Odds Quotes - Page 27

• one of my earliest joys as a parent lay in knowing that at the end of the day I had once again ushered three babies back to their beds, against the odds, unscathed and peaceful. Happiness was a houseful of safe, inert bodies. Actually, it still is.

  Phyllis Grissim-Theroux

  Baby, Knowing, Joy

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• Man is constantly being assured that he has more power than ever before in history, but his daily experience is one of powerlessness. ... If he is with a business organization, the odds are great that he has sacrificed every other kind of independence in return for that dubious one known as financial.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Men, Organization, Independence

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• In America, a metrical poem is likely to conjure up the idea of the sort of poet who wears ties and lunches at the faculty club. In Russia it suggests the moral force of an art practiced against the greatest personal odds, as a discipline, solitary and intense.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Art, Russia, Ideas

  "Joseph Brodsky's Art of Darkness". www.washingtonpost.com. October 23, 1987.

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• ... the consensus of the scientific community has shifted from skepticism to near-unanimous acceptance of the evidence of an artificial greenhouse effect. Second, while artificial climate change may have some beneficial effects, the odds are we're not going to like it. Third, reducing emissions of greenhouse gases may turn out to be much more practical and affordable than currently assumed.

  Gregg Easterbrook

  Acceptance, Community, Climate

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• The cultural wars of the sixties are over. I've reconciled with those who were my critics and opponents years ago. I was at odds with some those who were Black nationalists. Yet when feminists attempted to end my career and leave me as literary road kill, it was the Black nationalists who came to my rescue.

  Ishmael Reed

  War, Years, Careers

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• For the rest of your life you must check the box on employment applications asking the dreaded question: "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" And once you check that box, the odds are sky high that your application is going straight to the trash. Hundreds of professional licenses are off-limits to people convicted of felonies.

  Michelle Alexander

  Sky, People, Employment

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand.

  Dan Brown

  Inspirational, Religious, Science

  Dan Brown (2009). “Angels & Demons - Movie Tie-In: A Novel”, p.59, Simon and Schuster

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• The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.

  Erma Bombeck

  Hilarious, Funny Life, Food

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• It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said 'do the best you can with these, they will have to do'. And mostly, against all odds, they do.

  Anne Lamott

  Prayer, Honesty, Kids

  Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.92, Anchor

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• At the center of the Universe is a loving heart that continues to beat and that wants the best for every person. Anything that we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job. Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds. Life is for service.

  Fred Rogers

  Jobs, Heart, Emotional

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• There will be a few times in your life when all your instincts will tell you to do something, something that defies logic, upsets your plans, and may seem crazy to others. When that happens, you do it. Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else. Ignore logic, ignore the odds, ignore the complications, and just go for it.

  Judith McNaught

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Judith McNaught (2003). “Remember When”

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• We are never more creative than when we are at odds with the world and there is nothing so artistically destructive as comfort. Princess Leia taught me that.

  Simon Pegg

  Princess, Creative, Comfort

  Simon Pegg (2010). “Nerd Do Well”, p.153, Random House

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• The act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Beauty, Greatness, Produce

  "Outliers". Book by Malcolm Gladwell, November 18, 2008.

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• Even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit - a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor - that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory.

  Walter Lord

  Courage, Men, Skills

  Walter Lord (2012). “Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway”, p.6, Open Road Media

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• I never feel more alive than when I'm in great pain, struggling against insurmountable odds and untold adversity. Hardship? Suffering? Bring it!

  Dean Karnazes

  Running, Pain, Struggle

  Dean Karnazes (2012). “Run!: 26.2 Stories of Blisters and Bliss”, p.25, Rodale

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• What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

  Paul Hawken

  Encouragement, Order, People

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• Here's a message to the new borns, waiting to breathe: if you believe then you can achieve. Just look at me, against all odds 'though life is hard, we carry on, livin' in the projects, broke with no lights on. To all the seeds that follow me- protect your essence, born with less, but you still precious.

  Tupac Shakur

  Believe, Light, Essence

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• If you think that people should be nice to one another, then by
  all means be nice. But when you project that belief onto the
  people and the world around you as if it were an objective reality,
  or worse still, as if it were their job to be nice to you, you put
  yourself at odds with what is, and suffering will surely follow.

  Adyashanti

  Jobs, Nice, Mean

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• It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Prayer, Vanity, Praying

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2008). “Barcelona, Berlin, New York, 1928-1931”

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• If we write our dreams and goals down, we dramatically increase our odds of realization. If we share them with others, they become potent and alive.

  Kristin Armstrong

  Dream, Writing, Goal

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• Pessimists calculate the odds. Optimists believe they can overcome them.

  Ted Koppel

  Believe, Overcoming, Pessimist

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• Anytime odds get stacked up against me, I feel like it's in me to beat it

  Damian Lillard

  Beats, Feels

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• Labor never quits. We never give up the fight - no matter how tough the odds, no matter how long it takes.

  George Meany

  Giving Up, Fighting, Long

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• In a civilized and cultivated country wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen. the excellent people who protest against all hunting, and consider sportsmen as enemies of wild life, are ignorant of the fact that in reality the genuine sportsman is by all odds the most important factor in keeping the larger and more valuable wild creatures from total extermination.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Country, Animal, Reality

  THEODORE ROOSEVELT (2015). “The Deer Family”, p.81, Loose Cannon

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• When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Thinking, Ideas

  The Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.

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