Here's an attempt at transliteration ...
Lakshmee(prosperity) chooses(Upaiti) an industrious, lion-like person.That
destiny should be the provider - this only the cowardly say. "Kill" destiny
and perform hard work to the best of your ability. If even after you put
in effort (you) don't succeed, then whose fault is it?
This is shloka 20 from the subhAshitAratnabhanDAgara.m,
under udyama-prasha.msA. A big thank you to Prof. Urjit A.
Yajnik (Physics, IITB) for his help in locating the source of this lovely
practical shloka, which I had first come across in our X
standard Sanskrit textbook. Prof. Yajnik had first helped his
junior colleague in 2001, and when this irresponsible junior
colleague had lost his notes, he helped him again, 18 years later.
He sent the following link:
https://archive.org/details/SubhashitaRatnaBhandagara/page/n97
Sumantra Dutta Roy,
Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi, Hauz Khas,
New Delhi - 110 016, INDIA.
sumantra@ee.iitd.ac.in