Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
Meaning: Consistent hard work creates the opportunities that appear to others as mere luck or chance.
Origin: Recorded in A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, an undated collection published in London by Whittaker & Co. around 1880 and credited to Thomas Preston. Its earlier history hasn't been traced.
More proverbs about Perseverance
- He who would enjoy his friend's dinner should not look into the kitchen. — Willful ignorance of unpleasant details preserves pleasure in the final result.
- If you wish a thing done, go; if not, send. — Delegating tasks to others risks poor execution; important matters demand your personal a…
- Think of ease, but work on. — Comfort tempts idleness, yet sustained effort alone transforms aspiration into achievemen…
- Tis hard to sail o'er the sea in an egg-shell. — Fragile vessels cannot survive harsh conditions; attempting impossible tasks with inadequ…
- Everything hath an end, and a pudding hath two. — Even desserts that seem endless eventually conclude, and some things finish twice—once ea…
- There's never enough where nothing's left. — Hoarding depletes resources faster than sharing them, making scarcity worse for everyone.
From our tongue twisters
- Корабли лавировали, лавировали, да не вылавировали. (Korabli lavirovali, lavirovali, da ne vylavirovali.) — One verb, three inflections, pure 'lav/vir' torture — the word grows with every repetitio…
- W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie i Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie. — The opening of a poem by Julian Tuwim, now Poland's most-quoted tongue twister — the cons…
- Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami. — Six words, almost no vowels — a single noun phrase that non-Polish speakers find impossib…