Unlikely Quotes - Page 11

• Choose your allies carefully: it's highly unlikely that you'll ever be held morally, legally, or historically accountable for the actions of your enemies.

  L. Neil Smith

  Enemy, Allies, Action

  L. Neil Smith (2001). “The American Zone”, p.57, Macmillan

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• The word "missing" is particularly cruel, leaving as it does a ray of hope that the person will turn up safe and well, even in the most doomed circumstances. As days go by, it becomes increasingly unlikely and yet and yet...

  Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

  Missing, Leaving, Rays

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• A prevalent fallacy is the assumption that a proof of an afterlife would also be a proof of the existence of a deity. This is far from being the case. If, as I hold, there is no good reason to believe that a god either created or presides over this world, there is equally no good reason to believe that a god created or presides over the next world, on the unlikely supposition that such a thing exists.

  A.J. Ayer

  Believe, Afterlife, World

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• The vast majority of people do not have, nor will they ever have a personal computer. They haven't been exposed to Windows or Office, or anything like that, and in their lives it's unlikely that they will.

  Stephen Elop

  People, Office, Majority

  "The phone is the key to everything: Microsoft now owns Nokia's device business" by Brad Chacos, www.pcworld.com. April 25, 2014.

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• The idea that He would take his attention away from the universe in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds is just so unlikely I can't go along with it.

  Quentin Crisp

  Order, Ideas, Giving

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• Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Ideas, Trying, Produce

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• Russell Crowe as Capt. Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, .. most unlikely.

  Peter Weir

  World, Sides, Masters

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• An It bag is an It bag, only if you’re unlikely to possess it.

  Plum Sykes

  Bags, Ifs

  "Small is the new big as micro bags takes over the high street" by Morwenna Ferrier, www.theguardian.com. April 8, 2018.

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• Those [scientists] who dislike entertaining contradictory thoughts are unlikely to enrich their science with new ideas.

  Max Planck

  Science, Ideas, Scientist

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• I had read the scripts that Nora Ephron had written as a movie about Mike McAlary. We were never able to make it at HBO because we couldn't cast it properly and when I left I called Nora and said, "Look, I actually think that the movie luckyguyindustry has changed. It's very unlikely that you'd be able to make this as a movie. I actually think it's a play."

  Colin Callender

  Thinking, Play, Hbo

  Source: deadline.com

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• It is possible to move to an enlightened state of mind from a lower bardo or level of awareness. It can happen, but it is extremely unlikely.

  Frederick Lenz

  Moving, Mind, Enlightenment

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• I started to get so many letters from unlikely people; a single mum going, "I watch your show, I'm not into survival, but I hold down four jobs and I get it when you say it's about persistence and putting a positive attitude into things during difficult times." That for me was a great liberator to realize that the show isn't about me running around, jumping off stuff and flexing muscles, it's about inspiring people. That makes me really happy.

  Bear Grylls

  Running, Jobs, Attitude

  "​I Went Camping With Bear Grylls, And Survived". Interview with Wes Siler, gizmodo.com. November 20, 2014.

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• The duke contents himself mainly with attempting to rule the world and other suchlike nonsense. When one is guiding the patterns of the social universe, a single spinster preternatural is unlikely to cause one undue distress.

  Gail Carriger

  World, Patterns, Causes

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• We know that within the solar system is very unlikely there will be anything more advanced than microbial life, but if we think outside the solar system and then, the distances are, of course, immense, then there could be Earth-like planets with more advanced form of life.

  Paul Davies

  Distance, Thinking, Earth

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

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• The more we love, and the more unlikely people we love, the more we resemble God - who, after all, loves ornery creatures like us.

  Philip Yancey

  People, Ornery, Creatures

  Philip Yancey (2014). “Vanishing Grace Study Guide: Whatever Happened to the Good News?”, p.22, Harper Collins

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• True stories are always good because they're so odd, and so unlikely.

  Steven Knight

  Stories, Odd, True Story

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Being thankful helps you to be present.People commit errors because they are not present.I would encourage women and men to be present - you'll avoid falling into certain pits.For instance, if you know that a person has just lost his wife or her husband or lover, it's unlikely that you will say something that will hurt that person's feelings if you're truly paying attention. You'll make a sweeter life for yourself and for those around you if you are present.

  Maya Angelou

  Hurt, Husband, Fall

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• At 55 I said the probability is I won't have another relationship. I just didn't want to start another family. Between my own bizarre criteria and taste and the fact that I'm not available for many things I thought it was unlikely. Once you know the science about it, I don't think anybody should consider being committed to a real eternal relationship until you're through something called the infatuation circle.

  Jack Nicholson

  Real, Thinking, Circles

  Source: the-talks.com

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• The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely."

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Government, Worry, Risk

  "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable". Book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, April 17, 2007.

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• Christina Baker Kline writes exquisitely about two unlikely friends—one, a 91-year-old survivor of the grinding poverty of rural Ireland, immigrant New York and the hardscrabble Midwest; and the other, a casualty of a string of foster homes—each struggling to transcend a past of isolation and hardship. Orphan Train will hold you in its grip as their fascinating tales unfold.

  Cathy Marie Buchanan

  New York, Struggle, Home

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• It's not unlikely that God would lie that would be a matter of probability. It is impossible for God to lie.

  James MacDonald

  Lying, Would Be, Matter

  James MacDonald (2011). “Always True: God's 5 Promises When Life Is Hard”, p.60, Moody Publishers

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• By the laws of statistics we could probably approximate just how unlikely it is that it would happen. But people forget especially those who ought to know better, such as yourself that while the laws of statistics tell you how unlikely a particular coincidence is, they state just as firmly that coincidences do happen.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Law, People, Statistics

  Robert A. Heinlein (1959). “The Door Into Summer”, Roc

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• In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can.

  Barack Obama

  Simple, Odds, Yes We Can

  Barack Obama, (2008). “Change We Can Believe In”, p.222, Canongate Books

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• Today it is generally accepted that although the earliest humans probably ate some meat, it was unlikely to have played a major role in their diet. Plants would have been a much more important source of food.

  Jane Goodall

  Important, Today, Meat

  "Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating". Book by Gail Hudson, Gary McAvoy, Jane Goodall, 2006.

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• Many, perhaps most, very learned people prefer the company of their books to sitting in a crowd listening to history and art being mangled; furthermore, it is unlikely that the venerable scholars will stand up afterward to declare, "This lecture was a load of crap." The more profound a professor's distaste with the proceedings, the more likely he is to melt away at the end of the talk.

  Camille Paglia

  Art, Book, People

  "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf". Camille Paglia, "Arion", Third Series, Volume 1, No. 2, Spring 1991.

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