Predictable Quotes - Page 14

• There never has been security. No man has ever known what he would meet around the next corner; if life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Men, Flavor, Next

  "Tomorrow Is Now" by Eleanor Roosevelt, (p. 80), 1963.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Social science and humanities ... have a mutual contempt for one another, the former looking down on the latter as unscientific, the latter regarding the former as philistine. ... The difference comes down to the fact that social science really wants to be predictive, meaning that man is predictable, while the humanities say that he is not.

  Allan Bloom

  Men, Differences, Humanity

  "The Closing of the American Mind". Book by Allan Bloom, 1987.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• In 302, the Roman emperor Diocletian commanded "there should be cheapness," declaring, "Unprincipled greed appears wherever our armies ... march. ... Our law shall fix a measure and a limit to this greed." The predictable result of Diocletian's food price controls were black markets, hunger and food confiscation by his soldiers. Despite the disastrous history of price controls, politicians never manage to resist tampering with prices -- that's not a flattering observation of their learning abilities.

  Walter E. Williams

  Army, Law, Greed

  "Economics for the Citizen (Part 9)". capitalismmagazine.com. January 20, 2005.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• When common sense sees a puzzling phenomenon it looks for a causal agent. When it sees organization it looks for an organizer. This works amazingly well for purposes ranging from the diagnosis of diseases to the creation of governments. But it cannot account for emergence ... the appearance of complex phenomena not predictable from the basic elements and processes alone.

  Carl Bereiter

  Government, Organization, Common Sense

  Carl Bereiter (2005). “Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age”, p.200, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Reality looks much more obvious in hindsight than in foresight. People who experience hindsight bias misapply current hindsight to past foresight. They perceive events that occurred to have been more predictable before the fact than was actually the case.

  Hersh Shefrin

  Past, Reality, People

  Hersh Shefrin (2000). “Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing”, p.110, Oxford University Press

  64 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can hit a nail on the head, or cause a machine to do so, and get a fairly predictable result. Hit a dog on the head, and it will either dodge, bite back, or die, but it will never again react in the same way. We can predict only those things we set up to be predictable, not what we encounter in the real world of living and reactive processes.

  Bill Mollison

  Dog, Real, Encounters

  "Permaculture: A Designers' Manual". Book by Bill Mollison, 1988.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The media wants overnight successes (so they have someone to tear down). Ignore them. Ignore the early adopter critics that never have enough to play with. Ignore your investors that want proven tactics and predictable instant results. Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul. Because that's how long it's going to take, guys.

  Seth Godin

  Inspirational, Real, Media

  7 Copy quote

• I do not like debt and do not like to invest in companies that have too much debt, particularly long-term debt. With long-term debt, increases in interest rates can drastically affect company profits and make future cash flows less predictable.

  Warren Buffett

  Cash Flow, Long, Too Much

  14 Copy quote

• The world is more magical, less predictable, more autonomous, less controllable, more varied, less simple, more infinite, less knowable, more wonderfully troubling than we could have imagined being able to tolerate when we were young.

  James Hollis

  Simple, World, Able

  James Hollis (2005). “Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up”, p.72, Penguin

  36 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's a new challenge to see how people can change your look. I like words like transformation, reinvention, and chameleon. Because one word I don't like is predictable.

  Naomi Campbell

  People, Challenges, Looks

  52 Copy quote

• You know, that man has a spirit, that each man and woman is unique, that we have duty to promote our unalienable rights and to protect them, that we have a duty to our families and ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to contribute to charity, that we have a duty to support a just and righteous law that is stable and predictable.

  Mark Levin

  Unique, Men, Rights

  16 Copy quote

• When we generate utopian visions and hope to make them happen soon – when we elect Barack Obama and expect all our problems to be solved, and solved quickly, by his presidency – the outcome is both predictable and tragic. That is not the way to engage social change in a democracy. And it is not the way to help democracy itself survive and thrive. Democracy is a non-stop experiment. Each generation must help sustain it, which means being in it day-by-day for the long haul.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Mean, Long, Vision

  9 Copy quote

• Nothing is less predictable than the development of an active scientific field.

