fortunes

Fortunes can refer to wealth and material means as well as to fate or luck. The word derives from Latin fortuna, and in Roman religion Fortuna was the goddess who governed outcomes. In everyday usage, a fortune is a large amount of wealth, or more generally the total possessions and assets a person or family owns. Economic fortunes can be temporary or durable, influenced by markets, opportunities, inheritance, and risk management, and they are a central topic in biographies, finance, and social science.

Fortune also denotes the course of events governed by chance. Philosophical and theological traditions have long debated the balance between human agency and fortune, pondering whether individuals can shape their fate or are swept along by luck. Expressions such as fortune favors the bold reflect cultural beliefs about risk and reward.

Fortune telling and divination practices aim to glimpse future possibilities or fate. Historical methods include astrology, palmistry, and card reading; in contemporary culture, many such practices appear in entertainment and popular media. In culinary and cultural contexts, fortune cookies are a familiar playful artefact in some traditions, though their origins are modern and North American.

In social and economic analysis, fortunes are tied to wealth distribution, mobility, and opportunity. The study of fortunes intersects with questions of prosperity, inequality, risk management, and resilience, illustrating how wealth and luck influence lives and societies.