Sunday, July 7, 2013 – That Gambling Habit
The subject of gambling is all encompassing. It combines man’s natural play instinct with his desire to know about his fate and his future. ~ Franz Rosenthal
Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other. ~ Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia, 1823
When a gambler picks up a pack of cards or a pair of dice, he feels as though he has reduced an unmanageable world to a finite, visible and comprehensive size. ~ Annabel Davis-Goff
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I believe in luck. How else can you explain the success of those you dislike? ~ Jean Cocteau
Men are probably nearer the central truth in their superstitions than in their science. ~ Henry David Thoreau
I like to play blackjack. I’m not addicted to gambling. I’m addicted to sitting in a semi-circle. ~ Mitch Hedberg
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling. ~ Ambrose Bierce
Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or rather, from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been honored by the name of ‘speculation’ but which ought to be called Gambling. ~ William Cobbett
I was very fortunate in my gene mix. The gambling instincts I inherited from my father were matched by my mother’s gift for analysis. ~ T. Boone Pickens
Don’t gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it. ~ Will Rogers
God does not play dice, bankers do. ~ Greg Curtis
A dollar picked up in the road is more satisfaction to us than the 99 which we had to work for, and the money won at Faro or in the stock market snuggles into our hearts in the same way. ~ Mark Twain
That’s free enterprise, friends: freedom to gamble, freedom to lose. And the great thing – the truly democratic thing about it – is that you don’t even have to be a player to lose. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich
One way, he thought, the whole thing of ring fighting was hurting somebody else, deliberately, and particularly when it was not necessary. Two men who have nothing against each other get in a ring and try to hurt each other, to provide vicarious fear for people with less guts than themselves. And to cover it up they called it sports and gambled on it. He had never looked at that way before, and if there was any single thing he could not endure it was to be a dupe. ~ James Jones, From Here to Eternity
The less you bet, the more you lose when you win. ~ Bob Nastanovich
Yes, I can understand that a man might go to gambling table – when he sees that all that lies between himself and death is his last crown. ~ Honoré de Balzac
The Strip was still lit by a million neon lights, though the crowds on the sidewalk had greatly decreased by this hour. Still, Bosch was awed by the spectacle of light. In every imaginable color and configuration, it was a megawatt funnel of enticement to greed that burned twenty-four hours a day. Bosch felt the same attraction that all the other grinders felt tug at them. Las Vegas was like one of the hookers on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Even happily married men at least glanced their way, if only for a second, just to get an idea what was out there, maybe give them something to think about. Las Vegas was like that. There was a visceral attraction here. The bold promise of money and sex. But the first was a broken promise, a mirage, and the second was fraught with danger, expense, physical and mental risk. It was where the real gambling took place in this town. ~ Michael Connelly, Trunk Music
Everywhere was the atmosphere of a long debauch that had to end; the orchestras played too fast, the stakes were too high at the gambling tables, the players were so empty, so tired, secretly hoping to vanish together into sleep and … maybe wake on a very distant morning and hear nothing, whatever, no shouting or crooning, find all things changed. ~ Malcolm Cowley, Exile’s Return
Gambling makes boys selfish and cruel as well as men. ~ Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s Schooldays
Gaming corrupts our disposition and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind. ~ Thomas Jefferson
I am sorry I have not learned to play cards. It is very useful in life. It generates kindness and consolidates society. ~ Samuel Johnson
No wife can endure a gambling husband – unless he is a steady winner. ~ Thomas Dewar
Someone once asked me why women don’t gamble as much as men do, and I gave the common-sensical reply that we don’t have as much money. That was a true but incomplete answer. In fact, women’s total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage. ~ Gloria Steinem
Life is a gamble, at terrible odds – if it was a bet you wouldn’t take it. ~ Tom Stoppard
The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet. ~ Damon Runyon
Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit. ~ R. E. Shay
Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men. ~ E .B. White
The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice is so pleasurable, that I assume it must be evil. ~ Heywood Broun
Part of it went on gambling, and part of it went on women. The rest I spent foolishly. ~ George Raft
Just Above Sunset 