Improbable Quotes - Page 6

• It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Inspirational, Truth, Philosophy

  "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" (1892).

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• Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Wealth, Prosperity, Finance

  "The Sydney Morning Herald" Newspaper, May 22, 1982.

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• Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty.

  Galileo Galilei

  Simple, Reality, Naked

  Galileo Galilei (2010). “Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences”, p.4, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The proof of evolution lies in those adaptations that arise from improbable foundations.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Lying, Foundation, Evolution

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• My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

  Barack Obama

  Love, Believe, Blessed

  2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address, delivered 27 July 2004, Fleet Center, Boston

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• So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

  Christopher Reeve

  Positive, Inspiring, Graduation

  Christopher Reeve (1998). “Still Me”, Random House Incorporated

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• The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.

  Oscar Wilde

  Believe, Class, Two

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “Epigrams”, p.60, BoD – Books on Demand

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• And what could be a hotter ticket than the improbable triumph of 'The Book of Mormon,' the musical-comedy moon shot of the season? Its creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, of Comedy Central's 'South Park,' are the most unlikely Rodgers and Hammerstein team ever to bowl a thundering strike.

  James Wolcott

  Team, Book, Moon

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• His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem. It was inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remain -- why he did not instantly disappear.

  Joseph Conrad

  Problem, Disappear, Inexplicable

  Joseph Conrad (2008). “Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer”, p.104, Penguin

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• You imagine the carefully pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn't. The truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; it's in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth.

  Jean Rhys

  Thinking, Mirrors, Imagine

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• in dreams it is often the case that the greatest extravagances seem bereft of their power to astonish and the most improbable chimeras seem commonplace.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Dream, Extravagance, Cases

  Cormac McCarthy (2010). “Cities of the Plain”, p.285, Pan Macmillan

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• If God existed (a question concerning which Jubal maintained a meticulous intellectual neutrality) and if He desired to be worshiped (a proposition which Jubal found inherently improbable but conceivably possible in the dim light of his own ignorance), then (stipulating affirmatively both the above) it nevertheless seemed wildly unlikely to Jubal to the point of reductio ad absurdum that a God potent to shape galaxies would be titillated and swayed by the whoop-te-do nonsense the Fosterites offered Him as "worship.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Ignorance, Light, Intellectual

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• We are a people of improbable hope.

  Barack Obama

  People

  Address to the People of Berlin, delivered 24 July 2008, Victory Column

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• She gave him a wan smile. "And then you came, Eragon. You and Saphira. After hope had deserted me and I was about to be taken to Galbatorix in Uru'baen, a Rider appeared to rescue me. A rider and a dragon!" "And Morzan's son," he said. "Both of Morzan's sons." "Describe it how you will, it was such an improbable rescue, I occasionally think that I did go mad and that I've imagined everything since.

  Christopher Paolini

  Taken, Son, Thinking

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• Nature is a hanging judge," goes an old saying. Many tragedies come from our physical and cognitive makeup. Our bodies are extraordinarily improbable arrangements of matter, with many ways for things to go wrong and only a few ways for things to go right. We are certain to die, and smart enough to know it. Our minds are adapted to a world that no longer exists, prone to misunderstandings correctable only by arduous education, and condemned to perplexity about the deepest questions we can ascertain.

  Steven Pinker

  Smart, Makeup, Judging

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• I will remove from my vocabulary such words and phrases as quit, cannot, unable, impossible, out of the question, improbable, failure, unworkable, hopeless, and retreat; for they are the words of fools.

  Og Mandino

  Greatness, Vocabulary, Phrases

  Og Mandino (2009). “The Greatest Secret in the World”, p.38, Bantam

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• The problem is compounded by the fact that the connection between cause and effect seems so improbable. By turning on the lights, filling the kettle, taking the children to school, driving to the shops, we are condemning other people to death. We never chose to do this. We do not see ourselves as killers. We perform these acts without passion or intent.

  George Monbiot

  Children, Passion, School

  George Monbiot (2007). “Heat: how to stop the planet from burning”, South End Pr

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• Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible.

  Rod Serling

  Writing, Creative, Fiction

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• Kyria Abrahams, former teen bride of a doomsday cult and seeker of salvation in slam poetry, tells the terribly funny story of her improbable life with candor, wit, and an unsparing eye for the perfect detail. Brilliant.

  Janice Erlbaum

  Eye, Perfect, Details

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• When the impossible has been eliminated, all that remains no matter how improbable is possible.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Motivational, Matter, Impossible

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• It is easy today to deny God's creativity as a thing of the benighted past, overcome by science, but man's creativity, a thing much more improbable and nothing but an imitation of God's, exercises a strange attraction.

  Allan Bloom

  Creativity, Exercise, Men

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.182, Simon and Schuster

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• Many people who have been around boxing all those years never had a champion, certainly a heavyweight champion....For that to happen in one's lifetime is so improbable. I got Floyd Patterson, then, here, at the age of 76, I was fortunate to come in contact with this young man who has, in my opinion, all the requirements to be a champion that I believe he's going to be, maybe the best that ever lived.

  Cus D'Amato

  Believe, Men, Years

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• Nothing is impossible, only mathematically improbable.

  Sean Connery

  Impossible, Nothing Is Impossible

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• Any entity capable of intelligently designing something as improbable as Dutchman's Pipe (or a universe) would have to be even more improbable than a Dutchman's Pipe. Far from terminating the vicious regress, God aggravates it with a vengeance.

  Richard Dawkins

  Design, Vengeance, Vicious

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.146, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747

  Richard Dawkins

  Boeing, Designer, Entity

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.138, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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