George Orwell [pseud. of Blair] - various Quotations

Orwell takes the Old Testament (Kind James Version, Book of Ecclesiastes, O.Testament - “I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, not the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all” - and renders it thus: ‘Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.’ (George Orwell’s Modernised Version.) Q. Source.