  Charles Francis Richter

  Science, Development, Fields

  59 Copy quote

• Set aside predictable, regular times to give full attention without being distracted by other concerns while also creating a safe, familiar place for baby to spend time playing alone.

  Magda Gerber

  Baby, Creating, Giving

  13 Copy quote

• The most awful thing about power is not that it corrupts absolutely but that it makes people so utterly boring, so predictable.

  Chinua Achebe

  People, Awful, Boring

  Chinua Achebe (1988). “Anthills of the Savannah”, p.56, Heinemann

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men take the oddest satisfaction in feeling superior without knowing that most of the time they are being utterly predictable.

  Paulo Coelho

  Men, Knowing, Feelings

  Paulo Coelho (2009). “The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation”, p.13, Harper Collins

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• [After my mother died, I had a feeling that was] not unlike the homesickness that always filled me for the first few days when I went to stay at my grandparents'' house, and even, I was stunned to discover, during the first few months of my freshman year at college. It was not really the home my mother had made that I yearned for. But I was sick in my soul for that greater meaning of home that we understand most purely when we are children, when it is a metaphor for all possible feelings of security, of safety, of what is predictable, gentle, and good in life.

  Anna Quindlen

  Mother, Children, Home

  14 Copy quote

• Leaders should be reliable without being predictable. They should be consistent without being anticipated

  Mike Krzyzewski

  Volleyball, Leader, Best Coaches

  9 Copy quote

• So many people seem to spend their lives trying to appear normal, predictable and consistent to themselves and those that surround them. They just end up bored with themselves, bereft of any depth of inner resources, suffocated by the inhibitions that defend their own monolithic identities.

  Peter J. Carroll

  Life, Self, People

  "Psybermagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magick". Book by Peter J. Carroll, 1995.

  75 Copy quote

  Show source

• Absent a lot of surprises, stocks are relatively predictable over twenty years. As to whether they're going to be higher or lower in two to three years, you might as well flip a coin to decide.

  Peter Lynch

  Years, Two, Twenties

  Peter Lynch (2012). “One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In”, p.80, Simon and Schuster

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the most predictable things in life is there will be change. You are better off if you can have a say in the change. But you are ignorant or naive if you don't think there will be change, whether you want it to or not.

  Julius Erving

  Thinking, Things In Life, Ignorant

  25 Copy quote

• If there’s a thing, a scene, maybe, an image that you want to see real bad, that you need to see but it doesn’t exist in the world around you, at least not in the form that you envision, then you create it so that you can look at it and have it around, or show it to other people who wouldn’t have imagined it because they perceive reality in a more narrow, predictable way. And that’s it. That’s all an artist does.

  Tom Robbins

  Real, Artist, People

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Skinny Legs and All”, p.206, Bantam

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• At the risk of appearing predictable, the Bible was and remains the biggest influence on my thinking. I was raised reading it, memorizing passages from it and being guided by it. I still find it a source of wisdom, comfort and encouragement.

  Hillary Clinton

  Encouragement, Reading, Thinking

  "Fox News is ready for Hillary" by Chris Stirewalt, www.foxnews.com. June 17, 2014.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are too many other inexplicable things around us--horrors, threats, mysteries that draw you in and then inevitably disenchant you. Back to the predictable and humdrum. The prince is never going to come, everybody knows that; and maybe Sleeping Beauty's dead.

  Anne Rice

  Sleep, Mystery, Horror

  Anne Rice (2010). “The Queen of the Damned”, p.4, Ballantine Books

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• One element of Madonna's career that really takes center stage is how many times she's reinvented herself. It's easier to stay in one look, one comfort zone, one musical style. It's inspiring to see someone whose only predictable quality is being unpredictable.

  Taylor Swift

  Careers, Musical, Style

  "Taylor Swift: Billboard Music Award Wins Were a 'Wonderful Feeling'" by Ray Rogers, www.billboard.com. May 25, 2013.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source