25 Quotes About Insurance and Planning for Tomorrow

Our motto at Fortrest Insurance is "Protection For Tomorrow Starts Today," so we have a soft spot for good quotes about insurance, preparation and planning ahead. We collected 25 favorites from presidents, poets, scientists and old proverbs. Every one below is attributed to its real source (we skipped the famous lines that are usually misattributed). Whether you are in Apopka, Orlando or The Villages, we hope a few of these stick with you.

Quotes About Insurance and Risk

1. "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." — Benjamin Franklin, letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789

2. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." — Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania Gazette, 1735 Fun fact: Franklin wrote this about fire safety in Philadelphia. In 1752 he helped found the Philadelphia Contributionship, one of America's first property insurance companies.

3. "INSURANCE, n. An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table." — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911 A satirist's take. We'd argue the real win is a good night's sleep.

4. "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, 1937 In Florida, our dragons usually have names and show up between June and November.

5. "The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress." — Sir Edward Coke, Semayne's Case, 1604 The root of "a man's home is his castle." Protecting the castle is literally in our name.

6. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." — Traditional proverb

Quotes About Planning Ahead

7. "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything." — Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech to the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference, 1957

8. "The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining." — John F. Kennedy, State of the Union Address, 1962 Any Central Florida homeowner who has tried to book a roofer in October knows this one.

9. "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." — John F. Kennedy, address in Frankfurt, Germany, 1963

10. "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." — Alan Kay, computer scientist, 1971

11. "Lost time is never found again." — Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1748

12. "Defer no time; delays have dangerous ends." — William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1

13. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." — Laozi, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64 (common translation)

14. "Make hay while the sun shines." — English proverb, recorded by John Heywood, 1546

15. "A stitch in time saves nine." — English proverb, recorded by Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

Quotes About Being Prepared

16. "Be prepared." — The Scout motto, Robert Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys, 1908

17. "Chance favors only the prepared mind." — Louis Pasteur, lecture at the University of Lille, 1854 (translated from French)

18. "All things are ready, if our minds be so." — William Shakespeare, Henry V

19. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." — Proverbs 6:6–8 (King James Version)

20. "It is best to prepare for the days of necessity." — Aesop, "The Ant and the Grasshopper" (Townsend translation)

21. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst." — Traditional proverb

Quotes for When Life Surprises You

22. "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley." — Robert Burns, "To a Mouse," 1785 Translation: even the best plans often go wrong. That is exactly what insurance is for.

23. "Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans." — Allen Saunders, Reader's Digest, 1957 Often credited to John Lennon, who used a version of it in "Beautiful Boy" (1980), but Saunders said it first.

24. "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards." — Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement address, 2005

25. "Well done is better than well said." — Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1737 Our favorite way to end a list: stop reading and do the thing.

What These Quotes About Insurance Have in Common

Read them together and a theme shows up: no one can predict exactly what tomorrow brings, but the people who prepare handle it better. That might mean fixing the roof before storm season, reviewing your liability limits, making sure your family is protected with life insurance or getting renters coverage before you move. Small steps today make tomorrow a lot less stressful.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who said "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? Benjamin Franklin, in a 1735 letter to the Pennsylvania Gazette about fire prevention in Philadelphia.

Did John Lennon say "life is what happens while you're making other plans"? Lennon sang a version of it in 1980, but the earliest known source is cartoonist Allen Saunders in Reader's Digest in 1957.

What is Fortrest Insurance's motto? "Protection For Tomorrow Starts Today."

Protection For Tomorrow Starts Today

Fortrest Insurance is an independent agency based in Apopka, serving Orlando, The Villages and the surrounding counties. We are not quoting yet, but we will be soon. Join our mailing list to be first in line for quotes this winter. The sign-up form is on our homepage. Questions in the meantime? Call 689-375-6407 or email info@fortrestinsurance.com.