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A thousand year a poor man watched
Before the gate of Paradise:
But while one little nap he snatched,
It oped and shut. Ah! was he wise?
Author: William R. Alger
Source: Oriental Poetry--Swift Opportunity
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There is an hour in each man's life appointed
To make his happiness, if then he seize it.
Author: Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
Source: Custom of the Country (act II, sc. 3, l. 85)
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Observe the opportunity.
Author: Bible
Source: Ecclesiasticus (ch. IV, v. 20)
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Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you
hold well.
Author: Bible
Source: Ecclesiasticus (ch. IV, v. 20)
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This could but have happened once,
And we missed it, lost it forever.
Author: Robert Browning
Source: Youth and Art (XVII)
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He that will not when he may,
When he will he shall have nay.
Author: Robert Burton
Source: Anatomy of Melancholy (pt. III, sect. 2, mem. 5, subs. 5), quoted
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Let nothing pass which will advantage you;
Hairy in front, Occasion's bald behind.
[Lat., Rem tibi quam nosces aptam dimittere noli;
Fronte capillata, post est occasio calva.]
Author: Dionysius Cato
Source: Disticha de Moribus (II)
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There is a nick in Fortune's restless wheel
For each man's good.
Author: George Chapman
Source: Bussy d'Ambois
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Holding occasion by the hand,
Not over nice 'twixt weed and flower,
Waiving what none can understand,
I make mine hour.
Author: John Vance Cheney
Source: This My Life
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Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
Author: Leonard Cohen
Source: Anthem
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Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find:
Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
Author: Abraham Cowley
Source: Pyramus and Thisbe (XV)
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Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in
overalls and looks like work.
Author: Abraham Cowley
Source: Pyramus and Thisbe (XV)
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"Oh, ship ahoy!" rang out the cry;
"Oh, give us water or we die!"
A voice came o'er the waters far,
"Just drop your bucket where you are."
And then they dipped and drank their fill
Of water fresh from mead and hill;
And then they knew they sailed upon
The broad mouth of the Amazon.
Author: Sam Walter Foss
Source: Opportunity
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Seek not for fresher founts afar,
Just drop your bucket where you are;
And while the ship right onward leaps,
Uplift it from the exhaustless deeps.
Parch not your life with dry despair;
The stream of hope flow everywhere--
So under every sky and star,
Just drop your bucket where you are.
Author: Sam Walter Foss
Source: Opportunity
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Yet he who grasps the moment's gift,
He is the proper man.
[Ger., Der den Augenblick ergreift,
Das ist der rechte Mann.]
Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Source: Faust (I, 4, 494)
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Man's extremity is God's opportunity.
Author: John Hamilton, Lord Belhaven
Source: in the Scottish Parliament, Nov. 2, 1706, protesting against union of England and Scotland
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I beseech you not to blame me if I be desirous to strike while
the iron is hot.
Author: Sir Edward Hoby
Source: To Cecil
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Let us seize, friends, our opportunity from the day as it passes.
[Lat., Rapiamus, amici,
Occasionem de die.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Epodon (XIII, 3)
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The actual fact is that in this day Opportunity not only knocks
at your door but is playing an anvil chorus on every man's door,
and then lays for the owner around the corner with a club. The
world is in sore need of men who can do things. Indeed, cases
can easily be recalled by every one where Opportunity actually
smashed in the door and collared her candidate and dragged him
forth to success. These cases are exceptional, usually you have
to meet Opportunity half-way. But the only place where you can
get away from Opportunity is to lie down and die. Opportunity
does not trouble dead men, or dead ones who flatter themselves
that they are alive.
Author: Elbert Hubbard
Source: in "The Philistine"
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I knock unbidden once at every gate--
If sleeping, wake--if feasting, rise before
I turn away--it is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death, but those who doubt of hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore,
I answer not, and I return no more.
Author: John James Ingalls
Source: Opportunity
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Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
Author: John James Ingalls
Source: Opportunity
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Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people
don't recognize them.
Author: John James Ingalls
Source: Opportunity
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They do me wrong who say I come no more,
When once I know and fail to find you in;
For every day I stand outside your door
And bid you wait, and rise to fight and win.
Author: Judge Walter Malone
Source: Opportunity
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The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most
possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is
success, and there is no other.
Author: Judge Walter Malone
Source: Opportunity
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Not by appointment do we meet delight
Or joy; they heed not our expectancy;
But round some corner of the streets of life
They of a sudden greet us with a smile.
Author: Gerald Massey
Source: Bridegroom of Beauty
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It doesn't matter how much milk you spill as long as you don't lose the cow.
Author: Harvey Mackay
Source: None
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A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Author: Francis Bacon
Source: None
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Opportunities are everywhere. The recession might be drawing to a close, but its continuing legacy is employers' reliance on short-term staff. There may be fewer jobs for life, but there are more jobs in a lifetime.
Author: Lucy Benington
Source: None
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If you view all the things that happen to you, both good and bad, as opportunities, then you operate out of a higher level of consciousness.
Author: Les Brown
Source: None
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Great investment opportunities come around when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that cause the stock to be misappraised.
Author: Warren Buffett
Source: None
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Be ready when opportunity comes. Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet.
Author: Roy D. Chapin Jr.
Source: None
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The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Author: Winston Churchill
Source: None
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Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy.
Author: Charles Caleb Colton
Source: None
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There is far more opportunity than there is ability.
Author: Thomas A. Edison
Source: None
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Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting -- a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: None
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The sad truth is that opportunity doesn't knock twice. You can put things off until tomorrow but tomorrow may never come. Where will you be a few years down the line. Will it be everything you dreamed of. We seal our fate with the choices we take, but don't give a second thought to the chances we take.
Author: Gloria Estefan
Source: None
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Sometimes only a change of viewpoint is needed to convert a tiresome duty into an interesting opportunity.
Author: Alberta Flanders
Source: None
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Enlarge the opportunity and the person will expand to fill it
Author: Eli Ginzberg
Source: None
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Some people expect the door of opportunity to be opened with an electric eye.
Author: Howard Hendricks
Source: None
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Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us daily.
Author: Sally Koch
Source: None
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Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them.
Author: Ann Landers
Source: None
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One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.
Author: Rosamond Lehmann
Source: None
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It is the youth who sees a great opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a very uncommon situation, a humble position, who gets on in the world.
Author: Orison Swett Marden
Source: None
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Our opportunities to do good are our talents.
Author: Cotton Mather
Source: None
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Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; whenever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable. They go together.
Author: Earl Nightingale
Source: None
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Even a blind dog can find a bone every so often.
Author: Alexi Sayle
Source: None
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Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them.
Author: Samuel Smiles
Source: None
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It's better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.
Author: Whitney, Young Jr.
Source: None
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Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell. •Anonymous Many an opportunity is lost because a man is out looking for four-leaf clovers.
Author: Anonymous
Source: None
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Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.
Author: Doris Lessing
Source: None
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