Quotes & Sayings About Serendipity

If something is going on, I hear about it. I like to talk to people, I socialise. Television is a waste of time. Human contact is what matters. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Every human relationship begins with a coincidence. Even the most fundamental relationship - that of parent and child - begins entirely with a coincidence. The child is produced by whatever serendipity brought its parents together, and the fact that the child was born to its particular parents instead of to another couple is pure happenstance. Thus, children have no choice over the relationship that is most important to their existence.
By contrast, friends and lovers choose each other, but even these choices are reactions to whatever random coincidence made the resulting relationship possible. — Zack Love

Serendipity is putting a quarter in the gumball machine and having three pieces come rattling out instead of one-all red. — Peter H. Reynolds

Synergy and serendipity often play a big part in medical and scientific advances. — Julie Bishop

What possibilities exist here? What is presenting itself to me IN THIS MOMENT that I can use? In a very real sense, it's meditation in motion, the practical application of an esoteric practice. And it relies on the acceptance of serendipity. Serendipity, the effect of accidentally discovering something fortunate — Tom Bergeron

The medicines of today are based upon thousands of years of knowledge accumulated from folklore, serendipity and scientific discovery. The new medicines of tomorrow will be based on the discoveries that are being made now, arising from basic research in laboratories around the world. — John Vane

Surrender is a state of living in the flow, trusting what is, and being open to serendipity and surprises. — Judith Orloff

Plan to the extent that feels right to you at a particular time in your life, but always be open to serendipity. — Steve Leveen

Engineering serendipity is this idea that we can help people come across unexpected but helpful connections at a better than random rate. And in some ways it's based on trying to reassess this notion of serendipitous as lucky - to think of serendipitous as smart. — Ethan Zuckerman

The history of discovery is full of creative serendipity. — Tom Kelley

The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable, event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle. — Michael Denton

[In the case of research director, Willis R. Whitney, whose style was to give talented investigators as much freedom as possible, you may define 'serendipity' as] the art of profiting from unexpected occurrences. When you do things in that way you get unexpected results. Then you do something else and you get unexpected results in another line, and you do that on a third line and then all of a sudden you see that one of these lines has something to do with the other. Then you make a discovery that you never could have made by going on a direct road. — Irving Langmuir

One thing I've found ... the road rarely rises up to meet you until you've begun walking. — Michele Jennae

You don't have to work for Google, or any of the other firms encouraging staff to pursue personal projects on company time, to use slowness to unlock your creativity. Anyone can do it. Start by clearing space in your schedule for rest, daydreaming and serendipity. Take breaks away from your desk, especially when you get stuck on a problem. — Carl Honore

But the reason that writers like Harlan and Lee don't outline is that they enjoy the serendipity, the surprises that arise when they're not constricted by the steel girdle of an outline. And I get that too. Some of the best plot twists in my work have been ones that I didn't plan on, including the ending to PARANOIA. One of the great pleasures of writing fiction is living in the story so that you "experience" it the way your characters do. — Joseph Finder

Work hard, not in grunt work, but in chasing such opportunities and maximizing exposure to them. This makes living in big cities invaluable because you increase the odds of serendipitous encounters-you gain exposure to the envelope of serendipity. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Only now I'm learning to enjoy not being in charge of what the next stroke will do to the whole painting. I'm still learning that there are no mistakes, only discoveries. — Fernando Araujo Perdomo

With a modest amount of looks and talent and more than a modicum of serendipity, I've managed to stretch my 15 minutes of fame into more than half a century of good fortune. — Robert Vaughn

Maybe the absence of signs is a sign. — John Cusack

We could have simply passed like ships in the night, with serendipity eluding us. — Matt Abrams

The thing that makes writing so difficult is you don't have the element of serendipity. At least with a photograph, you can set up the camera, and something might happen. You might be a lousy photographer, but you can get a good picture if you just take enough of them. — Sally Mann

Like all photographers, I depend on serendipity I pray for what might be referred to as the angel of chance. — Sally Mann

When I paint, mysterious things happen. What starts with a void ends with a dialogue. — Jeet Aulakh

Most discoveries even today are a combination of serendipity and of searching. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Maybe it was fate that I sat next to her that day, or serendipity, divine intervention, who knows? However you look at, I got seated next to the first girl to ever really steal my heart. I was in love from that moment on. — Renee Carlino

In the abstract, it might be tempting to imagine that irreducible complexity simply requires multiple simultaneous mutations - that evolution might be far chancier than we thought, but still possible. Such an appeal to brute luck can never be refuted ... Luck is metaphysical speculation; scientific explanations invoke causes. — Michael J. Behe

Risk-taking, trust, and serendipity are key ingredients of joy. Without risk, nothing new ever happens. Without trust, fear creeps in. Without serendipity, there are no surprises. — Rita Gelman

For me, serendipity, coincidence and chance are more interesting than any preconceived construct of our human encounters. — Charles Traub

Freelancing requires such strict adherence to toadyism, to sycophancy, to the grubbiest, lowliest submissions. It is an on-spec life and it is full of what can only be described as insane serendipity (or serendipitous insanity). — Richard Morgan

Remember the Three Princes of Serendip who went out looking for treasure? They didn't find what they were looking for, but they kept finding things just as valuable. That's serendipity, and our business [drugs] is full of it. — George W. Bush

Life should be full of- Compassion, Peace, Companionship, Honor, Love, Honesty, Joy, Rapture, Euphoria, Friendship, Family, Spiritual Enrichment, Enlightenment, Trust, Truth, Loyalty, Passion, Cultural Enrichment, Unity, Serenity, Zen, Wonder, Respect, Beauty of All Kinds, Balance of all Creation, Philosophy, Adventure, Art, Happiness, Bliss, Serendipity, Kismet, Fantasy, Positivity, Yin, Yang, Color, Variety, Excitement, Sharing, Fun, Sound, Paradise, Magick, Tenderness, Strength, Devotion, Courage, Conviction, Responsibility, Wisdom, Justice, Satisfaction, Fulfillment, Purpose, Mystery, Healing, Learning, Virtue, History, Creativity, Imagination, Receptiveness and Faith. For through these things you are One with your Creator. — Solange Nicole

With you it's different, There isn't a catostrophic emotion of endorphines, but there is a silent feeling of contentment & peace. I won't deny I have my fears, but your worth the discovery. — Nikki Rowe

One aspect of serendipity to bear in mind is that you have to be looking for something in order to find something else. — Lawrence Block

As in any other year, life zigged and zagged according to the adventures my friend Serendipity laid at my feet. Like any other year I gathered the fleeting and magnificent experiences in my arms and accepted the small thrills and dangers excitedly, or calmly, for they formed an inseparable part of the iridescent extraordinary. — Pekarkova Iva

Vital lives are about action. You can't feel warmth unless you create it, can't feel delight until you play, can't know serendipity unless you risk. — Joan Erickson

A lot of it just has to do with luck, serendipity. — Emanuel Ax

What people call serendipity sometimes is just having your eyes open. — Jose Manuel Barroso

I spend 90% of my time with people who don't report to me, which also allows for serendipity, since I'm walking around the office all the time. You don't have to schedule serendipity. It just happens. — Jack Dorsey

When seasoned by the subtleties of accident, harmony, favor, wisdom, and inevitability, luck takes on the cast of serendipity. Serendipity happens when a well-trained mind looking for one things encounters something else: the unexpected. — Margot Lee Shetterly

When you broadcast your book reading voluntarily, it creates moments of fascinating serendipity. — Clive Thompson

Maximize the serendipity around you. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I wasnt looking for anything when I found you & it somehow made me question what I wanted, was i ready for love? I don't think anyone is ever ready, but when someone makes you feel alive again it's kind of worth the risk ... — Nikki Rowe

Stories want to be told. Stories have a power of their own ... you can't write a story until you've felt it. Breathed it in. Walked with your characters. Talked with them. — Angelica Banks

Serendipity was my tour guide, assisted by caprice — Pico Iyer

The second analog-era mechanism that encourages serendipity involves the physical limitations of the print newspaper, which forces you to pass by a collection of artfully curated stories on a variety of topics before you open up the section that most closely matches your existing passions and knowledge. — Steven Johnson

The particulars of new places grabbed me and held me, the sweep of new coasts, cold, lovely, dawns. The world was incomprehensibly large, and there was still so much to see. Yes, I got sick sometimes of being an expatriate, always ignorant, on the outside of things, but I didn't feel ready for domestic life, for seeing the same people, the same places, thinking more or less the same thoughts, each day. I liked surrendering to the onrush, the uncertainty, the serendipity of the road. — William Finnegan

Creativity is the potential which can be unlocked and innovation is the serendipity which can be unpuzzled. — Pearl Zhu

It was like their lives were overlapping lines, like they had their own gravity. Usually, that serendipity thing felt like the nicest thing the universe had ever done for her. — Rainbow Rowell

The magic of scavenging is in the serendipity of the find; to actually hunt for objects - though sometimes necessary - diminishes the pleasure of finding them. — Barbara Hodgson

There's some mysterious process at work here, which I don't even want to understand. — Philip Guston

I for sure believe in miracles. For me, a miracle is seeing the world with light in your eyes. It's knowing there's always hope and possibility where none seems to exist. Many people are so closed to miracles that even when one is boldly staring them in the face, they label it coincidence or serendipity. I call it like I see it. — Oprah Winfrey

You could make mistakes when you lived together because you knew you'd wake up the next morning with another chance. — Ariel Sabar

Lady Placida smiled. "History seldom takes note of serendipity when it records events. And from what I have heard, I suspect an argument could be made that you very much did earn the title."
"Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them."
Lady Placida laughed. "True enough. But perhaps that is beginning to change." She offered her hands. "It is a distinct pleasure to meet you, Steadholder. — Jim Butcher

The essential of painting is that 'something', that 'ethereal glue,' that 'intermediary product' which the artist exudes with all his creative being and which he has the power to place, to encrust, to impregnate into the pictorial matter of the painting. — Yves Klein

Go to parties. You can't even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In the end, Spider and I were going to be forever linked. Serendipity. — Julie Hockley

When in brief flashes of serendipity you glimpse what you were born to do...
Do it.
No matter what. Take steps toward it, even if they are depressingly small at first. With each inch closer to your central magic, you will feel it.
It is unmistakable for anything else.
It's called purpose. — Jacob Nordby

Jen came first, and then they wanted to cast somebody that would ... Kevin liked the idea of having a kind of The Ghost of That Character kind of haunt the movie in a way throughout, by having Raquel look so much like her. And also, it was sort of serendipity. I mean, she was also the best actress. I mean, as you can see Raquel has a pretty appealing, engaging kind of precocious, sparkly quality that's ... it was just luck really that she happened to the film. — Ben Affleck

Travel light and trust in serendipity. — Mike Brown

I can't explain why your name seems so familiar to me, or why it feels like I've heard your voice a thousand times before, but I can explain this ~ your the type of chaos Id bleed for. — Nikki Rowe

I kissed you," Finlay said roughly. "for the very simple reason that you are irresistible."
"I think that is what is known as serendipity," Isabella replied, "for it's the very same reason I kissed you back."
"Serendipity," Finlay said, sliding his arm around her waist. "I've always wondered what it tasted like."
"Strawberries, and lavender, and vintage wine, I believe is how you described it."
"No," he said decidedly. "It tastes of nothing other than essence of you. The most intoxicating and delicious taste imaginable. — Marguerite Kaye

You need messiness and magic, serendipity and insanity. Creativity comes from time off, and time out. — Timothy Egan

The Law of Serendipity: Lady Luck favors the one who tries — Barbara Oakley

Innovation is serendipity, so you don't know what people will make. — Tim Berners-Lee

A novel takes the courage of a marathon runner, and as long as you have to run, you might as well be a winning marathon runner. Serendipity and blind faith faith in yourself won't hurt a thing. All the bastards in the world will snicker and sneer because they haven't the talent to zip up their flies by themselves. To hell with them, particularly the critics. Stand in there, son, no matter how badly you are battered and hurt. — Leon Uris

Cultivate the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities. — Gina Greenlee

I have absolutely nothing consistent in my life. But that's where serendipity comes in and I love that. One day I'm going to have to sacrifice that to bring life into the world. But the more I can hold off on that, the happier I'll be. It's scary for me. — Michelle Rodriguez

Creativity is a fragile flower, but perhaps it can be fertilized with systematic doses of serendipity. — John Brockman

Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked. — Elizabeth Berg

Crazy as it sounds, I'm a believer in destiny and serendipity, and I have had cosmic experiences all my life. Something told me I was meant for greater stuff. And look, I've had a baby! And I've written an opera! — Rufus Wainwright

The magic of boy meets girl, the angst of catch and release, the serendipity of meant-to-be, It doesn't matter if a romantic comedy follows a predictable course, we respond because it's rooted in truth. In magic. — Victoria Van Tiem

When we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose. This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don't. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. — Steven Pressfield

I always leave room for serendipity and chance. — Ken Stott

She wasn't entirely sure how she felt,
All she knew was that he entered her world
And she felt more alive than she had before, secretly wishing he was feeling the same. — Nikki Rowe

Teaching is the art of serendipity. Each of us has the experience of finding out that something we intended as only the most casual of remarks, or the stray example, changes the way some students thought to the point of changing their lives. — Greg Carlson

I admit that I am hopelessly hooked on the printed newspaper. I love turning the pages and the serendipity of stumbling across a piece of irresistible information or a photograph that I wasn't necessarily intending to read. — Jill Abramson

With a library it is easier to hope for serendipity than to look for a precise answer. — Lemony Snicket

And indeed, there are innumerable cases of important discoveries being made because the failed experiment revealed a new set of possibilities that you hadn't even realized were there. This is sometimes mistaken for serendipity, a notion that, since it's come up, I would like to take a moment to dispute. — Stuart Firestein

I believe in serendipity, but I also believe there are times when you have to be the one who lines up everything so it can fall into place. — Susan Stroman

