quotations and passages about opportunity

A wise person will make more
opportunities than he or she finds.

Francis Bacon

Opportunities flit by while we sit regretting the chances
we have lost, and the happiness that comes to us
we heed not, because of the happiness that is gone.

Jerome K. Jerome

Vigilance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity;
force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its utmost of possible
achievement--these are the martial virtues which must command success.

Austin Phelps

Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work,
so most people don't recognize them.

Ann Landers

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.
The great opportunity is where you are.

John Burroughs

Horace
Mann

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.

The best picture has not yet
been painted; the greatest
poem is still unsung;
the mightiest novel remains
to be written; the divinest
music has not been
conceived, even by Bach.
In science, probably
ninety-nine percent
of the knowable has
not yet been discovered.

Lincoln Steffens

I was thinking, accidentally, of my own unsatisfactory life, doing as others do;
and with that vision of the [gold] diggings still before me, I asked myself, why
I might not be washing some gold daily, though it were only the finest particles,--why
I might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine. . . .
I might pursue some path, however solitary and narrow and crooked, in which
I could walk with love and reverence. Whenever a person separates from the multitude,
and goes his or her own way in this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary
travelers may see only a gap in the paling. His or her solitary path across-lots
will turn out the higher way of the two.

Henry David Thoreau

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by--
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

The ten most powerful two-letter words: If it is to be, it is up to me.

Anon

The pessimist sees the
difficulty in every opportunity;
the optimist, the opportunity
in every difficulty.

L.P. Jacks

When written in Chinese, the word "crisis"
is composed of two characters--one represents danger and the other
represents opportunity.

John F. Kennedy

We need you, we need your youth, your strength,
and your idealism, to help us make right what is wrong.
I know you have been critically looking at the mores
and customs of the past and questioning their value.
Every generation does that. But don't discard the
time-tested values upon which civilization has been built
just because they are old. More important, don't let
the doom criers and the cynics persuade you that
the best is past--that from here it's all downhill.
Each generation goes further than the generation
preceding it because it stands on the shoulders
of that generation. You will have opportunities
beyond anything we've ever known.

Ronald Reagan

Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today,
because if you enjoy it today, you can do it
again tomorrow.

James A. Michener

The hardest thing to believe when you're young
is that people will fight to stay in a rut,
but not to get out of one.

Ellen Glasgow

One who never walks except where he or she sees other
people's tracks will make no discoveries.

Anon

Louis D. Brandeis

Most of the things worth doing in the world
had been declared impossible before they were done.

Always keep your eyes open for the little task, because it is the little task
that is important to God. The future of the Kingdom of God does not depend
on the enthusiasm of this or that powerful person; those great ones
are necessary too, but it is equally necessary to have a great number
of little people who will do a little thing in the service of God. The great
flowing rivers represent only a small part of all the water that is necessary
to nourish and sustain the earth. Beside the flowing river there is
the water in the earth--the subterranean water--and there are
the little streams which continually enter the river and feed it and
prevent it from sinking into the earth. Without these other waters--
the silent hidden subterranean waters and the trickling streams--
the great river could no longer flow. Thus it is with
the little tasks to be fulfilled by us all.

Albert Schweitzer

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Great opportunities come to all, but many do not know
they have met them. The only preparation to take advantage
of them is simple fidelity to watch what each day brings.

Albert E. Dunning

People do with opportunities as children do at the seashore;
they fill their little hands with sand, and then let the grains fall through,
one by one, till all are gone.

T. Jones

Opportunity is as scarce as oxygen;
people fairly breathe it and do not know it.

Doc Sane

I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to
take advantage of it. Everyone has bad breaks, but everyone also has
opportunities. People who can smile at their breaks and grab their chances get on.

Samuel Goldwyn

The opportunity that God sends
does not wake up those who are asleep.

Senegalese proverb

The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to
one's opportunities, and make the most of one's resources.

Vauvenargues

The secret of success in life is for one to be ready
for one's opportunity when it comes.

Benjamin Disraeli

Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there
more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along.

Hugh Allen

Great opportunities to help others seldom come,
but small ones surround us every day.

Sally Koch

We are always surrounded by doors of opportunity.
That’s the way life is. Often, opportunities do
not come in packages wrapped in the colors
we expected. When an unexpected surprise
happens, we refuse to see it and so we miss
the opportunity. Sometimes we are so focused
on a goal far out in the future that we do not see
what is right in front of us, or we get so busy
hurrying and rushing around that
we lose all perspective.

Anne Wilson Schaef

My biggest problems in life have come when I haven't recognized opportunities.
Because I haven't seen them until too late so often, I haven't been able to take
advantage of them. I suppose many people would say that I've had bad luck,
but I don't see it that way at all. I see it as having missed opportunities, and I don't
get down on myself for having missed them. After all, there was no one around when
I was growing up to teach me to recognize and take advantage of opportunities.

tom walsh

Articles and book excerpts on opportunity:

It Is up to You Jim Rohn

To each one's life there comes a time supreme;
One day, one night, one morning, or one noon,
One freighted hour, one moment opportune,
One rift through which sublime fulfillments gleam,
One space when fate goes tiding with the stream,
One Once, in balance 'twixt Too Late, Too Soon,
And ready for the passing instant's boon
To tip in favor the uncertain beam.
Ah, happy one who, knowing how to wait,
Knows also how to watch and work and stand
On Life's broad deck alert, and at the prow
To seize the passing moment, big with fate,
From Opportunity's extended hand,
When the great clock of destiny strikes Now!

Mary A. Townsend

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