Instability Quotes - Page 2

• It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Civilization, Age, Degrees

  ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1925). “SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD”

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• I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.

  Petrarch

  Progress, Weakness, Humans

  Letter to Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro, April 26, 1336.

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• It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young; afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious. I take changes in all I see as a matter of course. The instability of all human things is familiar to me, to you it is new and oppressive." (Mr. Bell)

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Bells, Matter, Firsts

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2010). “The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (20+ Books)”, p.1672, BookCaps Study Guides

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• Frankly speaking, we all know that provoking military and political instability, regional, and other conflicts is a helpful means of distracting the public from growing domestic social and economic problems in certain countries. Such attempts cannot be ruled out, unfortunately.

  Vladimir Putin

  Honesty, Military, Responsibility

  Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Speech at the Opening Ceremony of the World Economic Forum, archive.premier.gov.ru. January 28, 2009.

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• When systems come to be far from points of equilibrium, they reach bifurcation points, wherein multiple, as opposed to unique, solutions, to instability become possible.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Unique, Bifurcation, Equilibrium

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• Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Love, Change, Moving

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• Climate Change is a national security issue. We found that climate instability will lead to instability in geopolitics and impact American military operations around the world. People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections. But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.

  Gordon R. Sullivan

  Military, Issues, Impact

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• We simply cannot afford any further delay in providing the IMF with the resources it requires to help contain the threat of further financial and political instability around the world.

  Robert Rubin

  Political, Imf, Delay

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• If you look beyond the short term violence and instability, you do see significant activities on the part of the Iraqi people that indicate they understand the commitment necessary to govern themselves. Its not clear how they will do it, but it never is.

  Bob Kerrey

  Commitment, People, Looks

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• I use a lot of balance training and functional training. Basically it's where you add an element of instability to a regular exercise. So whether it's on the physioball or the Bosu ball or just balancing on one leg, I try to incorporate an instable plane and/or movement to the exercise, so the body's doing two or more movements.

  Steve Nash

  Exercise, Two, Training

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• Somewhere along the journey of remembering who we really are, we may find ourselves in a very uncomfortable space, a void in which we realize that we haven't totally let go of our old beliefs, and on the other hand we have yet to fully plug into the new truths we have discovered. This awkward "place of mind" can bring on an internal crisis of uncertainty, instability, confusion, frustration, and a most unspeakable despair as the "dark night" sets in and makes its presence felt.

  Nicholas Schmidt

  Letting Go, Dark, Night

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• Emotional instability can be one of the factors giving rise to a failure by chess players in important duels. Under the influence of surging emotions (and not necessarily negative ones) we sometimes lose concentration and stop objectively evaluating the events that are taking place on the board.

  Mark Dvoretsky

  Player, Emotional, Giving

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• Africa has decided to take matters of instability into its own hands.

  Jacob Zuma

  Hands, Growth, Matter

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• We're looking at the singular condition of poverty. All the other individual problems spring from that condition... doesn't matter if it's death, aid, trade, AIDS, famine, instability, governance, corruption or war. All of that is poverty. Our problem is that everybody tries to heal each of the individual aspects of poverty, not poverty itself.

  Bob Geldof

  Spring, War, Trying

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• The decision-making process in the White House does not let most issues get up to the President. The Council thought opening up global markets to derivatives that would destabilize other countries wasn't likely to create a lot of jobs in the U.S. and might adversely affect U.S. interests by causing global economic instability.

  Joseph Stiglitz

  Country, House, President

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• Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.

  Anais Nin

  Art, Loneliness, Balance

  The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4, 1944-1947.

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• The teens are emotionally unstable and pathic. It is a natural impulse to experience hot and perfervid psychic states, and it is characterized by emotionalism. We see here the instability and fluctuations now so characteristic. The emotions develop by contrast and reaction into the opposite.

  G. Stanley Hall

  Children, Emotional, Opposites

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• This spontaneous emergence of order at critical points of instability, which is often referred to simply as "emergence," is one of the hallmarks of life. It has been recognized as the dynamic origin of development, learning, and evolution. In other words, creativity-the generation of new forms-is a key property of all living systems.

  Fritjof Capra

  Life, Learning, Creativity

  Fritjof Capra, Ugo Mattei (2015). “The Ecology of Law: Toward a Legal System in Tune with Nature and Community”, p.97, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

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• If we assume that the purpose of the economy is to serve and improve the welfare of the entire body of citizens, the U.S. model has clearly been a major failure. It has served a minority, and the majority have not only failed to share in the income gains yielded by the model, they have suffered from reduced benefits, greater job instability and stress, and a diminution of expectations and sense of hope for the future.

  Edward S. Herman

  Jobs, Stress, Expectations

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• You might not see climate change as an immediate threat to your job, your community, or your families," Kerry said. "But let me tell you, it is." He continued, "climate change is directly related to the potential of greater conflict and greater instability. I'm telling you that there are people in parts of the world - in Africa today, they fight each other over water. They kill each over it. And if glaciers are melting and there's less water available and more people, that is a challenge we have to face.

  John F. Kerry

  Jobs, Fighting, People

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• Of ill-temper there are three kinds: irascibility, bitterness, sullenness. It belongs to the ill-tempered man to be unable to bear either small slights or defeats but to be given to retaliation and revenge, and easily moved to anger by any chance deed or word. Ill-temper is accompanied by excitability of character, instability, bitter speech, and liability to take offence at trifles and to feel these feelings quickly and on slight occasions.

  Aristotle

  Revenge, Anger, Character

  Aristotle (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Aristotle (Illustrated)”, p.2945, Delphi Classics

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• I wanted us to share the sense that the number of wrong moves far exceeds the number of good moves, to share the frightening instability of the correct decision, to bond in being confounded.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Moving, Numbers, Decision

  Aleksandar Hemon (2013). “The Book of My Lives”, p.182, Macmillan

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• We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something last longer than we do.

  Hermann Hesse

  Flower, Fall, Heart

  Hermann Hesse (2013). “Narcissus and Goldmund: A Novel”, p.157, Macmillan

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• When I'm writing, I'm waiting to see somebody, and I'm waiting to hear them. It's almost like conjuring spirits out of the air, using your own imaginative instability.

  Charles Baxter

  Writing, Air, Waiting

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• Nerrissa? You believe her? Well, you at least have to credit her with a certain instability! Remember when she told you that I was going to take over the Fount with and army of Lobsters?" said Ripred. You did try to take over the Fount with an army of Lobsters." said Vikus. Yes, yes, but it was years before she was born. My point is, she flip-flops in and out of time like a fish in shallow waters." answered Ripred.

  Suzanne Collins

  Believe, Army, Years

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