Daily Inspiration Quote by Charles Kuralt

Kuralt’s line lands because it flatters the reader for about half a second, then quietly indicts them. “We always” is doing the heavy lifting: it’s a collective confession dressed up as a casual observation. No villains, no exceptions, just the soft tyranny of human nature. The sentence also has the tidy, newsroom-clean symmetry of a good standup: “take credit” versus “attribute,” “good” versus “bad.” That balance makes the bias feel inevitable, almost reasonable, which is exactly the trap it’s describing.

The intent isn’t moral scolding so much as calibration. Kuralt spent a career translating American self-mythology into readable stories, often with a gentle, folksy patience. Under that tone sits a journalist’s suspicion of the narratives people tell to survive their own choices. The subtext: accountability is not our default setting. When things go right, we treat outcomes as proof of character; when things go wrong, we treat them as weather.

“Fortune” is an elegant word choice because it’s ancient and impersonal. It lets you dodge responsibility without sounding cowardly. You’re not blaming your boss, your parents, the system; you’re blaming the universe, which is harder to argue with. Kuralt is pointing at a psychological convenience that scales up: it’s not just personal ego, it’s national rhetoric, corporate PR, political messaging. Success becomes earned, failure becomes bad luck. The quote works because it describes a lie we tell with such reflexive sincerity it stops feeling like a lie at all.