"No further changes of trajectory seemed called for, praise fortune." (p. 177)
Never praise fortune! Fortuna must be neither entreated nor thanked, just accepted, although she does favour the brave, which Dominic Flandry is. Audentes fortuna iuvat. Although not, of course, believing in a literal goddess called Fortuna, I nevertheless do think first that luck can only be accepted and secondly that it - not literally "she" - definitely favours those who go out to find it and to meet it half way. This is one of those posts where, instead of discussing a work by Poul Anderson, we take the alternative course of hanging some observations about life on a single phrase, in this case just two words, from one of his works. However, Anderson provides us with so many pertinent phrases that we might wind up commenting on the whole of life. See The Quotable Time Patrol.
Although this is a short post, it has taken me some time to word it as appropriately as possible. I feel thankful for some - not all - aspects of life although there is clearly no one to thank - except maybe metaphorically or hypothetically.
Good luck to you all.
2 comments:
Boldness gives opportunities for luck, good and bad. We tend to hear from those who had good luck!
See "survivorship bias"
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