"Wheel of fortune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... course, 'it is He that hath made us and not we ourselves,' but that is a text that cuts both ways; and when all is said and done, the failure detracts from the force in the universe; he is the clog on the wheel of fortune. To say that the successful man benefits by the failure of others is as true as it would be to say that the ratepayer benefits by the poor-rates. You use the word 'charlatan' somewhat profusely of several successful writers, and no doubt ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... housewife Fortune from her wheel] The wheel of Fortune is not the wheel of a housewife. Shakespeare has confounded Fortune, whose wheel only figures uncertainty and vicissitude, with the Destiny that spins the thread of life, though ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... delineated by the fancy of Virgil. This Tarpeian rock was then a savage and solitary thicket: in the time of the poet, it was crowned with the golden roofs of a temple; the temple is overthrown, the gold has been pillaged, the wheel of fortune has accomplished her revolution, and the sacred ground is again disfigured with thorns and brambles. The hill of the Capitol, on which we sit, was formerly the head of the Roman empire, the citadel of the earth, the terror of kings; illustrated by the footsteps ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... all. Corona and Giovanni, united, rich and powerful, might indeed appear formidable to a wretch like Del Ferice, dependent upon a system of daily treachery for the very bread he ate. But in those days the wheel of fortune was beginning to turn, and far-sighted men prophesied that many an obscure individual would one day be playing the part of a great personage. Years would still elapse before the change, but the change would surely ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... it was announced that Brandon had resigned his situation. This turned the tide of popular ill-will. The performances were "The Wheel of Fortune," and an afterpiece. The house was crowded to excess; a desire to be pleased was manifest on every countenance, and when Mr. Kemble, who took his favourite character of Penruddock, appeared upon the stage, he was greeted with the most vehement applause. The noises ceased entirely, and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... whole, the weak strong, the most miserable most happy. There are two principal and peculiar gifts in the nature of man, knowledge and reason; the one commandeth, and the other obeyeth: these things neither the whirling wheel of fortune can change, neither the deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate, neither sickness abate, neither ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... disgrace, and the bad reports he had received from France of the conduct of William Losely's son. That uncle had left, in circumstances too straitened to admit the waste of a shilling, a widow of very rigid opinions; who, if ever by some miraculous turn in the wheel of fortune she could have become rich enough to slay a fatted calf, would never have given the shin-bone of it to a prodigal like Jasper, even had he been her own penitent son, instead of a graceless step-nephew. Therefore, as ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... steady revolution, the wheel of fortune had now apparently brought Bill Bowls and Ben Bolter to the lowest possible point; and the former of these worthies consoled himself with the reflection that, as things could scarcely get worse with them, it was probable they would get better. His ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... right about the future. It is a blank page, to be glorified or soiled by what is set down upon it. Fate has thrown you two together. Perhaps it was so written in the past that you despise. A single turn of the mysterious wheel of fortune brought you into her life. Half a turn,—the matter of minutes,—and you would never have seen each other, and you would have gone your separate ways to the end of time without even knowing that the other existed. No doubt ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... was that of ringing the sacring bell. These bells are very tiny, and are attached at regular intervals to the outer rim of a wooden wheel, wrongly styled by some 'the Wheel of Fortune,' from which dangles a long string. In most places the sacring bell is kept as a curiosity, though in the church of St Bridget at Berhet the Sant-e-roa, or Holy Wheel, is still rung by pilgrims during Mass. The bells are set pealing through the medium of a long string by the impatient suppliant, ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... down the trails, each with a train of ten donkeys carrying the ore from the mines. The men's appearance is of the roughest, but they, one and all, are most civil, both of speech and manner. Women are rare in these districts, the wife of the manager of the Wheel of Fortune Mine being the only one living up here. She has been here two years, and is quite idolized by the miners and trappers, as she has never been known to refuse hospitality to any. We were much amused, whilst going through the Wheel of Fortune tunnels last Saturday, to hear one of the miners ask ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... on—and the wheel of fortune gave some strange turns for Duncan. By a series of wonderfully successful speculations he rapidly ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... very certain of where he was going next. The mechanic appeared once more, on the opposite side of the road. The sailor went on, till he got to Shore Lane, leading into Lower Thames Street. There he stopped before a public-house, under the sign of 'The Wheel of Fortune,' and, after examining the place outside, went in. Gooseberry went in too. There were a great many people, mostly of the decent sort, at the bar. 