Almost every language has its own way of talking about bad luck, and many of the most familiar English expressions turn out to have surprisingly specific origins, from a Shakespeare play to a 1960s blues record. Here are seven well-known phrases about misfortune, what they mean, and where else they have appeared.
"When it rains, it pours"
This phrase is used to describe misfortunes arriving all at once rather than one at a time. It is often assumed to be a purely folk expression, but the specific wording became widely known through an early-20th-century advertising slogan for Morton Salt, introduced in the 1910s to promote a salt that would not clump in damp weather. The underlying idea, that trouble tends to arrive in clusters, is much older and appears in various forms across English-language proverbs.
"Misfortune never comes alone"
A close relative of the phrase above, this version exists almost word-for-word in several European languages: "Ein Unglück kommt selten allein" in German and "un malheur ne vient jamais seul" in French both translate directly as "a misfortune rarely comes alone." Greek has its own equivalent, "Η δυστυχία δεν έρχεται ποτέ μόνη", expressing the same idea. The recurrence of this exact sentiment across unrelated language families suggests it reflects a shared, very old piece of folk psychology rather than a single point of origin.
"Fortune favours the bold"
This phrase is usually traced back to Latin literature. A closely related line, "audentis Fortuna iuvat" ("fortune helps the daring"), appears in Virgil's Aeneid. A similar sentiment, "fortis Fortuna adiuvat", is found in the Roman playwright Terence's comedy Phormio. Over the centuries the phrase has been shortened and adapted into the modern English version, and is now often used ironically, to suggest that luck rewards those who take risks rather than protecting those who play it safe.
"The stars were against me"
This is less a single quotation than a recurring dramatic device, particularly in classical and Renaissance theatre, where characters' misfortunes are blamed on astrological fate. The idea that a person's destiny is written in the stars runs through Western literature for centuries and remains a common shorthand in fiction and everyday speech for events that feel beyond anyone's control.
"Bad luck comes in threes"
Unlike the other phrases here, this one has no identifiable author or literary source. It is a widespread folk superstition, found in various forms across English-speaking cultures, holding that misfortunes cluster in groups of three. Its appeal lies less in any evidence behind it than in how neatly it lets people make sense of a run of bad events after the fact.
"Born under a bad sign"
This phrase is closely associated with the 1967 blues song of the same name, written by William Bell and Booker T. Jones and first recorded by blues guitarist Albert King for Stax Records. The song, built around the idea of astrological misfortune, became a blues standard and has since been covered by artists including Jimi Hendrix and Etta James. Because the phrase is so strongly tied to this specific, still-copyrighted song, it is best understood as a title associated with a particular work rather than a free-standing proverb.
"Ill met by moonlight"
This line comes directly from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, spoken by the fairy king Oberon to Titania upon an unwelcome encounter. Unlike the blues lyric above, Shakespeare's plays are long out of copyright, so the line can be quoted freely. It has since been borrowed repeatedly outside the play itself, most notably as the title of a 1957 British war film about the wartime kidnapping of a German general in Crete, and continues to be used more generally to describe any meeting that carries an ominous or unlucky undertone.
