But now it is fled, fled far, far away.

-Cobden, Richard
  'The Flowers of the Forest'.

O fickle Fortune, why this cruel sporting? Why thus torment us poor sons of day? Nae mair your smiles can cheer me, nae mair your frowns can fear me, For the flowers of the forest are a' wade away.

-Cobden, Richard
  'The Flowers of the Forest'. wade = weeded. The last line is often rendered 'For the flowers of the forest are withered away'.

For God's sake, hold your tongue, and let me love, Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five grey hairs, or ruined fortune flout, With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve, Take you a course, get you a place, Observe his honour, or his grace, Or the King's real, or his stamped face Contemplate; what you will, approve, So you will let me love.

-Donne,John
c.1595^1605  'The Canonization', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

Nature meant me A wife, a silly, harmless, household dove, Fond without art, and kind without deceit; But Fortune, that has made a mistress of me, Has thrust me out to the wide world, unfurnish'd Of falsehood to be happy.

-Dryden,John
  Cleopatra.  All for Love,or The World Well Lost, act 4.

Errors look so very ugly in persons of small meansöone feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortunemay naturally indulgeina few delinquencies.

-Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans
  Scenes of Clerical Life, ch.25.

   Regard this day's life as yours, but all else as Fortune's.

-Euripides
Alcestis, l.788^9 (translated by D Kovacs,1994).

No woman can be a beauty without a fortune.

-Farquhar, George
  The Beaux' Stratagem, act 2, sc.2.

His designs were strictly honourable, as the phrase is; that is, to rob a lady of her fortune by way of marriage.

-Fielding, Henry
  Tom Jones, bk.11, ch.4.

It is the good fortune of the affluent country that the opportunity cost of economic discussion is low and hence it can afford all kinds.

-Galbraith,John Kenneth
Economics, Peace, and Laughter.