Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia

I am a great believer in luck...(Spurious Quotation)

No evidence has been found that Jefferson wrote or said, "I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

A modern-day portrait of Thomas Jefferson in early 19-century attire with a speech bubble next to his head that says, "I said what?!"

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

Variations: "The harder I work, the luckier I get."

Sources Consulted:

Earliest Appearance in Print: 19471

Earliest Appearance in Print, attributed to Thomas Jefferson: 1982?2

Other Attributions: Stephen Leacock, Mark Twain, George Allen, Samuel Goldwyn, "old Amish saying"

Comments: Neither this statement nor any variations thereof have ever been found in Thomas Jefferson's writings.

Footnotes

  1. F. L. Emerson, in Reader's Digest, March 1947.  See The Yale Book of Quotations, ed. Fred R. Shapiro (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006), s.v. “F. L. Emerson.”  Emerson was actually quoted as saying, "I'm a great believer in luck.  The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have."
  2. Administrative Management 43 (1982): 5.  Issues 7-12 were scanned together in Google Books and it is unclear which issue contains this quotation; no preview of the text is available except in search results.