Chance Quotes - Page 15

• I have always been grateful that my Russian mother and father came to this country to give me a better chance, and I have had a better chance.

  Kirk Douglas

  Mother, Country, Father

  "EXCLUSIVE: Kirk Douglas Reflects on an Amazing Career". Interview with Brian Gallagher, movieweb.com. December 8, 2008.

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• ... if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being perserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offsping similarly characterized. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection.

  Charles Darwin

  Strong, Struggle, Principles

  Charles Darwin, Paul H. Barrett (1987). “The Works of Charles Darwin: On the origin of species 1959”

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• If I'm selecting a group, the first thing I look for is a record of achievement . . . If (candidates achieve) in small things, there's a very good chance they'll perform well in big things.

  Edmund Hillary

  Achievement, Groups, Looks

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• Fate does not jest and events are not a matter of chance. There is no existence out of nothing.

  Gamal Abdel Nasser

  Fate, Events, Doe

  Robert St. John, Gamal Abdel Nasser (1960). “The boss: the story of Gamal Abdel Nasser”

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• Yet it would be unfair to the generality of our kind to ascribe to their intellectual and moral weakness the gradual divergence of Buddhism and Christianity from their primitive patterns. For it should not be forgotten that by their glorification of poverty and celibacy both these religions struck straight at the root not merely of civil society but of human existence. The blow was parried by the wisdom or the folly of the vast majority of mankind, who refused to purchase a chance of saving their souls with the certainty of extinguishing the species.

  James G. Frazer

  Buddhism, Blow, Roots

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• What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. ... All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ... Your interference is doing him positive injury.

  Frederick Douglass

  Giving, Justice, Legs

  Frederick Douglass (2016). “The Essential Douglass: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.196, Hackett Publishing

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• A patient had a 50-50 chance of benefiting from visiting a physician as of 1910. Medicine was more like voodoo than science until the 20th Century.

  Abraham Flexner

  Medicine, Physicians, Patient

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• Man, I didn't think I stood a chance. I mean, she was way out of my league.she still is.

  Tim McGraw

  Mean, Men, Thinking

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• Wind is a plant's only chance to make music.

  Peter Steinhart

  Wind, Plant

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• Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months.

  Al Gore

  Summer, Years, Ice

  "A Generational Challenge to Repower America" by Al Gore, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 25, 2008.

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• ... by chance you will say, but chance only favors the mind which is prepared.

  Louis Pasteur

  Mind, Electric Current, Favors

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• Function is a fantasy...the form of designed things is decided by choice or else by chance; but it is never actually entailed by anything whatever.

  David Pye

  Choices, Fantasy, Form

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• Think of the funniest story from your life. Chances are, it was something awful at the time.

  Gina Barreca

  Thinking, Stories, Awful

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• I never had the chance to decide; I was drafted to serve my nation. While I received a deferment to attend school, I ultimately served in the United States Army in the years following the Korean conflict.

  Don Young

  School, Army, Years

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• You only get one shot at a second chance.

  Michael Vick

  Second Chance, Shots

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• Success is not an accident. It is the result of your attitude and your attitude is a choice. Hence sucess is a matter of choice and not chance.

  Shiv Khera

  Attitude, Choices, Sucess

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• There are many actresses that are working longer, because until you change the playing field and make it economically stronger for women, it's very difficult to say no to somebody when that's your only gig. If you're a producer, or if you have more power, you're going to be in a position to know that if you burn that bridge, there'll still be this bridge open. But still - when people ask me 'do you think your politics have decreased your chances of working, I say: 'In Hollywood, most of the prejudice has to do with if you're old or fat.' Power can't forgive that".

  Susan Sarandon

  Thinking, People, Forgiving

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• Perhaps there is a reason that there is no fool piece on the chessboard. What action, a fool? What strategy, a fool? What use, a fool? Ah, but a fool resides in a deck of cards, a joker, sometimes two. Of no worth, of course. No real purpose. The appearance of a trump, but none of the power: Simply an instrument of chance. Only a dealer may give value to the joker.

  Christopher Moore

  Real, Two, Giving

  Christopher Moore (2010). “Fool”, p.64, Hachette UK

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• DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Fashion, Men, Names

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.51, University of Georgia Press

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• I remember I would not stand still; I would not stop being perplexed by everything that spontaneously attracted me or caught my attention. I would never cease to look around me and observe myself in relation to nature: either crystal clear skies and sun-melting afternoons, or foggy winter days and weirdly tinted nights. I would never cease to dream and stand by the window, ready to let the diversity of life pass freely through my skin; courageous enough to believe I stood a chance in devouring each shade of sensation. Or perhaps, immensely foolish to plainly - believe at all.

  Virginia Woolf

  Dream, Believe, Winter

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• we find that the optimists have an undeniable advantage over the pessimists. Many studies show that they do better on exams, in their chosen profession, and in their relationships, live longer and in better health, enjoy a better chance of surviving postoperative shock, and are less prone to depression and suicide.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Suicide, Study, Exam

  Matthieu Ricard (2011). “The Art of Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill”, p.169, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• It's been great. I've been very lucky to work with more experienced actors early on in my career because I get a chance to learn from them. There is so much you can learn from them. You can just follow them and you'll be pretty safe.

  Katrina Kaif

  Careers, Lucky, Actors

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• The broad mass of a nation will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one. The greater the lie, the greater chance that it will be believed. All epoch-making events have been produced not by the written, but the spoken word.

  Adolf Hitler

  Lying, Fall, Events

  "Mein Kampf". Book by Adolf Hitler, www.thesunmagazine.org. 1925.

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• Canoes, too, are unobtrusive; they don't storm the natural world or ride over it, but drift in upon it as a part of its own silence. As you either care about what the land is or not, so do you like or dislike quiet things--sailboats, or rainy green mornings in foreign places, or a grazing herd, or the ruins of old monasteries in the mountains. . . . Chances for being quiet nowadays are limited.

  John Graves

  Morning, Land, Silence

  John Graves (1960). “Goodbye to a river: a narrative”, Alfred a Knopf Inc

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• Here's the truth: even if countries like the United States curb our emissions, if growing countries like India - with soaring energy needs - don't also embrace cleaner fuels, then we don't stand a chance against climate change.

  Barack Obama

  Change, Country, Energy

  "As Obama departs India, a push for reform" by Kevin Liptak, www.cnn.com. January 27, 2015.

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