Luckless Quotes & Sayings

Many luckless people imagine that romance is dead: some, overcivilised, fondly suppose that there never was romance: a poet tells us that romance is unrecognised though really present: but scientists can meet him daily, walking at large and undisguised in the world. — Archibald Hill

To say that a schlemiel is a luckless person is to touch only the negative side. It is the schlemiel's avocation and profession to miss out on things, to muff opportunities, to be persistently, organically, preposterously and ingeniously out of place. A hungry schlemiel dreams of a plate of hot soup, and hasn't a spoon. — Maurice Samuel

I have always considered The Merry Wives one of the worst plays, if not altogether the worst, that Shakespeare has left us. The wit for the most part is dreary or foolish; the tone is coarse and farcical; and the characters want the fine distinctive touches he so well knew how to give. If some luckless wight had written such a comedy in our time, I should like to see what the critics would say to it? — George Henry Lewes

If you believe in "luck", always let it be good luck.
Always choose to be "lucky", rather than "luckless".
Be "happy", rather than "hapless". — Donald L. Hicks

Luckless is the country in which the symbols of procreation are the objects of shame, while the agents of destruction are honored! And yet you call that member your pudendum, or shameful part, as if there were anything more glorious than creating life, or anything more atrocious than taking it away. — Cyrano De Bergerac

We have a nasty habit of flushing down the memory hole "the people who lost." Or demonizing them. Going back in time and painting Snidely Whiplash mustaches on their luckless countenances. — Bill Kauffman

A penniless man who has no ties to bind him is master of himself at any rate, but a luckless wretch who is in love no longer belongs to himself, and may not take his own life. Love makes us almost sacred in our own eyes; it is the life of another that we revere within us; then and so begins for us the cruelest trouble of all. — Honore De Balzac

Prostitution demoralizes men far more than women. Prostitution does not degrade the whole female sex, but only the luckless women that become its victims, and even those not to the extent generally assumed. But it degrades the character of the entire male world. — Friedrich Engels

This harsh little man - this pitiless censor - gathers up all your poor scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of rose- color, your small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon, your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for each item. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in Life's sunshine: it its a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray. — Charlotte Bronte

Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way: 34-36 Stomping down hard on luckless prisoners, Refusing justice to victims in the court of High God, Tampering with evidence - the Master does not approve of such things. — Eugene H. Peterson

Only the luckless, the petty or the deranged [end] up in court. — Adam Haslett

She felt like one of the luckless peasant girls in some Russian hagiography, left to fend for her family in deep Siberian snows.
Ever a logical girl, she didn't like where the hints all around were leading her. — Liz Braswell

It has become too easy to see that the luckless men of the past lived by mistakes, even absurd beliefs, so we may well fail in a decent respect for them, and forget that historians of the future will point out that we too lived by myths. — Herbert J. Muller

Hardships are quickly forgotten. Intense heat, bitter cold, rain and snow, fatigue,and luckless hunting fade quickly into memories of great fellowship, thoughts of beautiful country, pleasant camps, and happy campfires. — Fred Bear

Thus when a barber and a collier fight, The barber beats the luckless collier-white; The dusty collier heaves his ponderous sack, And big with vengeance beats the barber-black. In comes the brick-dust man, with grime o'erspread, And beats the collier and the barber-red: Black, red, and white in various clouds are tost, And in the dust they raise the combatants are lost. — Christopher Smart

I F YOU WANT TO IMAGINE the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. And a summer that never ends. And if you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot ... no, imagine a sneaker, laces trailing, kicking a pebble; imagine a stick, to poke at interesting things, and throw for a dog that may or may not decide to retrieve it; imagine a tuneless whistle, pounding some luckless popular song into insensibility; imagine a figure, half angel, half devil, all human ... Slouching hopefully towards Tadfield ... . ... forever. — Terry Pratchett

