Surprising Quotes - Page 19

• No such individual would find the Golden Rule surprising in any way because at its base lies the foundation of most human interactions and exchanges and it can be found in countless texts throughout recorded history and from around the world - a testimony to its universality.

  Michael Shermer

  Lying, Foundation, World

  Michael Shermer (2005). “The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule”, p.64, Macmillan

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• The concept of 'measurement' becomes so fuzzy on reflection that it is quite surprising to have it appearing in physical theory at the most fundamental level ... does not any analysis of measurement require concepts more fundamental than measurement? And should not the fundamental theory be about these more fundamental concepts?

  John Stewart Bell

  Reflection, Doe, Analysis

  "Quantum Gravity". Book by Dennis William Sciama, p. 611. "Quantum Mechanics for Cosmologists", 1981.

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• If Christianity were true religious persecution would become a pious and charitable duty: if God designs to punish men for their opinions it would be an act of mercy to mankind to extinguish such opinions. By burning the bodies of those who diffuse them many souls would be saved that would otherwise be lost, and so there would be an economy of torment in the long run. It is therefore not surprising that enthusiasts should be intolerant.

  William Winwood Reade

  Running, Religious, Men

  William Winwood Reade (1876). “The Martyrdom of Man”, p.228

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• Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe. The painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by Painting, must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can ever have.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Art, Blow, Curiosity

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1842). “The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.142

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• It may sound surprising when I say, on the basis of my own clinical practice as well as that of my psychological and psychiatric colleagues, that the chief problem of people in the middle decade of the twentieth century is emptiness.

  Rollo May

  Practice, People, May

  Rollo May Ph.D. (1953). “Man's Search for Himself”

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• I find Chinese debates about their political system domestically, but also about China's claims in the international system, to be among the most original and surprising and exciting of our time. The starting point is a system that none of us had anticipated, which I call Leninist capitalism, but also obviously because it is the most important emerging power. The question of China's relations with the United States in particular, and the rest of the world in general, is the question of war and peace in the 21st century.

  Timothy Garton Ash

  War, Political, Chinese

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• As an actor, I started using dreams more, which is not mystical or anything like that. I just found that I've been using that as a tool to give me another point of view towards the work. It's often surprising but really helpful.

  Mark Ruffalo

  Dream, Views, Giving

  Source: collider.com

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• Nothing can be surprising any more or impossible or miraculous, now that Zeus, father of the Olympians has made night out of noonday, hiding the bright sunlight, and... fear has come upon mankind. After this, men can believe anything, expect anything. Don't any of you be surprised in future if land beasts change places with dolphins and go to live in their salty pastures, and get to like the sounding waves of the sea more than the land, while the dolphins prefer the mountains.

  Archilochus

  Father, Believe, Men

  "Eclipse" by James Turrell, 1999.

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• Poems allow us not only to bear the tally and toll of our transience, but to perceive, within their continually surprising abundance, a path through the grief of that insult into joy.

  Jane Hirshfield

  Grief, Joy, Poetry

  Jane Hirshfield (2015). “Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World”, p.178, Knopf

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• With sixty professors there are roughly eighteen hundred pairs of professors. Out of that many pairs it was not surprising that there were some whose members did not like one another.

  Stanislaw Ulam

  Pairs, Hundred, Professors

  "Adventures of a Mathematician". Book by Stanislaw Ulam, 3rd edition. Chapter 5: "Harvard Years", p. 91, 1991.

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• In order to win over Paris and appear, in the eyes of all Europe, an absolute innovator, the most advanced of all, I urge you to get to work with all your heart, resolute on being bolder, crazier, more advanced, surprising, eccentric, incomprehensible, and grotesque than anybody else in music. I urge you to be a madman.

  Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

  Heart, Eye, Winning

  "Modernism: An Anthology". Book by Lawrence Rainey, p. 2, 2005.

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• [There is a] strong correlation between market freedom and lower government corruption -- not terribly surprising, since the effect of increasing regulatory power is to shift 'cheating' from the private to the public sphere.

  Julian Sanchez

  Cheating, Strong, Government

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• Human history is in truth nothing but the history of the slow, uncertain, and surprising fulfillment of the Promise.

