Unlikely Quotes - Page 6

I told him last Monday that I felt the way things were going it was unlikely that I would be able to vote for the legislation.

Lucinda Creighton

Monday, Gay, Would Be

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Any man who is only an economist is unlikely to be a good one.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Men, Economics, Economist

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Given the complexity of interpersonal relationships and institutions and the complexity of co-ordination of the actions of many people, it is enormously unlikely that, even if there were one ideal pattern for society, it could be arrived at in an a priori fashion. And even supposing that some great genius did come along with a blueprint, who could have the confidence that it could work

Robert Nozick

Fashion, Supposing That, People

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Daily prayers can help us keep on the path that leads to eternal life. We are very unlikely to stray if we offer a humble, simple prayer at least each morning and evening to express thanks and to seek divine guidance.

Joseph B. Wirthlin

Life, Morning, Prayer

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Fiction, with its preference for what is small and might elsewhere seem irrelevant; its facility for smuggling us into another skin and allowing us to live a new life there; its painstaking devotion to what without it might go unnoticed and unseen; its respect for contingency, and the unlikely and odd; its willingness to expose itself to moments of low, almost animal being and make them nobly illuminating, can deliver truths we might not otherwise stumble on.

David Malouf

Animal, Skins, Unseen

David Malouf (2011). “The Happy Life: The Search for Contentment in the Modern World”, p.87, Black Inc.

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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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For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects.

James Madison

Too Much, Reason, Members

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.219

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Fear is a distorting mirror in which anything can appear as a caricature of itself, stretched to terrible proportions; once inflamed, the imagination pursues the craziest and most unlikely possibilities. What is most absurd suddenly seems the most probable.

Stefan Zweig

Fear, Mirrors, Imagination

Stefan Zweig (2009). “The Post Office Girl”, Sort of

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Humor, danger and a twisted tangle of unlikely prophecies make for a page-turning adventure.

Gail Z. Martin

Adventure, Pages Turning, Twisted

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Honestly, my character doesn't have much in common with Harry Potter besides the fact that he's an unlikely hero who's thrown into a huge situation.

Logan Lerman

Hero, Character, Facts

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None but the most blindly credulous will imagine the characters and events in this story to be anything but fictitious. It is true that the ancient and noble city of Oxford is, of all the towns of England, the likeliest progenitor of unlikely events and persons. But there are limits.

Edmund Crispin

Character, Cities, Oxford

Edmund Crispin (2014). “The Moving Toyshop”, p.6, A&C Black

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It's easy to see why conservatives would be salivating at the thought of a Hillary primary challenge. Presidents who face serious primary challenges—Ford, Carter, Bush I—almost always lose. The last president who lost reelection without a serious primary challenge, by contrast, was Herbert Hoover. But in truth, the chances that Obama will face a primary challenge are vanishingly slim, and the chances that he will lose reelection only slightly higher. No wonder conservatives are fantasizing about Hillary Clinton taking down Barack Obama. If she doesn't, it's unlikely they will.

Peter Beinart

Challenges, President, Would Be

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First, we are born in the same galaxy. Born of the same species. Our lifetimes overlap. The meetings between humans are so unlikely as to be miraculous. To laugh, to cry, and to fall in love. Everyone is made up of a collection of 1% chances. Thus, I am dazzled by the fact that there are so many miracles in this world.

Hikaru Nakamura

Falling In Love, Laughing, Lap

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Any regeneration project that fails to put environmental and social benefits at its very heart is unlikely to achieve anything more than a very short-lived spasm of spurious prosperity

Jonathon Porritt

Future, Heart, Vision

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I started off believing all men were equal. I now know that's the most unlikely thing ever to have been, because millions of years have passed over evolution, people have scattered across the face of this earth, been isolated from each other, developed independently, had different intermixtures between races, peoples, climates, soils... I didn't start off with that knowledge. But by observation, reading, watching, arguing, asking, that is the conclusion I've come to.

Lee Kuan Yew

Believe, Reading, Men

"Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas". Book by Han Fook Kwang, Warren Fernandez, Sumiko Tan, 1997.

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Inspiration comes whenever it wants, even at the most unlikely times and in the most inappropriate situations. Often it arrives bit by bit. Therefore it must be anchored, and this is where a most valuable item makes its appearance: the notebook.

Piero Ferrucci

Notebook, Inspiration, Want

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As a people, we value family, education and success. Hunger is an enemy to all three. Scientific studies have demonstrated that even brief periods of hunger can permanently inhibit a child's mental, emotional and physical growth. Kids who are hungry do poorly in school and are unlikely to grow into productive adults. For families, experiencing hunger means living in a world of isolation and shame. Caring citizens must put an end to this disgrace.

Ted Danson

Children, School, Mean

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We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world will choose to end its orgy of fossil energy consumption, and the Third World its suicidal consumption of landscape. Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.

David Graeber

Suicidal, Energy, Viruses

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It is unlikely that God's plan for the universe includes making you rich.

Max Gunther

God's Plan, Rich, Plans

Max Gunther (2005). “The Zurich Axioms: The rules of risk and reward used by generations of Swiss bankers”, p.103, Harriman House Limited

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Where do new ideas come from? The answer is simple: differences. While there are many theories of creativity, the only tenet they all share is that creativity comes from unlikely juxtapositions. The best way to maximize differences is to mix ages, cultures, and disciplines.

Nicholas Negroponte

Creativity, Simple, Ideas

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It is sound planning that invariably earns us the outcome we want; without it, even the gods are unlikely to look with favour on our designs.

Herodotus

Design, Outcomes, Favour

Herodotus (2008). “The Histories”, p.508, OUP Oxford

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It is unlikely that we will ever see a star being born. Stars are like animals in the wild. We may see the very young, but never their actual birth, which is a veiled and secret event. Stars are born inside thick clouds of dust and gas in the spiral arms of the galaxy, so thick that visible light cannot penetrate them.

Heinz Pagels

Stars, Science, Animal

Heinz R. Pagels (1985). “Perfect symmetry: the search for the beginning of time”, Simon & Schuster

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I suppose I'm the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it's the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other.

Alan Bennett

Hands, Ballet, Collaboration

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Politicians are forever coming up with 'solutions' to virtually every imaginable imperfection in life. But, if we give them more power and more of our money, we are very unlikely to end up better off on net balance.

Thomas Sowell

Giving, Imperfection, Forever

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A blown-out tube ripped some of the grind from the amplifier, throwing us into a momentary tizzy. The unusual sound led me to play unusually, and the recorded take turned out to be a keeper. Insriration can come from the most unlikely places ... keep your head on and your ears open.

Billy Gibbons

Music, Play, Sound

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