George Bernard Shaw dismissed Lotteries as  “a way of taxing fools” and Dennis Thatcher described them as a “nasty foreign invention!” But then his wife was better at cutting funds for educational and cultural ventures than raising money for them, which is what lotteries around the world generally do. Equally, according to Message Board Member Ozpools, lotteries have been called “a tax on people who are bad at maths,” so maybe cutting back on education is a way of keeping the lottery going!

 

We feel that lotteries are a harmless bit of fun and that the way numbers fall in a random draw is interesting – and likely to provoke discussion, a major aim of SoccerLotto.com.

 

I hope you find the following quotes and anecdotes about winning, losing, gambling and money thought-provoking.  If you have any you think we should add, please email them to Perman@soccerlotto.com or post them on the message board.

 

 

You can’t always play it safe. Sometimes in life you just have to roll the dice.

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA, on the 2001 Wimbledon women’s singles final.

 

A little incompatibility is the spice of life, particularly if he has income and she is pattable. OGDEN NASH

 

In the midst of life we are in debt. ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD

 

The only golden thing that women dislike is silence. MARY WILSON LITTLE

 

I’m living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.

SAKI (H M MUNRO)

 

Let us all be happy and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with. ARTEMUS WARD

 

Here’s to champagne, the drink divine

That makes us forget our troubles.

It’s made of one dollars worth of wine

And three dollars worth of bubbles.

 

ANON

 

“Privileged Bourgeois Students Should Be Made To Pay”

“Do you accept American Express?”

OXFORD GRAFFITI

 

All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren’t respectable live beyond other people’s. A few gifted individuals manage to do both.

SAKI (H M MUNRO)

 

If the aunt of the vicar has never touched liquor, look out when she finds the champagne. RUDYARD KIPLING

 

The best throw of the dice is to throw them away. AUSTIN O’MALLEY

 

A fool and her money are soon courted. HELEN ROWLAND

A fool and his money are soon married. CAROLYN WELLS

 

In Brighton she was Brenda,

She was Patsy up in Perth,

In Cambridge she was Candida

The sweetest girl on earth.

In Stafford she was Stella,

The pick of all the bunch,

But down on his expenses,

She was Petrol, Oil and Lunch

ANON

 

No wife can endure a gambling husband unless he is a steady winner.

LORD THOMAS ROBERT DEWAR

 

When I wish I was rich, then I know I am ill. D H LAWRENCE

 

When one has had to work so hard to get money, why should he impose himself the further hardship of trying to save it? DON HEROLD

 

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.

OSCAR WILDE

 

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts – for support rather than illumination.

ANDREW LANG

 

The silk suit cost me much money, and I pray to God to make me able to pay for it.

SAMUEL PEPYS

 

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

STEPHEN LEACOCK

 

The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.

WILSON MIZNER

 

Poverty of course is no disgrace, but it is damned annoying. WILLIAM PITT

 

Seeing she could not make fools wise, fortune has made them lucky.

MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE

 

Don’t answer back if you’re out to make money, but do if you’re out for enjoyment.

BARRY PAIN

 

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

 

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than gold has.

WILL ROGERS

 

Gambling promise the poor what property performs for the rich – something for nothing.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

 

The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket.

RUDYARD KIPLING

 

The great rule is not to talk about money with people who have much more or less than you.

KATHERINE WHITEHORN

 

A banker is a man who lends you an umbrella when the weather is fair, and takes it away from you when it rains.

ANON

 

Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month, others just go over them.

SALLY POPLIN

 

To force myself to earn more money, I determined to spend more.

LOUIS AGASSIZ

 

Solvency is entirely a matter of temperament and not of income.

LOGON PEARSALL SMITH

 

Never ask of money spent

Where the spender thinks it went.

Nobody was ever meant

To remember or invent

What he did with every cent.

ROBERT FROST

 

Anyone who lives within his means is suffering from a lack of imagination.

LIONEL STANDER

 

IN GOD WE TRUST. All others pay cash.

ANON

 

Saving is a very fine thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

 

The winner of the Sydney Opera house draw – to help pay for the building – was kidnapped and ransomed for $1 million. Payment was not made and the boy was later found murdered.

 

If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

 

Nobody who has wealth to distribute ever omits himself.

TROTSKY

 

MENDOZA: I am a brigand: I live by robbing the rich.

TANNER: I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

 

The best things in life are duty free.

GRAFFITI, Heathrow Airport

 

Money isn’t everything: usually it isn’t even enough.

ANON

 

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

WOODY ALLEN

 

All right, so I like spending money! But name one other extravagance!

MAX KAUFFMAN

 

Chance favours the prepared mind.

LOUIS PASTEUR

 

There is divinity in odd numbers.

SHAKESPEARE, The Merry Wives of Windsor.

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss….

KIPLING, If.

 

When you take the bull by the horns, what happens is a toss up.

WILLIAM PETT RIDGE

 

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be fish.

OVID

 

Men that hazard all, do it in hope of fair advantages.

SHAKESPEARE, Merchant of Venice – the Message Bard as member Richard Norris memorably described him.

 

The lottery is a government institution and the poor its best patrons.

MARK TWAIN

 

There is no such thing as “social gambling”. Either you are there to cut the other bloke’s heart out and eat it – or you’re a sucker. If you don’t like this choice, don’t gamble.

ROBERT A HEINLEIN

 

Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something.

WILSON MIZNER

 

…and possibly the biggest truism of all: there are two great pleasures in gambling – winning and losing!

ANON