Surprising Quotes - Page 11

• I'm not saying there's not darkness in there still, but it's happening from outward factors more than inward. Maybe things are terrifying, but they're beautiful, too. The world is extremely surprising.

  Gary Lightbody

  Beautiful, Darkness, Inward

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• A nice blend of prediction and surprise seem to be at the heart of the best art.

  Wendy Carlos

  Art, Nice, Surprise

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• For me winning isn`t surprising at all

  Dorian Yates

  Winning

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• After a while, a surprising theme emerged. The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: Develop a strong family narrative.

  Bruce Feiler

  Strong, Important, May

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• All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive, enlightening, familiar and surprising.

  Joseph Conrad

  Art, Creativity, Creative

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “The Complete Novels of Joseph Conrad - All 20 Works in One Premium Edition: Including Unforgettable Titles like Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Under Western Eyes and Many More (With Author’s Letters, Memoirs and Critical Essays)”, p.4543, e-artnow

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• One way to tell if you're really comfortable with a person is if you can be quiet together sometimes and not feel awkward. If you don't feel obligated to say something brilliant or funny or surprising or cool. You can just be together. You can just be.

  Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  Awkward, Together, Way

  Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (2010). “It's Not Like I Planned It This Way: Including Alice; Alice on Her Way; Alice in the Know”, p.312, Simon and Schuster

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• People learn by playing, thinking and amazing themselves. They learn while they're laughing at something surprising, and they learn while they're wondering "What the heck is this!?"

  Sandra Dodd

  Thinking, People, Laughing

  "Learning all the time". Sandra Dodd's personal website, sandradodd.com.

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• Have the models been successful in predicting anything? They, of course, predict substantial global warming. This is not surprising given the expressed belief of some of the model builders in the global warming Hypothesis and the many parameters in the model that need to be introduced. However, the models also predict unambiguously that the atmosphere is warming faster than the surface of the earth; but all the available observational data unambiguously shows the opposite!

  David Douglas

  Successful, Opposites, Data

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• It isn't surprising that many children consider their parents to be a little dim, and that they sometimes try to update them. The fact that they don't usually try too hard is just as well; a thoroughly updated parent is an unappetizing sight.

  Peg Bracken

  Children, Sight, Parent

  Peg Bracken (1969). “I Didn't Come Here to Argue”

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• The inventory process and stepping back in your life can sometimes be a very dark process. But it also can be extremely funny and surprising.

  Craig Charles

  Dark, Inventory, Sometimes

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• The writer must always leave room for the characters to grow and change. If you move your characters from plot point to plot point, like painting by the numbers, they often remain stick figures. They will never take on a life of their own. The most exciting thing is when you find a character doing something surprising or unplanned. Like a character saying to me: ‘Hey, Richard, you may think I work for you, but I don’t. I’m my own person.’

  Richard North Patterson

  Moving, Character, Thinking

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• Perhaps the most surprising thing about mathematics is that it is so surprising. The rules which we make up at the beginning seem ordinary and inevitable, but it is impossible to foresee their consequences. These have only been found out by long study, extending over many centuries. Much of our knowledge is due to a comparatively few great mathematicians such as Newton, Euler, Gauss, or Riemann; few careers can have been more satisfying than theirs. They have contributed something to human thought even more lasting than great literature, since it is independent of language.

  Edward Charles Titchmarsh

  Independent, Careers, Long

  "Mathematical Maxims and Minims". Book by Nicholas J. Rose, 1986.

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• Math is the beautiful, rich, joyful, playful, surprising, frustrating, humbling and creative art that speaks to something transcendental. It is worthy of much exploration and examination because it is intrinsically beautiful, nothing more to say. Why play the violin? Because it is beautiful! Why engage in math? Because it too is beautiful!

  James Tanton

  Beautiful, Education, Art

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• When filled with God's love, we can do and see and understand things that we could not otherwise do or see or understand. Filled with His love, we can endure pain, quell fear, forgive freely, avoid contention, renew strength, and bless and help others in ways surprising even to us.

  John H. Groberg

  Pain, Helping Others, Forgiving

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• At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals.

