Colossal Quotes

• The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.

  Richard Dawkins

  Life, Science, Reality

  The Blind Watchmaker Chapter 11

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• I don't think the English like me. I sold a colossal best seller in America, and they never really forgave me.

  John Fowles

  Thinking, America, Like Me

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• The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.

  Carl Sandburg

  Respect, Ocean, Sea

  Carl Sandburg (2003). “The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg”, p.393, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still.

  e. e. cummings

  Sarcastic, Mistake, Moving

  1927 'Why I Like America', in Vanity Fair, May.

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• Thy food is such
  As hath been belch'd on by infected lungs.

  William Shakespeare

  Food, Sassy, Lungs

  William Shakespeare, John Glover (of Cambridge?.) (1866). “The Works of William Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra. Cynbeline. Pericles. Poems”, p.400

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• Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of 'free contract' between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.

  Noam Chomsky

  Errors, Views, Ideas

  "On Anarchism". Interview with Tom Lane, chomsky.info. December 23, 1996.

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• No one tests the depth of a river with both feet.

  Ashanti

  Rivers, Feet, Common Sense

  "The last word on Prudence" by AC Grayling, www.theguardian.com. September 24, 1999.

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• My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Kings, Civilization, Names

  "Ozymandias" l. 9 (1819)

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• Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read.

  Frank Zappa

  Funny, Writing, Humor

  Quoted in Chicago Tribune, 18 Jan. 1978

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• The giant wave of the science has no mercy; when this colossal wave comes, it will sweep away anything untrue!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Science, Giants, Wave

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• Hillary Clinton has supported virtually every trade agreement that has been destroying our middle class. She supported NAFTA and she supported China's entrance into the World Trade Organization, another one of her husband's colossal mistakes and disasters. She supported the job-killing trade deal with South Korea. She supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership which will not only destroy our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments. And it's not going to happen.

  Donald Trump

  Jobs, Husband, Mistake

  Source: time.com

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• Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude.

  John Adams

  Evil, Slavery, Magnitude

  John Adams (1997). “Rivoluzioni e Costituzioni”, p.37, Guida Editori

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• Without the suitable conditions life could not exist. But both life and its conditions set forth the operations of inscrutable Power. We know not its origin; we know not its end. And the presumption, if not the degradation, rests with those who place upon the throne of the universe a magnified image of themselves, and make its doings a mere colossal imitation of their own. Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Philosophy, Knowledge, Discovery

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• But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.

  Jack London

  Adventure, Men, Land

  Jack London, JACK LONDON (2015). “White Fang (Arcadia Classics)”, p.20, Jack London

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• Possibly it had occurred to him the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. [...] It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Stars, Moon, Light

  F. Scott Fitzgerald, Matthew J. Bruccoli (1991). “F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby”, p.73, Cambridge University Press

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• The heavy eyelids snapped open. Jack froze. A huge gold-and-amber eye, as big as a dinner plater, stared at him. The dark pupil shrank, focusing. Jack stood very still. The colossal head turned, the scaled lip only three feet from Jack. The golden eyes gazed at him, wirling with fiery color. Jack breathed in tiny, shallow breaths. Dont blink. Don't blink... Two gusts of wind erutped from the wyvern's nostrils Jack jumped straight up, bounced off the ground into another jump, and scrambled up the nearest tree. In the clearing, Gaston bent over, guffawing like an idiot. 'It's not funny!

  Ilona Andrews

  Eye, Dark, Color

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• I don’t think people realise how vital libraries are or what a colossal danger it would be if we were to lose any more. Having had a truncated school life myself, all of my education from the age of 17 has been self-taught. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it wasn’t for the opportunities the library gave me.

  Alan Moore

  School, Opportunity, Thinking

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• There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Dream, Passion, Heart

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2016). “(The Great Gatsby)”, p.57, F. Scott Fitzgerald

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• One of the Age of Enlightenment's most hypnotic images is Ledoux's rendering of his neoclassical theater of 1775 - 1784 in Besancon, surreally reflected in the colossal eye of an unidentified cosmic being.

  Martin Filler

  Eye, Age, Enlightenment

  Martin Filler (2007). “Makers of Modern Architecture”, New York Review of Books

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• Perhaps the way to succeed is to think of life on Earth as a colossal joke, a creation of such immense stupidity that the only way to live is to laugh until you think your heart will break.

  Meg Rosoff

  Heart, Thinking, Laughing

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• I always felt really guilty if I spent too much time playing video games. It's a colossal waste of time. And I can't say it's a very satisfying feeling at the end of the day, if you've spent eight hours playing a video game; you just end up feeling kind of spent, and used.

  John C. Reilly

  Eight, Games, Feelings

  "Interview: John C. Reilly On His Animated Anti-Hero 'Wreck-It Ralph'". Interview with Alex Zalben, www.mtv.com. October 31, 2012.

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• We live in an age where the rate of change has been colossal. Colossal. Almost every week there's some transformation of some kind, whether technological or political or scientific, whatever. And I think it's bewildering to human beings to live in a time when they can't take anything as fixed - when everything is shifting and changing all the time.

  Salman Rushdie

  Thinking, Political, Age

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• 'A Princess of Mars' may not have exerted the same colossal pull that Tarzan had on the global imagination, but its influence on generations of readers cannot be underestimated.

  Junot Diaz

  Princess, Imagination, Generations

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• The bias against introversion leads to a colossal waste of talent, energy, and happiness.

  Susan Cain

  Energy, Waste, Talent

  "'Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking,' by Susan Cain". Interview with Jeff Glor, www.cbsnews.com. January 26, 2012.

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• Whatever else it was, Adolf Hitler's short-lived regime was also a colossal industrial process by which the wealth and productive power of much of Europe was wrenched from its normal purposes and converted into a machine for killing.

  James Buchan

  Europe, Purpose, Machines

  "Hitler's gold". www.theguardian.com. August 11, 2006.

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