'The Wheel of Fortune' is a very respectable house, Mr. Blake; famous for its ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... Spirit in particular, who swore he would have a hearty Gripe at him: 'For, says he, the Rascal not only refused to subscribe to my Works; but sent back my Letter unanswered, tho' I'm a better Gentleman than himself.'" The descriptions of the City of Diseases, the Palace of Death, and the Wheel of Fortune from which men draw their chequered lots, are all unrivalled in their way. But here, as always, it is in his pictures of human nature that Fielding shines, and it is this that makes the chapters in which Minos ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... up in the wheel of Fortune," returned Jack. "We very nearly effected our escape; perhaps the next time we shall be more fortunate; at present I cannot say that I see any opening by which we may bring ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... Gloucester one Saturday afternoon and it rained. I was jogging along home in a carrier's van; I never seen it rain like that afore, no, nor never afterwards, not like that. B-r-r-r-r! it came down... bashing! And we came to a crossroads where there's a public house called The Wheel of Fortune, very lonely and onsheltered it is just there. I see'd a young woman standing in the porch awaiting us, but the carrier was wet and tired and angry or something and wouldn't stop. 'No room'—he bawled out to her—'full up, can't take you!' ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... Assembly Rooms is a library. There is a wheel of fortune in it, but it is rusty and dusty, and never turns. A large doll, with moveable eyes, was put up to be raffled for, by five- and-twenty members at two shillings, seven years ago this autumn, and the list is not full ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... drifted into communication George Liddell seemed a most whimsical turn of the wheel of fortune to Katherine, and she ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... there no way of managing some better end to all this? no mode of giving the right turn to that wheel of fortune, round which his cares and calculations have been hovering so long? Is there no conceivable method of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... parties, equally hostile to persons situated as I am? And after all who will be the really guilty?—Those most certainly who fail of success. Our fate, the fate of thousands, is then necessarily involved in the dark wheel of fortune. Why then so many useless reasonings; we are the sport of fate. Farewell education, principles, love of our country, farewell; all are become useless to the generality of us: he who governs himself according to what he calls his principles, may be punished either by one party or the ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... was better off than I am now, friend," he answered. "As you know, in this country the wheel of fortune has turned ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... appearance, they had reached the lowest turn in the wheel of fortune, they were raised to the highest heights of joy, for the Indian proved to be friendly, supplied them with provisions to continue their journey, and gave them a good bow and quiver of arrows on their simple promise to reward him if he should visit ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... whole, but every character first-rate, and three principal women. All the best plays were run over in vain. Neither Hamlet, nor Macbeth, nor Othello, nor Douglas, nor The Gamester, presented anything that could satisfy even the tragedians; and The Rivals, The School for Scandal, Wheel of Fortune, Heir at Law, and a long et cetera, were successively dismissed with yet warmer objections. No piece could be proposed that did not supply somebody with a difficulty, and on one side or the other it was a continual repetition ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... "Has the wheel of fortune changed its revolutions, and is the sun which has ever shone bright for Adelpha to be clouded? ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... enjoyed. If any one thinks that these observations are the effect of too much refinement, and that there was in truth more of chance in the case than of management or design, let him try his own luck;—perhaps he may draw out of the wheel of fortune a Macbeth, an Othello, a ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... the theatricals is given in a manuscript written by Miss Bristoe, one of the performers. Two plays were represented, (1) Cumberland's 'Wheel of Fortune' and (2) Allingham's 'Weathercock'. The following were the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... as much interest in your widow, Mr. Winthrop, if she was poor and sorrowful. The wheel of fortune may make a revolution some day, ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... considering these questions and still could reach no clear solution of what puzzled him so, the wheel of fortune in the service, as often happens, turned in his favor. After the affair at Ostrovna he was brought into notice, received command of an hussar battalion, and when a brave officer was needed ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... last legislature, but failed in the Senate. The courtesy of Kentucky men to women in general, has kept them from realizing their civil and political degradation, until, by some sudden turn in the wheel of fortune, the individual woman has felt the iron teeth of the law in her own flesh, and warned her slumbering sisterhood. We are now awaking to the fact that an aristocracy of sex in a republic is as inconsistent and odious as an aristocracy of color, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... ratio, and utterly indifferent to the state of the unfortunate shareholders then writhing under the pressure of calls. Philanthropy is a very easy thing when our own circumstances are prosperous, but a turn of the wheel of fortune gives a different complexion to our views. If I had been called upon two months earlier to pronounce an oration upon the vast benefits of general employment and high wages, I should have launched out con amore. Now, the spectacle which I beheld suggested ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... delicacy of that feeling with which he scrutinizes now their case, they seem to him less able than himself to resist its elemental 'tyranny.' For in that ideal revolution—in that exact turn of the wheel of