  George Orwell

  Thinking, Effectiveness, Ideas

  "The Freedom of the Press". Unused preface to George Orwell "Animal Farm" (August 17, 1945), first published in "The Times Literary Supplement", September 15, 1972.

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• I think that, regardless of our culture, age, or even personal handicaps, we can still strive for something exceptional. Why not expand our sights instead of restricting our lives and accepting the lowest common denominator of a dormant existence? Faith. . . will permit us to take a chance on a new path, perhaps different from the one we now follow. It may be surprising where it leads.

  Jimmy Carter

  Faith, Thinking, Sight

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• Adrienne Mayor's inquiry into the myth--and surprising reality--of Amazon women begins with the fierce Greek huntress Atalanta, but takes us deep into the past and as far afield as the Great Wall of China. With the restless curiosity and meticulous scholarship that have become her hallmark, the author once again has found a gap in my bookshelf and filled it, admirably.

  Steven Saylor

  Wall, Past, Reality

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• In an age in which infidelity abounds, do we observe parents carefully instructing their children in the principles of faith which they profess? Or do they furnish their children with arguments for the defense of that faith? ...it is not surprising to see them abandon a position which they are unable to defend.

  William Wilberforce

  Children, Parent, Infidelity

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• Mathematical study and research are very suggestive of mountaineering. Whymper made several efforts before he climbed the Matterhorn in the 1860's and even then it cost the life of four of his party. Now, however, any tourist can be hauled up for a small cost, and perhaps does not appreciate the difficulty of the original ascent. So in mathematics, it may be found hard to realise the great initial difficulty of making a little step which now seems so natural and obvious, and it may not be surprising if such a step has been found and lost again.

  Louis J. Mordell

  Party, Science, Appreciate

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• Of all the wonderful things in the wonderful universe of God, nothing seems to me more surprising than the planting of a seed in the blank earth and the result thereof. Take that Poppy seed, for instance: it lies in your palm, the merest atom of matter, hardly visible, a speck, a pin's point in bulk, but within it is imprisoned a spirit of beauty ineffable, which will break its bonds and emerge from the dark ground and blossom in a splendor so dazzling as to baffle all powers of description.

  Celia Thaxter

  Beauty, Lying, Dark

  Celia Thaxter (2008). “An Island Garden”, p.3, Applewood Books

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• The advantages of a uniform statistical nomenclature, however im- perfect, are so obvious, that it is surprising no attention has been paid to its enforcement in bills of mortality. Each disease has in many instances been denoted by three or four terms, and each term has been applied to as many different diseases ; vague, inconvenient names have been employed, or complications have been registered, instead of primary diseases. The nomenclature is of as much importance in this depart- ment of inquiry as weights and measures in the physical sciences, and should be settled without delay.

  William Farr

  Names, Perfect, Attention

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• They fought on with a devotion which would puzzle the generation of the 1980s. More surprising, in many instances it would have baffled the men they themselves were before Pearl Harbor. Among MacArthur's ardent infantrymen were cooks, mechanics, pilots whose planes had been shot down, seamen whose ships had been sunk, and some civilian volunteers.

  William Manchester

  Men, Volunteer, History

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• I have three best friends in this world. What's surprising is that they also happen to be your (audience) three best friends. They are Bachpan (childhood), Jawani (Youth) and Budhapa (old age).

  Kishore Kumar

  Childhood, Age, Three

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• Therapy isn't Radio.We don't need to constantly fill the air with sounds. Sometimes, when its quite, surprising things happen.

  Mary Pipher

  Air, Sound, Needs

  Mary Pipher (2009). “Letters to a Young Therapist: Stories of Hope and Healing: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.49, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• The Amazons is a stupendous achievement--a long-anticipated centerpiece in the great puzzle of humankind. The story of these forbidden women, silenced for so long by the rigidity of traditional scholarship, is as exciting and surprising as a bestselling murder mystery; I simply couldn't put it down. Through scholarly brilliance and passion, Adrienne Mayor has opened the door to a forgotten world of gender equality, and her book ought to be required reading in every college history course.

  Anne Fortier

  Book, Reading, Passion

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