Surprising Quotes - Page 14

• The question, 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?' is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren't - indeed it would be wrong if it weren't.

  Rowan Williams

  Believe, Suffering, Would Be

  "Archbishop: 'It should shake our faith in God'" by Martin Bright, www.theguardian.com. January 1, 2005.

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• It is a little surprising given the strength of the economy that there is a perception - at least among some of the public - that the economy is not very good.

  Edward Lazear

  Perception, Littles, Economy

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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.

  Julie Moir Messervy

  Garden, Earth, Wonderful

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• When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances will fit in with them.

  William Osler

  Planning, Fit, Schemes

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• It is indeed surprising that a man inspite of his belief in the Fire of Jahannum is still able to laugh, and inspite of his belief in Maut he is able to be happy. Inspite of believing in the Reckoning, he commits evil deeds. Inspite of believing in Taqdeer, he grieves. Inspite of observing the world with its changes, he feels contented with it. Inspite of believing in Jannat, he refrains from righteous deeds.

  Moses

  Wisdom, Believe, Islamic

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• I went through one period when I smoked a surprising, a really breath-taking, amount of grass almost every night.

  David Letterman

  Weed, Night, Grass

  "David Letterman's 1984 Playboy Interview. A Candid Conversation with the Comedy Genius In His Youth". Playboy Interview, playboysfw.kinja.com. April 3, 2014.

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• This year has begun hopefully for right thinkers. After all these centuries of feudal barbarism and political slavery, it is surprising to see how the word of 'liberty' sets minds on fire.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Fire, Years, Political

  Napoleon Bonaparte (2010). “The Corsican: The Virtual Diary of Napoleon Bonaparte”, p.4, Fireship Press

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• Melrose is the finest remaining specimen of Gothic architecture in Scotland. Some of the sculptured flowers in the cloister arches are remarkably beautiful and delicate, and the two windows - the south and east oriels - are of a lightness and grace of execution really surprising.

  Bayard Taylor

  Beautiful, Flower, Scotland

  Bayard Taylor (1875). “Views A-foot: Or, Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff”, p.69

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• End-of-the-world stories tend to ring true. I've always been drawn to them, but as I wrote my own, I found surprising pleasure in creating a world that is so radically changed, yet where there's so much meaning and value in every small and ordinary thing we have, and take for granted: hot showers, enough food, friends, routines.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Creating, Hot, Stories

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• The image of the frontier is probably one of the oldest images of mankind, and it is not surprising that we should find it hard to get rid of.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Land, Should, Mankind

  Kenneth E. Boulding, Harold J. Barnett, Rene Dubos, Leonard J. Duhl, Ralph Turvey, Roland N. McKean, Allen V. Kneese, M. Mason Gaffney, Gilbert F. White, David Lowenthal, Norton E. Long, Jacob H. Beuscher (1966). “Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy”

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• Part of the power of Emerson's individualism is his insistence, at crucial moments, that individualism does not mean isolation or self-sufficiency. This is not a paradox, for it is only the strong individual who can frankly concede the sometimes surprising extent of his own dependence.

  Robert D. Richardson

  Strong, Mean, Thinking

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• The most important thing in comedy - apart from empathy, which I think is important even if disguised - is surprise. I like surprising people with the fact that something's even a joke at all.

  Ricky Gervais

  Thinking, People, Empathy

  "Ricky Gervais: The ESQ+A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. January 12, 2012.

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• It is not surprising that in talking about uncertainty we should lean heavily on facts, just as the court of law does when interrogating witnesses. Facts form a sort of bedrock on which we can build the shifting sands of uncertainty.

  Dennis Lindley

  Talking, Law, Doe

  "Understanding Uncertainty". Book by Dennis Lindley (Chapter 2 "Stylistic Questions", p. 19), 2006.

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• What has happened to Africa is very severe. We are talking about the collapse of this and the collapse of that, of good government, of the economy particularly. And this has hit education badly. The news you get from the universities in Nigeria is often appalling. I don't think a lot of it gets out. There is the obsession with cults and all kinds of dreadful things going on and all this is taking its toll and it is not surprising that quality of students and graduates who come out is not good. It will not be surprising if this shows in the quality of work they do.

  Chinua Achebe

  Thinking, Government, Talking

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• Sin is what is new, strong, surprising, strange. The theatre must take an interest in sin if the young are to be able to go there.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Strong, Theatre, Able

  Bertolt Brecht, John Willett (1964). “Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic”

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• Life, if you live it right, keeps surprising you, and the thing that keeps surprising you the most…is yourself

  William Deresiewicz

  Ifs

  William Deresiewicz (2011). “A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter”, p.74, Penguin

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• Cherry Money Baby is fabulous in every sense of the word! It’s earthy and smart and moving, laugh-out-loud funny, surprising, inventive, suspenseful, and — Oh, Hell — just gorgeously written!

  Tim Wynne-Jones

  Baby, Smart, Moving

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• Very honest, I hope. God, I don't know. I hope I'm fun, I hope I am a good time. Spontaneous, surprising, affectionate? I hope, kind. Dancing a lot of dancing. I insist upon dancing. Anywhere. Anytime. The more dancing, the better

  Tom Hiddleston

  Fun, Dancing, Good Times

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• I can speak of actors that I love. I love Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis, her tenacity. I love Charlize Theron. She's so surprising and so exhilarating, the kinds of projects she takes on. Marion Cotillard as well.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Actors, Kind, Speak

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• The surprising thing is that I was not funny in high school. I was always jealous of the funny kids because they always got the girls. I couldn't tell a joke to save my life.

  Sean William Scott

  Girl, Jealous, School

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• I don't think it's surprising we will have to look for them. I'm confident that when the Iraq Survey Group has done its work we will find what's happened to those weapons because he had them.

  Tony Blair

  Thinking, Iraq, Groups

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• Every computer divides itself into its hardware and its software, the machine host to its algorithm, the human being to his mind. It is hardly surprising that men and women have done what computers now do long before computers could do anything at all. The dissociation between mind and matter in men and machines is very striking; it suggests that almost any stable and reliable organization of material objects can execute an algorithm and so come to command some form of intelligence.

  David Berlinski

  Men, Organization, Long

  David Berlinski (2000). “The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World”, Houghton Mifflin

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• The world has done that already - possessed the Congo and pillaged her and dominated her and robbed her of agency and occupation. Love is something else, something rising and contagious and surprising. It isn't aware of itself. It isn't keeping track. It isn't something you sign for. It's endless and generous and enveloping. It's in the drums, in the voices, in the bodies of the wounded made suddenly whole, by the music, by each other, dancing.

  Eve Ensler

  Love, Agency, Voice

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• The theory of free speech, that truth is so much larger and stranger and more many-sided than we know of, that it is very much better at all costs to hear everyone's account of it, is a theory which has been justified on the whole by experiment, but which remains a very daring and even a very surprising theory. It is really one of the great discoveries of the modern time.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Equality, Discovery, Cost

  "Robert Browning". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1903.

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• Perhaps the most surprising thing about mathematics is that it is so surprising.

  Edward Charles Titchmarsh

  Math, Logic, Reasoning

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

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