Surprise Quotes - Page 24

• To my surprise I found that when other top players in the precomputer age (before 1995, roughly) wrote about games in magazines and newspaper columns, they often made more mistakes in their annotations than the players had made at the board.

  Garry Kasparov

  Mistake, Player, Games

  Garry Kasparov (2010). “How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom”, p.95, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• Tal's combinations often exert a sort of paralysing influence on the opponent's play. It would seem that the element of surprise plays a big part in this.

  Mark Taimanov

  Play, Elements, Opponents

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• My host at Richmond, yesterday morning, could not sufficiently express his surprise that I intended to venture to walk as far as Oxford, and still farther. He however was so kind as to send his son, a clever little boy, to show me the road leading to Windsor.

  Karl Philipp Moritz

  Morning, Clever, Son

  Karl Philipp Moritz (2010). “Travels in England in 1782”, p.63, BoD – Books on Demand

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• Why does corruption in government always surprise us? Why do we expect anything else from it? Government is organized force. It takes our wealth and makes war. And we think honest men would do that work?

  Joseph Sobran

  War, Men, Thinking

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• For a person who lives 100 years in the future, the present comes as no surprise.

  Viktor Schauberger

  Years, Persons

  Viktor Schauberger, Callum Coats (1999). “The Water Wizard – The Extraordinary Properties of Natural Water: Volume 1 of Renowned Environmentalist Viktor Schauberger’s Eco-Technology Series”, p.11, Gill & Macmillan Ltd

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• I hope it will come as no surprise that I have something to say.

  Teresa Heinz

  "Hardball with Chris Matthews", www.nbcnews.com. July 27, 2004.

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• I personally take cues directly from the script, then I like to surprise the other actors. But you must maintain control on a level and see how far you can go up, down or out emotionally. You have to balance the craft with spontaneity.

  Lusia Strus

  Balance, Actors, Levels

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• It came as a surprise to find that a professional society and journal (Econometrica) were flourishing, and I entered this area of study with great enthusiasm.

  Lawrence Klein

  Enthusiasm, Study, Flourishing

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• We told them this morning and I think they (reacted) like you would expect. It was a surprise and the reality of this is very sobering for everybody. I don't take this lightly at all not at all.

  Mike Jackson

  Morning, Reality, Thinking

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• The biggest failures come round and spring ultimate surprises of survival.

  Jack White

  Spring, Survival, Rounds

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• During my last year of college I wrote the same ten pages over and over again. Those ten pages became the first few pages of my first novel. I can still recite the opening paragraph from memory - only now I cringe when I do it because they are - surprise! - a classic example of overwriting, in addition to being a more than a little pretentious.

  Patricia Briggs

  Memories, College, Years

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• I have not asked for life.
  But I try to accept whatever
  life brings without surprise.
  And I shall depart again without having
  questioned anyone about my strange
  stay here on earth.

  Omar Khayyam

  Trying, Earth, Strange

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• Listening is like running down a mountain on a switchback trail, the sound of surprise generating its own momentum. There’s a punk glee inside the bluegrass craft–and a punk vehemence inside the bluegrass smile.

  Greil Marcus

  Running, Listening, Mountain

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• Loners, if you catch them, are well worth the trouble. Not dulled by excess human contact, nor blasé or focused on your crotch while jabbering about themselves, loners are curious, vigilant, full of surprises. They do not cling. Separate wherever they go, awake or asleep, they shimmer with the iridescence of hidden things seldom seen.

  Anneli Rufus

  Being Alone, Solitude, Loner

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• This is what I call understanding. If you understand, insecurity is an intrinsic part of life - and good that it is so, because it makes life a freedom, it makes life a continuous surprise. One never knows what is going to happen. It keeps you continuously in wonder. Don't call it uncertainty - call it wonder. Don't call it insecurity - call it freedom.

  Rajneesh

  Life, Understanding, Insecurity

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• Nothing is secure. That is my message. Nothing can be secure, because a secure life will be worse than death. Nothing is certain. Life is full of uncertainties, full of surprises - that is its beauty! You can never come to a moment when you can say, "Now I am certain." When you say you are certain, you simply declare your death, you have committed suicide.

  Rajneesh

  Life, Suicide, Messages

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• The drawings that interest me most are made with closed eyes. With eyes closed, I feel my hand slide down on the paper. I have an image in mind, but the results always surprise me.

  Willem de Kooning

  Eye, Hands, Drawing

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• What a surprise to find you could shift the contents of your head like rearranging furniture in a room.

  Lisa Alther

  Inspirational, Rooms, Furniture

  Lisa Alther (2010). “Other Women”, p.260, Open Road Media

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• This is a big deal. It's a fairly natural partnership; it shouldn't surprise people, ... We're working on bringing this network-is-the-computer, Net services environment.

  Scott McNealy

  Technology, People, Computer

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• Death in its way comes just as much of a surprise as birth.

  Edna O'Brien

  Death, Way, Birth

  Edna O'Brien (2013). “The Love Object: Selected Stories of Edna O'Brien”, p.138, Faber & Faber

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• Don't simply dismiss a coincidence and let it drift away. Life is totally interconnected. These unusual 'things' are simply connections that surprise you because you aren't used to seeing life except in fragments. Now it is beginning to piece itself together.

  Deepak Chopra

  Unusual Things, Luck, Together

  "When “Things” Go Bump in the Mind" by Deepak Chopra, www.huffingtonpost.com. JUly 3, 2010.

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• Unless the structure of the nucleus has a surprise in store for us, the conclusion seems plain — there is nothing in the whole system of laws of physics that cannot be deduced unambiguously from epistemological considerations.

  Arthur Eddington

  Knowledge, Science, Law

  "Relativity theory of protons and electrons".

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• In all matters of opinion and science ... the difference between men is ... oftener found to lie in generals than in particulars; and to be less in reality than in appearance. An explication of the terms commonly ends the controversy, and the disputants are surprised to find that they had been quarrelling, while at bottom they agreed in their judgement.

  David Hume

  Lying, Science, Reality

  'Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary' (ed. T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, 1875) 'Of the Standard of Taste' (1757)

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• Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.

  Charles Darwin

  Attention, Astonishment, Graduates

  Charles Darwin (1872). “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals”, p.278

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• God is always faithful to His promises, but He often surprises us in the way He fulfills them.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Faithful, Promise, Way

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