Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945), Pan American Day address, April 15, 1939

It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny.

Jean Nidetch

Fortune can, for her pleasure, fools advance,

And toss them on the wheels of Chance.

Juvenal (55 AD - 127 AD)

The moments that we have with friends and family, the chances that we have to make a big difference in the world or even to make a small difference to the ones we love, all those wonderful chances that life gives us, life also takes away. It can happen fast and a whole lot sooner than you think.

Larry Page, University of Michigan Commencement Address, 2009

In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.

Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895), lecture 1854

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.

Ovid (43 BC - 17 AD)

Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

The sufferings that fate inflicts² on us should be borne with patience, what enemies inflict¹ with manly³ courage.

Thucydides (471 BC - 400 BC)

Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

William Jennings Bryan (1860 - 1925)