Surprising Quotes - Page 7

• 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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• I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Reality

  "Possible worlds, and other essays". Book by J. B. S. Haldane, 1927.

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• I like the most provocative and most surprising partnerships on stage. Intensity and surprise.

  Mikhail Baryshnikov

  Dance, Surprise, Partnership

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• The body is a reservoir of all sorts of tensions and dark forces. And it's also the potential source of amazing energy. This thing wants to live. It is a powerful engine. The brain (is) a reservoir of images, dreams, fears, associations, language. And its potential we can't even begin to understand. Movement begins to negotiate the distance between the brain and the body and it can be surprising what we learn about each other.

  Bill T. Jones

  Dance, Dream, Powerful

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• At my 30th birthday party, one of my best friends gave a toast and said I'd been waiting for that day since I was 13. Everyone laughed, but he was right! Life continues to get more fun, more surprising, more delightful.

  Siobhan-Marie O'Connor

  Fun, Party, Waiting

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• ...is it surprising that today we have become so morally blind (for wickedness blinds) that we save the baby whales at great cost, and murder millions of unborn children?

  Alice von Hildebrand

  Baby, Children, Whales

  Alice Von Hildebrand (2002). “The Privilege of Being a Woman”, Ignatius Press

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• What is both surprising and delightful is that the spectators are allowed, and even expected, to join in the vocal part of the game...There is no reason why the field should not try to put the batsman off his stroke at the critical moment by neatly timed disparagements of his wife's fidelity and his mother's respectability.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Baseball, Mother, Games

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• I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Thanksgiving, Grateful, Existence

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.373, Penguin

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• Yet there are times when a deeper need enters, when we want the poem to be not only pleasurably right but compellingly wise, not only a surprising variation played upon the world, but a re-tuning of the world itself.

  Seamus Heaney

  Wise, Needs, Variation

  Seamus Heaney (2014). “Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996”, p.420, Macmillan

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• Golf is said to be an humbling game, but it is surprising how many people are either not aware of their weaknesses of else reckless of consequences.

  Bobby Jones

  Golf, Games, People

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• If little else, the brain is an educational toy. Why it may be a frustrating play thing - one whose finer points recede just when you think you are mastering them - it is nonetheless perpetually fascinating, frequently surprising, occasionally rewarding, and it comes already assembled. [...] Alas! the brain is a toy that plays games of its own. Its very most favorite game is the one-thing-leads-to-another game.

  Tom Robbins

  Philosophy, Educational, Thinking

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• If an unusual necessity forces us onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain point, when, gradually or suddenly, it passes away and we are fresher than before!

  William James

  Perseverance, Passing Away, Unusual

  William James, Robert D Richardson (2010). “The Heart of William James”, p.267, Harvard University Press

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• There is seemingly so little love shared in this world, it is not surprising that we ask, "Where have all the lovers gone?" Since love is the most vital energy for good that is within our power to utilize, it is puzzling why we so seldom do so. Love is just a useless, abstract idea until we put it into action...unless we are always actively living in love, we are not utilizing the greatest gift we have been given and which we, in turn, have to offer.

  Leo Buscaglia

  Love You, Love Is, Ideas

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• Time is like an enterprising manager always bent on staging some new and surprising production, without knowing very well what it will be.

  George Santayana

  Time, Knowing, Eternity

  George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana: Soliloquies in England and Later soliloquies”

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• Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence, and ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption; all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.

  James Madison

  Religious, Ignorance, Liberty

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.

  George Orwell

  Military, War, Fighting

  George Orwell (1998). “Two wasted years, 1943”, Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd

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• If biologists so often forget the most universal of all biologic principles [variation], it is not surprising that men and women in general expect their fellows to think and behave according to the pattern that may fit the law-maker, or the imaginary ideals for which the legislation was fashioned, but which are ill-shaped for all real individuals who try to live under them.

  Alfred Kinsey

  Real, Men, Thinking

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• What I think is coming instead are much more organic ways of organizing information than our current categorization schemes allow, based on two units - the link, which can point to anything, and the tag, which is a way of attaching labels to links. The strategy of tagging - free-form labeling, without regard to categorical constraints - seems like a recipe for disaster, but as the Web has shown us, you can extract a surprising amount of value from big messy data sets.

  Clay Shirky

  Technology, Thinking, Data

  "Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags". shirky.com. Spring, 2005.

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• The wise man then followed a simple way of life-which is hardly surprising when you consider how even in this modern age he seeks to be as little encumbered as he possibly can.

  Seneca the Younger

  Life, Wise, Simple

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• Science is founded on uncertainty. Each time we learn something new and surprising, the astonishment comes with the realization that we were wrong before.

  Lewis Thomas

  Learning, Science, Realization

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• A chess problem is genuine mathematics, but it is in some way "trivial" mathematics. However, ingenious and intricate, however original and surprising the moves, there is something essential lacking. Chess problems are unimportant. The best mathematics is serious as well as beautiful-"important" if you like, but the word is very ambiguous, and "serious" expresses what I mean much better.

  G. H. Hardy

  Beautiful, Moving, Mean

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• Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing.

  George Orwell

  Fear, Effectiveness, Challenges

  George Orwell (1987). “Animal farm: a fairy story”, Harvill Secker

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• Women get consumed. Not surprising, considering the sheer amount of traffic a woman's body experiences. Tampons and speculums. Cocks, fingers, vibrators and more, between the legs, from behind, in the mouth.

  Gillian Flynn

  Body, Legs, Mouths

  Gillian Flynn (2012). “The Novels of Gillian Flynn: Sharp Objects, Dark Places”, p.198, Broadway Books

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• Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.

  William Zinsser

  Numbers, Purpose, Paper

  William Zinsser (2012). “On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, p.12, Harper Collins

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• I simply cannot get over what a surprising and wonderful life God has given me.

  Stanley Hauerwas

  Wonderful, Given, Get Over

  Stanley Hauerwas (2012). “Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir”, p.165, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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