185 Opportunity Quotes

If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.

Lest Arab governments be tempted out of sheer routine to rush into impulsive rejection, let me suggest that tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss.

A lot of girls ask for advice on how to get into acting, and I'm kind of the worst person to ask, because it just kind of fell in my lap... I was just in the right place at the right time.

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint.

Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.

In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

The keen spirit Seizes the prompt occasion, makes the thought Start into instant action, and at once Plans and performs, resolves and executes!

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, to work, to play, and to look up at the stars.

You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay.

One chance is all you need.

Who makes quick use of the moment is a genius of prudence.

I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

When the sun shineth, make hay.

The tide tarrieth no man.

I see the new Latin artist as a pioneer, opening up doors for others to follow. And when they don't open, we crowbar our way in.

Nothing happens quite by chance. It's a question of accretion of information and experience ... it's just chance that I happened to be here at this particular time when there was available and at my disposal the great experience of all the investigators who plodded along for a number of years.

Every dog must have his day.

The time for your labor has been granted.

Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.

Now we are expected to be as wise as men who have had generations of all the help there is, and we scarcely anything.

People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

You can't sleep your way into being a star. It takes much, much more. But it helps a lot of actresses get their first chance that way.

Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.

A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow. I have seen the light and I'm crowing.

Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.

If one cannot catch a bird of paradise, better take a wet hen.

Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.

I had some good opportunities. I was lucky to have had the chance to do things differently. Architecture is about surprise.

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

She then gave her a pair of slippers made of glass, the prettiest in the world.

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow.

He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things.

I guess it just proves that in America anyone can be president.

Finding a four leaf clover is a sign that you have been down on your hands and knees.

'I think that we (Indo-Fijians) have a great future in this country if we can grab the opportunities that are ahead of us.'

In this industry, interest in you comes in waves, it's so tidal. And so I don't really want to jump on the first wave that comes along.

If there's ever a price on your head, take it.

She had an unequalled gift, especially pen in hand, of squeezing big mistakes into small opportunities.

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.

See your disappointments as good fortune. One plan's deflation is another's inflation.

Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient.

We're here to talk about education. But I want to say something before that....You know, education, if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

A diamond was laying in the street covered with dirt. Many fools passed by. Someone who knew diamonds picked it up.

Now we can cross the Shifting Sands.

I had a brief theater background and loved the backstage world there's more backstage work in television, so I saw a job advertised and applied, and got it. That was back in 1977, when getting jobs was easy.

My maxim was, la carriere est ouverte aux talents, without distinction of birth or fortune.

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

The favorable opportunity must be seized; for fortune is female, and if you balk her today you must not expect to meet her again tomorrow.

The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going.

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.

Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.

I only had one shot in the locker and I fired it.

Can a souffle rise twice?

I dare to imagine a country where every child I hold in my hands, are all God's children, regardless of the color of their skin, regardless of whether they're boy or girl, regardless of religion, regardless of rich or poor, that every child I hold in my hands, will have the same chance to reach her full potential or his full potential. That is the goodness of our country. That is the essence of the American dream.

There will be no real content among American women unless they are made and kept more ignorant or unless they are given equal opportunity with men to use what they have been taught. And American men will not be really happy until their women are.

While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity.

Fortunam citius reperias quam retineas.

'We must move with speed to mobilise all sectors of society in a stepped-up drive against HIV/AIDS, accelerating the pace to halt the virus before the Pacific's window of opportunity slams shut.'

Deeds let escape are never to be done.

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

I appeal to all pupils, students and young people, asking you to focus on the horizons that are opening up for you, and which you could only dream of a year ago. Our future will depend on your desire for education and moral values as well as on your entrepreneurial spirit.

I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young - alas, she never wrote a word... Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross-roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here to-night, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh.