Short Unlucky Quotes & Sayings

By contrast, a modern person lives surrounded by strangers who are doing things they may not understand. We cannot rely on our instincts and our relationships to keep society working. So it's more important than ever to make sure that we get the rules right. If we want our economy to grow, it means looking for ways to support experimental risk-taking by trading a little more than we may instinctively be comfortable with. It means offering big payoffs to those who are willing to take big risks but also making sure that the unlucky don't starve. In short, it means accepting that a high degree of unpredictability goes with the hunting ground. — Megan McArdle

Sometimes, you're the one who strikes it lucky. Sometimes, it's the other poor bastard who's left with the short straw, and you just have to shut up and get on with it. — M.L. Stedman

Vincent knew he was dying. A horrendous fever overwhelmed him with intolerable pain throughout many sleepless hours. It came as a result of a malaria epidemic that erupted in his hometown during early nineteenth century Europe. The disease spread so fast, physicians had to ration their stocks of quinine only to use it on patients who weren't declared "hopeless". Vincent was one of the unlucky ones. Speculating his time on Earth may be short, he requested spiritual guidance, even if he wasn't a faithful man, nor did he believe in forgiveness. He appealed to the Church as a "just in case" like many other petrified atheists. — Don Luis Zavala

Inequality of wealth grounded in unequal abilities is different. For most of us, the luck of the draw cuts several ways: one person is not handsome, but is smart; another is not as smart, but is industrious; and still another is not as industrious, but is charming. This kind of inequality of human capital is enriching, making life more interesting for everyone. But some portion of the population gets the short end of the stick on several dimensions. As the number of dimensions grows, so does the punishment for being unlucky. When a society tries to redistribute the goods of life to compensate the most unlucky, its heart is in the right place, however badly the thing has worked out in practice. — Charles Murray