Plausible Quotes - Page 7

• As far as how important the real-life resonance of the stories is, I think it must play at least a small role in the show's success, because it gives the show this sense of suspense from the fact that it seems at least plausible.

  Michael Loceff

  Real, Thinking, Play

  "The Worst Day Ever". Interview with James Surowiecki, www.slate.com. January 17, 2006.

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• It has amazed me that the most incongruous traits should exist in the same person and, for all that, yield a plausible harmony.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Character, Yield, Harmony

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• People love high ideals, but they got to be about 33-percent plausible

  Will Rogers

  Inspiration, People, Ideals

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• America is a country that is now utterly divided when it comes to its society, its economy, its politics. There are definitely two Americas. I live in one, on one block in Baltimore that is part of the viable America, the America that is connected to its own economy, where there is a plausible future for the people born into it.

  David Simon

  Country, Block, Two

  "David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'". www.theguardian.com. December 07, 2013.

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• Any man who would change the World in a significant way must have showmanship, a genial willingness to shed other people's blood, and a plausible new religion to introduce during the brief period of repentance and horror that usually follows bloodshed.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Men, Blood, People

  Kurt Vonnegut (2007). “The Sirens of Titan”, p.176, Dial Press

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• All "if" statements about the past are as dubious as prophecies of the future are. It seems fairly plausible that if Alexander or Ghengis Khan had never been born, some other individual would have filled his place and executed the design of the Hellenic or Mongolic expansion; but the Alexanders of philosophy and religion, of science and art, seem less expendable; their impact seems less determined by economic challenges and social pressures; and they seem to have a much wider range of possibilities to influence the direction, shape and texture of civilizations.

  Arthur Koestler

  Art, Philosophy, Past

  "The Sleepwalkeers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe". Book by Arthur Koestler, 1959.

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• I loved Molly. Or at least I told myself I did. Or, if what I felt for her was not love, it was at least a plausible imitation, a convincing substitute.

  Robert Charles Wilson

  Imitation, Substitutes, Convincing

  Robert Charles Wilson (2010). “Spin”, p.238, Tor Books

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• The denial of any distinction between foreseen and intended consequences, as far as responsibility is concerned, was not made by Sidgwick in developing any one 'method of ethics'; he made this important move on behalf of everybody and just on its own account; and I think it plausible to suggest that this move on the part of Sidgwick explains the difference between old-fashioned Utilitarianism and the consequentialism, as I name it, which marks him and every English academic moral philosopher since him.

  G. E. M. Anscombe

  Moving, Responsibility, Thinking

  G.E.M. Anscombe (2011). “Human Life, Action and Ethics: Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe”, p.190, Andrews UK Limited

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• We certainly have to have a view about knowledge in order to decide whether some version of foreknowledge is necessary for inquiry or whether some philosopher or other thinks it is. Roughly, the more demanding our conception of knowledge is, the less plausible foreknowledge is; the weaker our conception of knowledge is, the more plausible foreknowledge is.

  Gail Fine

  Thinking, Views, Order

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• With each passing year the difficulty of meeting any fixed quantitative target increases progressively. Moreover, plausible estimates of when the Protocol would go into effect leave such a small window of time before the first commitment period that achievement of the Kyoto targets will eventually pass out of reach.

  Henry Sylvester Jacoby

  Commitment, Years, Kyoto Protocol

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• Hitler had a plausible case to argue when he claimed that the Anschluss was only the application of the Wilsonian principle of self-determination.

  Alan Bullock

  Determination, Self, Principles

  Alan Bullock (1964). “Hitler, a study in tyranny”, Harpercollins College Div

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• When confronted with a demand that the universe have a cause, infidels have usually pointed out that God was not much of an explanation. This is true enough, but not really a positive argument. After mechanistic explanation became popular, infidels liked to restrict causality to the chain of causes in an eternal material universe, pointing out that no supernatural cause was then necessary. Plausible, but still rather defensive. Today's skeptic can do better. In all likelihood, the universe is uncaused. It is random. It just is.

  Taner Edis

  Religion, Demand, Causality

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• I'm focused on solving the problem that would make it plausible for gov't to get back to solving real problems.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Real, Problem, Get Back

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• The Devil is a spiritual lunatic, but, like many lunatics, he is extremely plausible and cunning.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Spiritual, Devil, Cunning

  Dorothy L. Sayers (2006). “The Poetry of Search and the Poetry of Statement: On Dante and Other Writers”, p.231, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Now, if the cooperation of some thousands of millions of cells in our brain can produce our consciousness, a true singularity, the idea becomes vastly more plausible that the cooperation of humanity, or some sections of it, may determine what Comte calls a Great Being.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Cells, Ideas, Humanity

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• The Pixar people continuously amaze me. They come up with something that actually looks as though it takes place in this happy, real-world. Every plot line is not just plausible, but oddly authentic. The stories are full of adventure, humor and love. The characters are written with great human dimension. I don't know how they do it but they astound me.

  Tom Hanks

  Real, Adventure, Character

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• That so many of us find it entirely plausible that a vast network of researchers and health officials and doctors worldwide would willfully harm children for money is evidence of what capitalism is really taking from us. Capitalism has already impoverished the working people who generate wealth for others. And capitalism has already impoverished us culturally, robbing unmarketable art of its value. But when we begin to see the pressures of capitalism as innate laws of human motivation, when we begin to believe that everyone is owned, then we are truly impoverished.

  Eula Biss

  Art, Children, Motivation

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• The Catholic clergy seldom bother to make their arguments plausible; it is plain that they have little respect for human intelligence, and indeed little belief in its existence.

  H. L. Mencken

  Catholic, Littles, Superstitions

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• He must be able to hear them [the counter arguments] from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty.

  John Stuart Mill

  Believe, Views, Atheism

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• The Irish are hearty, the Scotch plausible, the French polite, the Germans good-natured, the Italians courtly, the Spaniards reserved and decorous - the English alone seem to exist in taking and giving offense.

  William Hazlitt

  Country, Scotch, Giving

  William Hazlitt, James Thornton (1967). “Miscellaneous writings”

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• Faith prefers the absurd to the plausible.

  Mason Cooley

  Faith, Absurd

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• There is not a single rule, however plausible, and however firmly grounded in epistemology, that is not violated at some time or other. It becomes evident that such violations are not accidental events, they are not results of insufficient knowledge or of inattention which might have been avoided. On the contrary, we see that they are necessary for progress.

  Paul Feyerabend

  Science, Progress, Events

  Paul Feyerabend (1993). “Against Method”, p.14, Verso

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• The result of the mathematician's creative work is demonstrative reasoning, a proof; but the proof is discovered by plausible reasoning, by guessing.

  George Polya

  Science, Creative, Guessing

  "Induction and Analogy in Mathematics". Book by George Polya, 1954.

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• I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US... But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

  Gideon Rachman

  Thinking, World Government, Secret

  "And now for a world government" by Gideon Rachman, www.ft.com. December 9, 2008.

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• The novelist, unlike many of his colleagues, makes up a number of word-masses roughly describing himself (roughly: niceties shallcome later), gives them names and sex, assigns them plausible gestures, and causes them to speak by the use of inverted commas, and perhaps to behave consistently.

  E. M. Forster

  Sex, Character, Names

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