Devising Quotes

• I feel like I am involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell me the rules, and who smiles all the time.

  Neil Gaiman

  Dark, Dice, Cards

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• God does not play dice [with the universe].
  [Ger., Gott wurfelt nicht.]

  Albert Einstein

  God, Play, Gambling

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• There is the happiness which comes from creative effort. The joy of dreaming, creating, building, whether in painting a picture, writing an epic, singing a song, composing a symphony, devising new invention, creating a vast industry.

  Henry Miller

  Dream, Song, Writing

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• I hate to say it but I think it has become very obvious that our system for devising trade agreements, so very important to this country's functioning around the world, has not only broken, but it has broken completely.

  Xavier Becerra

  Country, Hate, Thinking

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• The only realistic view is that a human life arises gradually, which is not much help in making personal decisions or devising public policy.

  George C. Williams

  Views, Decision, Helping

  George C. Williams (2014). “The Pony Fish's Glow: And Other Clues To Plan And Purpose In Nature”, p.160, Basic Books

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• In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed... It means facing a system that does not lend its self to your needs and devising means by which you change that system.

  Ella Baker

  Meaningful, Self, Order

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• Never forget posterity when devising a policy. Never think of posterity when making a speech.

  Robert Menzies

  Thinking, Speech, Never Forget

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• So the people will pay the penalty for their kings' presumption, who, by devising evil, turn justice from her path with tortuous speech.

  Hesiod

  Kings, People, Evil

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• God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, ie., everybody, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.

  Terry Pratchett

  Moving, Dark, Player

  "Good Omens". Book by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, 1990.

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• Evil is always devising more corrosive misery through man's restless need to exact revenge out of his hate.

  Ralph Steadman

  Revenge, Hate, Men

  "Fictional character: David Rossi". "Criminal Minds". Season 8, Episode 2: "The Pact", October 10, 2012.

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• Scientists have stated that embryonic stem cells provide the best opportunity for devising unique treatments of these serious diseases since, unlike adult stem cells, they may be induced to develop into any type of cell.

  Eliot Engel

  Unique, Opportunity, Cells

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• Computer scientists have so far worked on developing powerful programming languages that make it possible to solve the technical problems of computation. Little effort has gone toward devising the languages of interaction.

  Donald A. Norman

  Powerful, Effort, Gone

  "The Design of Everyday Things". Book by Don Norman, ch. 6, 1988.

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• I would not be opposed to devising a new system of pensions, in which one part was based on collective provision, but which also gave incentives for people to take out an additional, personal plan.

  Jacques Delors

  People, Incentives, Provision

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• Adults devise a plan and follow it, children do what feels good.

  Dave Ramsey

  Children, Feel Good, Adults

  Twitter post from Nov 12, 2015

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• Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.

  Audre Lorde

  Women, Responsibility, Gay

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.115, Crossing Press

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• The most difficult part of writing a book is not devising a plot which will captivate the reader. It's not developing characters the reader will have strong feelings for or against. It is not finding a setting which will take the reader to a place he or she as never been. It is not the research, whether in fiction or non-fiction. The most difficult task facing a writer is to find the voice in which to tell the story.

  Randy Pausch

  Strong, Book, Writing

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• To those who study her, Nature reveals herself as extraordinarily fertile and ingenious in devising means, but she has no ends which the human mind has been able to discover or comprehend.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Nature, Mean, Mind

  Joseph Wood Krutch (1956). “The Modern Temper”

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• Computer Science is a science of abstraction -creating the right model for a problem and devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it.

  Alfred Aho

  Learning, Creating, Technique

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• Men of genius are not to be analysed by commonplace rules. The rest of us who have been or are leaders, more commonplace in our quality, will do well to remember two things. One is never to forget posterity when devising a policy. The other is never to think of posterity when making a speech.

  Robert Menzies

  Men, Thinking, Two

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• American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction in force against this criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil.

  James Madison

  Country, Mean, Law

  James Madison, Robert Allen Rutland (1996). “The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series”

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• The existence of these patterns [fractals] challenges us to study forms that Euclid leaves aside as being formless, to investigate the morphology of the amorphous. Mathematicians have disdained this challenge, however, and have increasingly chosen to flee from nature by devising theories unrelated to anything we can see or feel.

  Benoit Mandelbrot

  Nature, Science, Challenges

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• Science has so accustomed us to devising and accepting theories to account for the facts we observe, however fantastic, that our minds must begin their manufacture before we are aware of it.

  Gene Wolfe

  Science, Mind, Facts

  Gene Wolfe (1997). “The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories”, p.351, Macmillan

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• It is impossible to devise an experiment without a preconceived idea; devising an experiment, we said, is putting a question; we never conceive a question without an idea which invites an answer. I consider it, therefore, an absolute principle that experiments must always be devised in view of a preconceived idea, no matter if the idea be not very clear nor very well defined.

  Claude Bernard

  Science, Views, Ideas

  Claude Bernard (2012). “An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine”, p.52, Courier Corporation

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• This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn't have the specific ritual you are craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Spiritual, Believe, Emotional

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims”, p.178, A&C Black

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• Devising a vocabulary for gardening is like devising a vocabulary for sex. There are the correct Latin names, but most people invent euphemisms. Those who refer to plants by Latin name are considered more expert, if a little pedantic.

  Diane Ackerman

  Sex, Latin, Vocabulary

  Diane Ackerman (2002). “Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden”, G K Hall & Company

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