Numbers Quotes - Page 24

• I'm the most important person in the lives of almost everyone I know and a good number of the people I've never even met.

  David Sedaris

  People, Important, Mets

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• A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race - and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.

  Ayn Rand

  Race, Genius, Share

  Ayn Rand (1999). “The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution”, p.149, Penguin

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• Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number- Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you Ye are many-they are few.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Sleep, Dew, Slumber

  1819 'The Mask of Anarchy'.

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• I tell you, with complex numbers you can do anything.

  John Derbyshire

  Complexes, Can Do, Complex Numbers

  John Derbyshire (2003). “Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics”, p.159, Joseph Henry Press

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• Shot at twenty-seven times - what a Dominican number.

  Junot Diaz

  Twenties, Seven, Shots

  Junot Diaz (2008). “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”, p.155, Faber & Faber

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• Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable - which, I haste to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Beautiful, Struggle, Civilization

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• The heart will turn to a prune if love is always by the numbers. How will you know if someone really loves you if they only meet your expectations and not your needs?

  Robert Fulghum

  Love You, Heart, Love Is

  Robert Fulghum (2011). “Maybe (Maybe Not): Second Thoughts from a Secret Life”, p.68, Ballantine Books

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• 42 is a nice number that you can take home and introduce to your family.

  Douglas Adams

  Nice, Home, Introducing

  Douglas Adams' remarks at Brown University, circa 1994.

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• Myron reached for the phone and dialed Win's number. After the eighth ring he began to hang up when a weak, distant voice coughed. "Hello?" Win?" Yeah." You okay?" Hello?" Win?" Yeah." What took you so long to answer the phone?" Hello?" Win?" Who is this?" Myron." Myron Bolitar?" How many other Myrons do you know?" Myron Bolitar?" No, Myron Rockefeller." Something's wrong," Win said. What?" Terribly wrong." What are you talking about?" Some asshole is calling me at seven in the morning pretending to be my best friend." Sorry, I forgot the time.

  Harlan Coben

  Morning, Sorry, Winning

  Harlan Coben (2013). “The Myron Bolitar Series 7-Book Bundle: Deal Breaker, Drop Shot, Fade Away, Back Spin, One False Move, The Final Detail, Darkest Fear”, p.88, Dell

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• A “collective” mind does not exist. It is merely the sum of endless numbers of individual minds. If we have an endless number of individual minds who are weak, meek, submissive and impotent – who renounce their creative supremacy for the sake of the “whole” and accept humbly that the “whole’s” verdict – we don’t get a collective super-brain. We get only the weak, meek, submissive and impotent collective mind.

  Ayn Rand

  Creative, Mind, Brain

  Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff (1999). “The Journals of Ayn Rand”, p.102, Penguin

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• The first night Stephen and I slept together, he whispered numbers into my ear: long, high numbers -- distances between planets, seconds in a life. He spoke as if they were poetry, and they became poetry. Later, when he fell asleep, I leaned over him and watched, trying to picture a mathematician's dreams. I concluded that Stephen must dream in abstract, cool designs like Mondrian paintings.

  Peter Cameron

  Dream, Distance, Night

  Peter Cameron (2012). “One Way or Another: Stories”, p.63, Open Road Media

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• We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Rocks, Circles

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• Philosophy is a necessary activity because we, all of us, take a great number of things for granted, and many of these assumptions are of a philosophical character; we act on them in private life, in politics, in our work, and in every other sphere of our lives -- but while some of these assumptions are no doubt true, it is likely, that more are false and some are harmful. So the critical examination of our presuppositions -- which is a philosophical activity -- is morally as well as intellectually important.

  Karl Popper

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Character

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• Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who so survive.

  Frank Herbert

  Space, Molecules, Kind

  Frank Herbert (2011). “Dune Messiah: The Second Dune Novel”, p.141, Hachette UK

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• I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.

  Brian Selznick

  Mean, Machines, World

  Brian Selznick (2015). “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”, p.375, Scholastic Inc.

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• Who you are contributes to your poetry in a number of important ways, but you shouldn't identify with your poems so closely that when they are cut, you're the one that bleeds.

  Dorianne Laux

  Cutting, Important, Way

  Kim Addonizio, Dorianne Laux (1997). “The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry”, p.197, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.

  Terry Pratchett

  Peace, Military, War

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• Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Space, Granted

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.68, Vintage Canada

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• Number of empty Ben & Jerry's containers: 3 - two mint chocolate cookie, one plain vanilla. (Who buys plain vanilla ice cream from Ben & Jerry's, anyway? Is there a greater waste?)

  Ally Carter

  Ice Cream, Two, Chocolate

  "I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You". Book by Ally Carter, April 1, 2006.

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• One thousand brilliant stars punched holes in my consciousness, pricking me with longing. I could stare at the stars for hours, their infinite number and depth pulling me into a part of myself that I ignored during the day.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Stars, Depth, Brilliant

  Maggie Stiefvater (2014). “Shiver Series (Shiver, Linger, Forever, Sinner)”, p.37, Scholastic Inc.

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• There is supercomputer somewhere in the Nevada desert whose sole function is to count the number of times that I have said the following, because it is unquantifiable by human minds at this point, but this time it’s really true: I should have stayed home.

  David Rakoff

  Regret, Home, Should Have

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• At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.

  B. F. Skinner

  Intelligent, Men, Trying

  B. F. Skinner (1974). “Walden Two”, p.81, Hackett Publishing

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• Each of us has interests which conflict the interests of everybody else... 'everybody else' we call 'society'. It's a powerful opponent and it always wins. Oh, here and there an individual prevails for a while and gets what he wants. Sometimes he storms the culture of a society and changes it to his own advantage. But society wins in the long run, for it has the advantage of numbers and of age.

  B. F. Skinner

  Running, Powerful, Winning

  B. F. Skinner (1974). “Walden Two”, p.95, Hackett Publishing

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• The trouble about jumping was that if you didn't pick the right number of stories, you might still be alive when you hit bottom.

  Sylvia Plath

  Jumping, Stories, Alive

  sylvia plath (1971). “the bell jar”

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• The night sky lies so sprent with stars that there is scarcely space of black at all and they fall all night in bitter arcs and it is so that their numbers are no less.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Stars, Lying, Fall

  Cormac McCarthy (2015). “Blood Meridian: Picador Classic”, p.16, Pan Macmillan

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