fortune—in that experimental 'change of places,' which the Poet recommends to those who occupy the upper ones in, the social structure, as a means of a more particular and practical acquaintance with the conditions of those for whom they ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... the wheel of fortune Girardin lost his place with the secretary, and went upon the exchange and solicited an humble office for the purpose of studying the chances there. As soon as he considered himself fit to decide, he ventured in buying ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... to myself, my pretty little may-flower, in this everlastin' progressive nation of ourn, where the wheel of fortune never stops turning day or night, and them that's at the top one minute are down in the dirt the next, you may say, "'I want to know' before you die, and be very glad to change your tune, and say, 'Thank ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... evoked a correspondent method of work at once [121] naive and nicely expressive. The rose, or roue, above it, carries on the outer rim seventeen personages, ascending and descending—another piece of popular philosophy—the wheel of fortune, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... superior to which shone his abstract, unconscious grandeur of humanity. A vast and calm melancholy, which had nothing to do with burning coffee, dwelt in his aspect and attitude; and if he had been some dread supernatural agency, turning the wheel of fortune, and doing men, instead of coffee, brown, he could not have looked more sadly and weirdly impressive. When, presently, he rose from his seat, and lifted the cylinder from its place, and the clinging flames leaped ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Jefferson had written the following words: "Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever. That, considering numbers, nature, and natural means, only a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events. That it may become probable by supernatural interference. The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... when he could not dissuade her. "To-night the wheel of fortune will revolve for us all, and it remains to be seen who will draw a prize and ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... custody of William Taillour, late mayor, on the express understanding that he was not to be held responsible in the event of their being stolen or taken by force.(922) In February, 1471, when the wheel of fortune had once more placed Henry VI on the throne from which he had been driven by Edward, and Warwick and Clarence were again in power, the mayor and aldermen caused it to be placed on record that the loan ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... most singular revolution of the wheel of fortune. Captain Manning had but fifty soldiers within the fort. None of these were willing to fight. One-half of them were such raw recruits that captain Manning said that they had never put their heads over the ramparts. ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... one mind, and standing of another. Therefore I take myself the less concern'd to fight with a windmill like Quixote; or to whip a gig as boyes do; or with the lacqueys at Charing-Cross or Lincoln's-Inn-Fields to play at the Wheel of Fortune; lest I should fall into the hands of my Lord Chief-Justice, or Sir Edmond Godfrey. The truth is, in short, and let Bayes make more or less of it if he can, Bayes had at first built-up such a stupendous magistrate as never was of God's making. He had put all princes upon the ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... the wheel of fortune—named in very mockery!—and it is there that one may gaze unrebuked into the most alluring eyes, may see the reddest lips and whitest shoulders;—creme de la creme of all in that smaller room ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... her, she loved, not the great noble who had done so much to save France—no, nor the ragged poet who had lent her his sword-arm and his sword, but just the man, by whatever name he might be called and in whatever way of life his wheel of fortune might spin, whose hand had proved to be of the right size to hold her heart in its hollow. The Katherine of yesterday seemed to be dead and buried, to have died a fiery death of fierce thoughts, fierce agonies, fierce exultations, and from that travail ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... now been so long in the service that he was promoted to a city pastorate, at this turn of the ecclesiastical wheel of fortune, and so it fell out that "Dodd" went to the city to live. A more unfortunate thing could hardly ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... after the wheel of fortune gave an unlooked-for turn. Donald's wife was so proud of the nugget that she could not keep the news to herself, and, next morning, although Donald had carefully told her to keep it quiet, confided his good-luck to another miner's ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... his descendants, without the wealth which was their cause. For wealth, without a law of entail to help it, has always lacked the energy even to keep its own treasures. They drop from its imbecile hand. The third generation almost inevitably goes down the rolling wheel of fortune, and there learns the energy necessary to rise again, if it rises at all; heir, as it is, to the bodily diseases, and mental weaknesses, and the soul's vices of its ancestors, and not heir to their wealth. And yet we are, almost all of us, anxious ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... drew its sustenance from my actual practice in fighting my dear Countess's battles. As Heine goes on to say, savoir and pouvoir are rarely united. Luther was a man of action, but his thought was not the widest. Lessing was a man of thought, but he died broken on the wheel of fortune. It was a combination of the two I tried to paint in my Ulrich von Hutten—the Humanist who transcended Luther and who was the morning star of the true Reformation. You remember his Frankfort student who, having mistakenly capped a Jew, could not decide whether the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill |
