Astonishing Quotes - Page 16

• ... over two hundred women, apparently at their own request, were sealed as wives to Joseph Smith after his death in special temple ceremonies. Moreover, a great many distinguished women in history, including several Catholic saints, were also sealed to Joseph Smith in Utah. I saw these astonishing lists in the Latter-day Saint Genealogical Archives in Salt Lake City in 1944.

  Fawn M. Brodie

  Utah, Cities, Two

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• Astonishing! Everything is intelligent!

  Pythagoras

  Intelligent

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• Why did the consensus of Christian churches not only accept these astonishing views but establish them as the only true form of Christian doctrine? . . . these religious debates - questions of the nature of God, or of Christ - simultaneously bear social and political implications that are crucial to the development of Christianity as an institutional religion. In simplest terms, ideas which bear implications contrary to that development come to be labeled as 'heresy'; ideas which implicitly support it become 'orthodox.'

  Elaine Pagels

  Christian, Religious, Views

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• Warm-bloodedness is one of the key factors that have enabled mammals to conquer the Earth, and to develop the most complex bodies in the animal kingdom. In this series, we will travel the world to discover just how varied and how astonishing mammals are.

  David Attenborough

  Animal, Keys, Mammals

  "The Life of Mammals". Documentary, 2002 - 2003.

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• Ritual and ceremony in their due times kept the world under the sky and the stars in their courses. It was astonishing what ritual and ceremony could do.

  Terry Pratchett

  Stars, Sky, World

  "Pyramids" by Terry Pratchett, Harper, (p. 77), January 200.

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• When I was very little, say five or six, I became aware of the fact that people wrote books. Before that, I thought that God wrote books. I thought a book was a manifestation of nature, like a tree. When my mother explained it, I kept after her: What are you saying? What do you mean? I couldn't believe it. It was astonishing. It was like--here's the man who makes all the trees. Then I wanted to be a writer, because, I suppose, it seemed the closest thing to being God.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Mother, Believe, Book

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• I'd like to understand why it seems normal to look at astonishing achievements made by unapproachably ambitious, luminously pious, strangely obsessed artists, and toss them off with a few wry comments.

  James Elkins

  Artist, Achievement, Ambitious

  James Elkins (2005). “Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings”, p.6, Routledge

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• In terms of the most astonishing fact about which we know nothing, there is dark matter and dark energy. We don't know what either of them is. Everything we know and love about the universe and all the laws of physics as they apply, apply to four percent of the universe. That's stunning.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Dark, Law, Matter

  "Why Revive ‘Cosmos?’ Neil DeGrasse Tyson Says Just About Everything We Know Has Changed". Interview With David Freeman, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 4, 2014.

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• Childhood is the world of miracle or of magic: it is as if creation rose luminously out of the night, all new and fresh and astonishing. Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing. When the world gives you a feeling of "déjà vu," when you are used to existence, you become an adult.

  Eugene Ionesco

  Inspirational, Children, Night

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• Badgered, snubbed and scolded on the one hand; petted, flattered and indulged on the other-it is astonishing how many children work their way up to an honest manhood in spite of parents and friends. Human nature has an element of great toughness in it.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Children, Hands, Parent

  Henry Ward Beecher (1862). “Eyes and Ears”, p.78

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• When a man is a favorite of Fortune she never takes him unawares, and, however astonishing her favors may be, she finds him ready.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Men, Favors, May

  Napoleon Bonaparte “Napoleon in his own words from the French of Jules Bertaut”, Рипол Классик

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• Can a one judge sitting somewhere in a trial court issue an order that says nobody in the world is allowed to have, to use, to improve or to develop software for playing multimedia content without the permission of the manufacturers of the content themselves? .. This is an astonishing development in the course of our understanding of what we call the copyright bargain, the relationship between authors' rights, publishers' leverages and consumers' needs.

  Eben Moglen

  Rights, Order, Issues

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• To tell the truth, the chariot was an astonishing sight to behold, because I had polished the steel of my flying house so carefully that it reflected the sunlight on all sides. It was so bright and dazzling that I thought, myself, that I had been carried away in a chariot of fire.

  Cyrano de Bergerac

  Fire, Sight, House

  "The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon". Book by Cyrano de Bergerac, 1657.

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• If you look at the size of the art world in terms of the money that is being transacted compared to other parts of the 'consciousness industry,' it is minuscule. But if you look at what happens in this small sector, how it rubs off on the rest of it, it is astonishing.

  Hans Haacke

  Art, Money, Looks

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• Without doubt, matter is unlimited in extent, and, in this sense, infinite; and the forces of Nature mould it into an innumerable number of worlds. Would it be at all astonishing if, from the universal dice-box, out of an innumberable number of throws, there should be thrown out one world infinitely perfect? Nay, does not the calculus of probabilities prove to us that one such world out of an infinite number, must be produced of necessity?

  William Batchelder Greene

  Numbers, Perfect, Doubt

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• The ability of nonintelligent people to understand the most complicated mechanisms and to use them has always been to me a cause of astonishment: their inability to understand simple questions is even more astonishing. The general acceptance of simple ideas is difficult and rare, and yet it is only when simple, fundamental, ideas have been accepted that further progress becomes possible on a higher level.

  George Sarton

  Acceptance, Simple, Ideas

  George Sarton (1952). “A History of Science: Ancient science through the Golden Age of Greece”

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• In Tunisia the Americans had to pay a stiff price for their experience, but it brought rich dividends. Even at that time, the American generals showed themselves to be very advanced in the tactical handling of their forces, although we had to wait until the Patton Army in France to see the most astonishing achievements in mobile warfare.

  Erwin Rommel

  Army, Achievement, Waiting

  "The Rommel Papers". Book edited by Basil Henry Liddell Hart. Chapter 23: "The Sky Has Grown Dark," p. 523, 1953.

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• "I tell you," he [Milosevic] continued, "Izetbegovic has earned Sarajevo by not abandoning it. He's one tough guy. It's his". These words were probably the most astonishing and unexpected of the conference.

  Richard Holbrooke

  Guy, Unexpected, Tough

  "To End a War" by Richard Holbrooke, (p. 291), 1998.

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• The diversity of life on Earth, generally, is astonishing. But despite those large numbers, it's also important to recognize that every species, one way or another, is vulnerable to extinction. And in our time on Earth... our impact on the diversity of life has been profound.

  Sylvia Earle

  Impact, Numbers, Profound

  "Big Thinkers on Evolution". "NOVA" Interview, www.pbs.org. October 6, 2009.

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• It's astonishing in this world how things don't turn out at all the way you expect them to.

  Agatha Christie

  World, Way, Action

  Agatha Christie (1968). “Endless night”

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• I'm 37 and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55. It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh.

  Maggie Gyllenhaal

  Men, Play, Laughing

  "Maggie Gyllenhaal to Star in Sara Colangelo’s 'The Kindergarten Teacher'" by Laura Berger, blog.womenandhollywood.com. May 31, 2017.

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• Should you happen to notice that another person is extremely tall or overweight, eats too much or declines convivial drinks, has red hair or goes about in a wheelchair, ought to get married or ought not to be pregnant -- see if you can refrain from bringing these astonishing observations to that person's attention.

  Judith Martin

  Hair, Attention, Red

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• When that devil's bullet lodged itself inside the body of Martin Luther King, he had already begun an astonishing mobilization of poor, Black, white, latino Americans who had nothing to lose. They would challenge our government to eliminate exploitative, merciless, and war-mongering policies, nationwide, or else "tie up the country" through "means of civil disobedience." Dr. King intended to organize those legions into "coercive direct actions" that would make of Babylon a dysfunctional behemoth begging for relief. Is it any wonder he was killed?

  June Jordan

  Country, Kings, War

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• Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. Is it astonishing that often these two languages contradict each other, and then to which must we listen? Too often reason deceives us; we have only too much acquired the right of refusing to listen to it; but conscience never deceives us; it is the true guide of man; it is to man what instinct is to the body; which follows it, obeys nature, and never is afraid of going astray.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Passion, Men, Two

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• What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing! I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable and tremendous! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and falacious! Would to God that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend.

  George Washington

  Wise, Taken, Character

  Letter to John Jay, August 15, 1786.

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