  Gustavo Gutiérrez

  Promise, Uncertain, Fulfillment

  Gustavo Gutiérrez (1988). “A theology of liberation: history, politics, and salvation”

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• Where is peace to be found? The answer is surprising but clear. In weakness. Why there? Because in our weakness, our familiar ways of controlling and manipulating our world are being stripped away, and we are forced to let go from doing much, thinking much, and relying on our self-sufficiency. Right there where we are most vulnerable, the peace that is not of this world is mysteriously hidden.

  Henri Nouwen

  Letting Go, Thinking, Our World

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• This ground is surprising. It holds about 60,000 but when there are around 30,000 in, you get the feeling that it is half empty

  Ravi Shastri

  Feelings, Half Empty, Half

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• The biggest winners are surprises to me, and takeovers are even more surprising. It takes years, not months, to produce big results.

  Peter Lynch

  Years, Months, Winner

  Peter Lynch (2012). “One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In”, p.285, Simon and Schuster

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• I see this with experienced writers, too: They worry so much about the plot that they lose sight of the characters. They lose sight of why they are telling the story. They don't let the characters actually speak. Characters will start to dictate the story in sometimes surprising, emotional, and funny ways. If the writers are not open to those surprises, they're going to strangle the life, spark, or spirit out of their work.

  Brian Michael Bendis

  Book, Character, Emotional

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• Prince Charles's concern for the underprivileged and disadvantaged has not exactly endeared him to the Conservative Central Office. As Norman Tebbit replied, it is not surprising that the Prince is so sympathetic towards the unemployed: he is by way of being one of them himself.

  David Cannadine

  Office, Way, Conservative

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• It is not surprising that only one medieval state, Venice, long possessed anything clearly identifiavble as a navy in this sense. We shall see that no state in the British Isles attained attained this level of sophistication before the 16th century, and no history of the Royal Navy, in any exact sense of the words, could legitimately begin much before then. This book, which does, is not an institutional history of the Royal Navy, but a history of naval warfare as an aspect of national history. All and any methods of fighting at sea, or using the sea for warlike purposes, are its concern.

  Nicholas Rodger

  Book, Fighting, Sea

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• I've never really taken myself seriously as an actor, It is surprising the amount of people who think I'm going to be really dumb. I think they think anyone who has done teen movies is just an idiot. I don't know, maybe I am. Some of the best actors, if you talk to them, they're not the smartest people in the world.

  Robert Pattinson

  Taken, Thinking, People

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• There is something, yeah, I mean traditionally it's more fun to play bad guys than it is good guys and when you're playing a bad guy, yeah, the fun in it is to see how scary you can be, how horrible you can be. And it's surprising what you come up with.

  Bill Nighy

  Fun, Mean, Play

  "Bill Nighy Interview - UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS". Roundtable setting, collider.com. August 18, 2008.

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• There's nothing surprising about me. I'm dull. I am a fan of the New York subway. I love it.

  Brian F. O'Byrne

  New York, Fans, Dull

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• I don't want to convince you that mathematics is useful. It is, but utility is not the only criterion for value to humanity. Above all, I want to convince you that mathematics is beautiful, surprising, enjoyable, and interesting. In fact, mathematics is the closest that we humans get to true magic. How else to describe the patterns in our heads that - by some mysterious agency - capture patterns of the universe around us? Mathematics connects ideas that otherwise seem totally unrelated, revealing deep similarities that subsequently show up in nature.

  Ian Stewart

  Beautiful, Education, Math

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• I sometimes, in my sprightly moments, consider myself, in my great chair at school, as some dictator at the head of a commonwealth. In this little state I can discover all the great geniuses, all the surprising actions and revolutions of the great world in miniature. I have several renowned generals but three feet high, and several deep-projecting politicians in petticoats. I have others catching and dissecting flies, accumulating remarkable pebbles, cockleshells, etc., with as ardent curiosity as any virtuoso in the Royal Society.

  John Adams

  School, Knowledge, Feet

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1850). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.9

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• Innovation has a lot to do with your ability to recognise surprising and unusual phenomena.

  Herbert Simon

  Innovation, Surprise, Unusual

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