As the sun fell below the horizon, Sir Luckless emerged from the waters with the glory of his triumph upon him, and flung himself in his rusted armor at the feet of Amata, who was the kindest and most beautiful woman he had ever beheld. Flushed with success, he begged for her hand and her heart, and Amata, no less delighted, realized that she had found a man worthy of them. — J.K. Rowling

There is a certain sort of man whose doom in the world is disappointment, who excels in it, and whose luckless triumphs in his meek career of life, I have often thought, must be regarded by the kind eyes above with as much favor as the splendid successes and achievements of coarser and more prosperous men. — William Makepeace Thackeray

To believe practically that the poor and luckless are here only as a nusiance to be abraded and abated, and in some permissable manner made away with, and swept out of sight, is not an amiable faith. — Thomas Carlyle

When it comes to the assignment of blame, the CIA has by and large been a luckless organization. — Charles McCarry

Think'st thou there are no serpents in the world But those who slide along the grassy sod, And sting the luckless foot that presses them? There are who in the path of social life Do bask their spotted skins in Fortune's sun, And sting the soul. — Joanna Baillie

Waldo was not alone by any means in trembling over an unjust plight. With the recent uproar over drunk driving, arrests had skyrocketed and detention centers all around the country were overflowing with bewildered motorists. Many of these dumbstruck, inebriated souls had been transferred and thoughtfully placed behind the same bars that held back murderers and rapists. Unfortunately for our heroes, they now joined the ranks of these luckless citizens. — Donald Jeffries

I knew that nobody but a luckless man could ever need a doctor in the face of a cyclone. — William Faulkner

Coulda made something o' himself. But a luckless man. All his days a luckless man. The kinna man woulda got two complimentary tickets for the Titanic." The unintentional humour of her remark was like her natural appetite for life reasserting itself. Harkness couldn't stop smiling. It was as if Glasgow couldn't shut the wryness of its mouth even at the edge of the grave. — William McIlvanney

INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to - in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the beginning. — Ambrose Bierce

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger, lost discoverer, in you everything sank! — Pablo Neruda

They were a pair of white mice, I thought - only Kitsey was a spun-sugar, fairy-princess mouse whereas Andy was more the kind of luckless, anemic, pet-shop mouse you might feed to your boa constrictor. "Get — Donna Tartt

If 'all the Jewish women in Palestine are hysterical', presumably many of their menkind suffer from the same disability, which certainly does not promise well for the luckless Arab who is to live beneath their sway. How much of the trouble that has occurred already in Palestine may be attributed to this cause it is impossible to know. — Nesta Helen Webster

The story of Reginald Watts was a luckless one dealing in every manner of failure and catastrophe, though he spoke of this without bitterness or regret, and in fact seemed to find humor in his numberless missteps: 'I've failed at straight business, I've failed at criminal enterprise, I've failed at love, I've failed at friendship. You name it, I've failed at it. Go ahead and name something. Anything at all. — Patrick DeWitt

Luckless is that country in which the symbols of procreation are held in horror!' he wrote, 'while the agents of destruction are revered! — Rikki Ducornet

Goodbye my almost lover, goodbye my hopeless dream, I'm tryin not to think about you, Can't you just let me be? So long, my luckless romance, my back is turned on you, should've known you'd bring me heartbreak, almost lovers always do — A Fine Frenzy

RICH, adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless. — Ambrose Bierce

Near by is an interesting ruin - the meagre remains of an ancient heathen temple - a place where human sacrifices were offered up in those old bygone days when the simple child of Nature, yielding momentarily to sin when sorely tempted, acknowledged his error when calm reflection had shown it him, and came forward with noble frankness and offered up his grandmother as an atoning sacrifice - in those old days when the luckless sinner could keep on cleansing his conscience and achieving periodical happiness as long as his relations held out; — Mark Twain

Such is the fate of simple Bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd — Robert Burns

In theology, the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned. The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin, whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are predestined to salvation. — Ambrose Bierce