Scientists rightly resist invoking the supernatural in scientific explanations for fear of committing a god-of-the-gaps fallacy (the fallacy of using God as a stop-gap for ignorance). Yet without some restriction on the use of chance, scientists are in danger of committing a logically equivalent fallacy-one we may call the "chance-of-the-gaps fallacy." Chance, like God, can become a stop-gap for ignorance. — William A. Dembski

Somehow, the road rises up to meet you Patch, when you are ready. — Michele Jennae

As is often the case when I travel, my vulnerability
like not knowing what the hell I'm going to do upon arrival
makes me more open to outside interactions than I might be when I'm at home and think I know best what needs to be done. On the road, serendipity is given space to enter my life. — Andrew McCarthy

A story is like a giant jigsaw puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle that would cover the whole floor of a room with its tiny pieces. Buts it's not that sort of puzzle that comes with a box. There is no lid with a picture on it so that you can see what the puzzle will look like when it's finished. And you have only some of the pieces. All you can do is keep looking and listening, sniffing about in all sorts of places, until you find the next piece. And then you'll be amazed where that next piece will take you. Suddenly your puzzle can have a whole new person in it, or it can go from being on a train to a hot air balloon, from city to country, from love to sadness to loneliness and back to love. Pieces can come to you at any time. When you're having a cup of tea or sitting on a bus or talking with a friend.it will be like a bell going off in your head. That's what comes next you'll think. And that's why it's serendipity. Serendipity is luck and chance and fate all tumbled into one. — Angelica Banks

I sat with the broken;
I whispered their names,
I let them feel for the first time; serendipity, would change the vision they see for a day — Nikki Rowe

To qualify as a Seeker, it was necessary to show a high serendipity factor. In my experimental behaviour pool as a child, I had exhibited such a factor, and had been selected for special training forthwith. I had taken additional courses in Philosophical, Alpha-humerals, Incidental Tetrachotomy, Apunctual Synchronicity, Homoontogenesis, and other subjects, ultimately qualifying as a Prime Esemplastic Seeker. In other words, I put two and two together in situations where other people were not thinking about addition. I connected. I made wholes greater than parts. Mine was an invaluable profession in a cosmos increasingly full of parts. — Brian W. Aldiss

I had aspirations to do different things with my life. I wanted to play soccer. I wanted to be a lawyer. Serendipity. — Pete Wentz

There's a serendipity to real life that the Internet can't duplicate. Do you use the library? For anything? Well, sometimes you end up picking up the book next to the one you were looking for, and it's that book that changes your life. — Laura Lippman

Serendipity is when you find things you weren't looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damned difficult. — Erin McKean

The very comprehensibility of the world points to an intelligence behind the world. Indeed, science would be impossible if our intelligence were not adapted to the intelligibility of the world. The match between our intelligence and the intelligibility of the world is no accident. Nor can it properly be attributed to natural selection, which places a premium on survival and reproduction and has no stake in truth or conscious thought. Indeed, meat-puppet robots are just fine as the output of a Darwinian evolutionary process. — William A. Dembski

Serendipity (n.) finding something good without looking for it — Dictionary

It's filled with magic that's how I know if something's real. — Nikki Rowe

It is perfectly serendipitous,' said the boy, descending the steps to the street. 'Fancy that - us meeting a second time! Of course I have wished for it, very much - but they were vain wishes; the kind one makes in twilight states, you know, idly. I remember just what you said, as we rounded the heads of the harbor - in the dawn light. "I should like to see him in a storm," you said. I have thought of it many times, since; it was the most delightfully original of speeches.'
Anna blushed at this: not only had she never heard herself described as an original before, she had certainly never supposed that her utterances qualified as 'speeches. — Eleanor Catton

Sustainable success can only happen on purpose — Seth Czerepak

To help yourself to cultivate serendipity, you should keep a notebook with you at all times. The moment any idea or observation comes, you note it down. You keep the notebook by your bed, careful to record ideas that come in those moments of fringe awareness - just before falling asleep, or just upon waking. — Robert Greene

Serendipity awakens the dutiful wife to personal growth when a
transformational opportunity comes her way. — Jean Harlan

Politics is a lot of serendipity. You're in the right place and the right time and you've got the right message, and it either connects for you or, or it doesn't. — Jon Huntsman Jr.

Serendipity ~ finding something more than you were originally looking for. — Nikki Rowe

When I was 26 or 27, I gave up journalism. I came to England after my mom died, to let serendipity take its course. And I just found myself back in journalism again. — Heather Brooke

Life sucks. It's all random bullshit that adds up to nothing but chaos. Serendipity: accidentally finding something wonderful while not looking for it. A few get lucky. The rest of us fight for what's left over. — Adriana Law