Surprising Quotes - Page 28

• Intrepidity is an extraordinary strength of soul, which raises it above the troubles, disorders and emotions which the sight of great perils can arouse in it; by this strength heroes maintain a calm aspect and preserve their reason and liberty in the most surprising and terrible accidents.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Hero, Sight, Bravery

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• When it's going well [writing] goes terribly fast. It isn't at all surprising to write a chapter in a day, which for me is about twenty-two pages. When it's going badly, it isn't really going badly; it's just the beginning.

  John le Carre

  Writing, Two, Twenties

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• In view of the importance of philanthropy in our society, it is surprising that so little attention has been given to it by economic or social theorists. In economic theory, especially, the subject is almost completely ignored. This is not, I think, because economists regard mankind as basically selfish or even because economic man is supposed to act only in his self-interest; it is rather because economics has essentially grown up around the phenomenon of exchange and its theoretical structure rests heavily on this process.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Selfish, Men, Thinking

  "Notes on a Theory of Philanthropy". "Philanthropy and Public Policy", edited by Frank G. Dickinson, 1962.

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• Finally, the illusions of validity and skill are supported by a powerful professional culture. We know that people can maintain an unshakeable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers. Given the professional culture of the financial community, it is not surprising that large numbers of individuals in that world believe themselves to be among the chosen few who can do what they believe others cannot.

  Daniel Kahneman

  Powerful, Believe, Skills

  Daniel Kahneman (2011). “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, p.247, Macmillan

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• The best thing is to go from nature's God dawn to nature; and if you once get to nature's God, and believe Him, and love Him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds; to see God everywhere in the stones, in the rocks, in the rippling brooks, and hear Him everywhere, in the lowing of cattle, in the rolling of thunder, and in the fury of tempests. Get Christ first, put Him in the right place, and you will find Him to be the wisdom of God in your own experience.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Song, Nature, Believe

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• Vegetables contain more nutriment than an equal amount of dead flesh. This will sound a surprising and incredible statement to many people, because they have been brought up to believe that they cannot exist unless they defile themselves with flesh, and this delusion is so widely spread that it is difficult to awaken the average man from it.

  Charles Webster Leadbeater

  Believe, Men, Vegetarianism

  Charles Webster Leadbeater (1909). “Some Glimpses of Occultism: Ancient and Modern”

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• What is surprising is that almost all the trends that developed within the sciences, Aristotelianism and an extreme Platonism included, produced results, not only in special domains, but everywhere; there exist highly theoretical branches of biology and highly empirical parts of astrophysics. The world is a complex an many-sided thing.

  Paul Feyerabend

  Special, World, Branches

  "Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Richness". Book by Paul Feyerabend, 1999.

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• . . .the most astonishing, the most surprising, the most marvelous, the most miraculous. . . the greatest, the least, the rarest, the most common, the most public, the most private till today. . . I cannot bring myself to tell you: guess what it is.

  Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sevigne

  Today, Common, Miraculous

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• Because one has to be an optimist to begin an ambitious project, it is not surprising that underestimation of completion time is the norm.

  Fernando J. Corbato

  Ambitious, Projects, Optimist

  "On Building Systems That Will Fail". Communications of the ACM, Volume 34 Issue 9, dl.acm.org. September 1991.

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• It is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Memorable, Woods, Forests

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Walden; Or, Life in the Woods”, p.111, Courier Corporation

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• A great advantage of X-ray analysis as a method of chemical structure analysis is its power to show some totally unexpected and surprising structure with, at the same time, complete certainty.

  Dorothy Hodgkin

  Rays, Analysis, Unexpected

  Dorothy Hodgkin, Guy Dodson (1994). “The collected works of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin”

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• But we must not underestimate the potency of the mathematical process of abstraction. A surprising variety of things happen to have both magnitude and direction and to combine according to the parallelogram law; and many of them are not at all reminiscent of journeys.

  Banesh Hoffmann

  Journey, Law, Statistics

  Banesh Hoffmann (2012). “About Vectors”, p.8, Courier Corporation

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• My memories of literary agenting are of a very happy time and there are surprising reminders of it coming back now.

  John Hodgman

  Memories, Happy Times, Coming Back

  "Bewildered Maine resident John Hodgman takes another crack at our 11 Questions". Interview with Marah Eakin, www.avclub.com. September 3, 2015.

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• I'm not the kind of poet who arranges treasure-hunts to please the academics and keep them busy. Poetry should be surprising in deeper ways.

  Michael Longley

  Treasure, Way, Kind

  Source: www.poetrymagazines.org.uk

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• I don't have hardly any caffeine, I don't drink alcohol and I watch my red meat intake. My diet at the minute seems to be verging towards the vegetarian, which is surprising me because I tend to just listen to what my body is fancying.

  Jayne Middlemiss

  Alcohol, Red, Meat

  Source: www.bbc.co.uk

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• The most impersonal seeming audiences eventually just say such intimate, smart, wise, amazing, totally surprising, funny things. It's empowering, in the sense of feeling like you're a part of something really important.

  Gloria Steinem

  Wise, Smart, Funny Things

  Source: collider.com

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• Being a good designer certainly doesn't guarantee that you're good at business. It's probably more surprising when the two talents coexist in one person.

  Susan Orlean

  Guarantees That, Two, Talent

  "Ask the Author Live: Susan Orlean on Jean Paul Gaultier". Live chat, www.newyorker.com. September 16, 2011.

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• Sometimes I dream that I'm working; that's awful. When you awaken after a big, surprising dream, you feel it's very interesting. When you sit and write it down, you realize it's a very poor script. But I may find ideas while dozing.

  Michel Ocelot

  Dream, Writing, Ideas

  Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

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• The Zionist Tulsa Jew who's pugnacious is a reality. I grew up around it. And I think it's really, really funny and surprising and unlikely.

  Edward Norton

  Reality, Thinking, Tulsa

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• Even my wife and two of my children are in "Leaves of Grass". Because I love the source material so much, it was really easy to write and an utter delight to get to direct because I had people like Edward [Norton] elevating the material and surprising me in their interpretations of all of this stuff that's so close to me.

  Edward Norton

  Children, Writing, Two

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• I am wholly in favour of 'dull stodges'. A surprising large proportion prove 'educable': for which a primary qualification is the willingness to do work.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Dull, Favour, Proportion

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• Considering the way evolution works, it should not be surprising if every man has got a Don Giovanni somewhere inside him.

  Matt Ridley

  Men, Way, Evolution

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• I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so unlooked for and so novel.

  Galileo Galilei

  Cases, Novel, Knows

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• One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old

  Leon Trotsky

  Things In Life, Realization, Life Is

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• A surprising feature of herbal research is that it is seldom the rare, exotic, and beautiful plant that proves the most interesting; more often it is some common, familiar, and despised weed that is discovered to have undreamed-of virtues.

  Euell Gibbons

  Beautiful, Weed, Interesting

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