Likelihood Quotes

• Past performance speaks a tremendous amount about one's ability and likelihood for success.

  Mark Spitz

  Success, Sports, Past

  8 Copy quote

• My dogs, the only creatures on the planet marked by my singular nurturing imprint, have all turned out to be rude and self-absorbed. In all likelihood, if they were children instead of dogs, I would have foisted more Charlie Sheens or Kardashians onto our crumbling culture.

  Merrill Markoe

  Dog, Children, Self

  7 Copy quote

• The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.

  Susan Sontag

  Inspirational, Change, Community

  Susan Sontag (2007). “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches”, p.243, Macmillan

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• If we were to judge nature by common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed.

  Annie Dillard

  Atheist, Believe, Common Sense

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.146, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

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• Confidence is not a guarantee of success, but a pattern of thinking that will improve your likelihood of success, a tenacious search for ways to make things work.

  John Eliot

  Happiness, Success, Confidence

  John Eliot, PhD (2015). “Overachievement: The Science of Working Less to Accomplish More”, p.148, Diversion Books

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• Good science is done by being curious in general, by asking questions all around, by acknowledging the likelihood of being wrong and taking this in good humor for granted, by having a deep fondness for nature, and by being made jumpy and nervous by ignorance.

  Lewis Thomas

  Motivational, Ignorance, Asking Questions

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• To a large degree, since the beginning of time, charisma or the lack of it has impacted upon those in quest of acclaim. As media expands, this has become ever more vital. Thus, demeanor if unappealing, can defeat one's likelihood of success, causing the death of prospects whilst they are still embryonic.

  John Donne

  Success, Media, Achievement

  6 Copy quote

• I trust and believe that the time spent in this voyage ... will produce its full worth in Natural History; and it appears to me the doing what little we can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue.

  Charles Darwin

  Believe, Knowledge, Science

  Charles Darwin (1902). “Charles Darwin: His Life in an Autobiographical Chapter and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters”, p.267, Library of Alexandria

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• The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.

  Sun Tzu

  Art, Military, War

  Sun Tzu (2015). “The Art of War”, Booklassic

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• Today we no longer ask what really goes on in an atom; we ask what is likely to be observed-and with what likelihood-when we subject atoms to any specified influences such as light or heat, magnetic fields or electric currents.

  Otto Robert Frisch

  Science, Light, Atoms

  Otto Robert Frisch (1980). “What Little I Remember”, p.20, Cambridge University Press

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• There is no likelihood that man can ever tap the power of the atom

  Robert Andrews Millikan

  Science, Technology, Men

  31 Copy quote

• The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is 1 to a number with 40,000 noughts after it (1040,000).... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.

  Fred Hoyle

  Life, Theory Of Evolution, Numbers

  98 Copy quote

• We are wide open and vulnerable and in all likelihood an activist judge will strike down our Defense of Marriage Act, our state law against gay marriage, this year. And in all likelihood, we will have gay marriage in 2004 in Minnesota , if we don't get this amendment on the ballot for November.

  Michele Bachmann

  Gay, Years, Law

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• There is no point in retaining a brand equity if it has no traction with consumers, or has no likelihood of doing so.

  Nick Cooper

  Business, Equity, Consumers

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• You get towards the end of life - no, not life itself, but of something else: the end of any likelihood of change in that life. You are allowed a long moment of pause, time enough to ask the question: what else have I done wrong?

  Julian Barnes

  Long, Done, Moments

  Julian Barnes (2011). “The Sense of an Ending”, p.149, Random House

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• Kids whose puberty begins too soon face not just psychological risks, but physical ones too, with an increased likelihood of cancer, as well as skeletal changes that could prevent them from attaining their full adult height.

  Jeffrey Kluger

  Cancer, Kids, Risk

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• If your goal is to make money, becoming an entrepreneur is a sucker's bet. Sure, some entrepreneurs make a lot of money, but if you calculate the amount of stress-inducing work and time it takes and multiply that by the low likelihood of success and eventual payoff, it is not a great way to get rich.

  Eric Ries

  Stress, Goal, Entrepreneur

  7 Copy quote

• Parents should be vigilant and spiritually attentive to spontaneously occurring opportunities to bear testimony to their children. Such occasions need not be programmed, scheduled, or scripted. In fact, the less regimented such testimony sharing is, the greater the likelihood for edification and lasting impact.

  David A. Bednar

  Children, Opportunity, Impact

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• The history of the world suggests that without love of God there is little likelihood of a love for man that does not become corrupt.

  Francois Fenelon

  Men, Doe, World

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• If increased meta-knowledge is not counter-balanced by a corresponding growth in consciousness then the likelihood of psycho-spiritual dysfunction is great.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Spiritual, Dysfunction, Growth

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• We know it's all just daydreaming. In all likelihood, no one in this forest'll ever get a javelin, and I'll never see my mother's kingdom again, let alone be hailed by crowds as the jewel of Kildenree. Maybe it's vain to wish for it. But sometimes, it'd be nice just to hold something real in your hands that felt like a measure of your worth. Right Finn?

  Shannon Hale

  Mother, Real, Nice

  Shannon Hale (2010). “The Goose Girl”, p.280, A&C Black

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• Liz looks at the tissue box, which is decorated with drawings of snowmen engaged in various holiday activities. One of the snowmen is happily placing a smiling rack of gingerbread men in an oven. Baking gingerbread men, or any cooking for that matter, is probably close to suicide for a snowman, Liz thinks. Why would a snowman voluntarily engage in an activity that would in all likelihood melt him? Can snowmen even eat? Liz glares at the box.

  Gabrielle Zevin

  Suicide, Holiday, Men

  Gabrielle Zevin (2016). “Elsewhere”, p.50, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed.

  Diane Arbus

  Photography, Risk, Appearing

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• In a massive, long-term study of 17,000 civil servants, an almost unbelievable conclusion emerged: the status of a person's job was more likely to predict their likelihood of a heart attack than obesity, smoking or high blood pressure.

  Matt Ridley

  Jobs, Heart, Blood

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• After years spent in Washington, I have become more aware than ever of the government's ineptness and the likelihood of its making mistakes. I no longer trust the U.S. government to invoke and carry out a death sentence under any conditions.

  Ron Paul

  Mistake, Years, Government

  "Can Ron Paul and Conservative Evangelicals Save a Texas Death-Row Inmate?" by Stephanie Mencimer, www.motherjones.com. November 26, 2014.

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