Unlikely Quotes - Page 7

• 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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• When you think you're alone, when you think there's no one in this world who'll stand up for you, look around and make sure you're right. Friends can appear in the most unlikely people, and are often right in front of you.

  Richard Thornton

  Friendship, Thinking, People

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• The charge is often made against the intelligentsia and other members of the anointed that their theories and the policies based on them lack common sense. But the very commonness of common sense makes it unlikely to have any appeal to the anointed. How can they be wiser and nobler than everyone else while agreeing with everyone else?

  Thomas Sowell

  Common Sense, Made, Theory

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• With the destruction of history, contemporary events themselves retreat into a remote and fabulous realm of unverifiable stories, uncheckable statistics, unlikely explanations and untenable reasoning.

  Guy Debord

  Events, Stories, Statistics

  Guy Debord (1998). “Comments on the Society of the Spectacle”, p.16, Verso

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• It is unlikely Yanukovich won. If he did, his government made it impossible to determine.

  Bob Schaffer

  Government, Impossible, Made

  "Go Orange!". National Review Online Interview, www.nationalreview.com. November 30, 2004.

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• I think perhaps love thrives on unlikely circumstances and chance: life thrives on these principles, and is life not love? And love not life?

  Brandon Boyd

  Thinking, Perhaps Love, And Love

  "White Fluffy Clouds: Found Inspiration Moving Forward". Book by Brandon Boyd, 2003.

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• War as Napoleon knew it just not possible any more. However, we're very unlikely to accept or recognize "world peace" even when we get it.

  Bruce Sterling

  Peace, War, Literature

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• The more images I gathered from the past, I said, the more unlikely it seemed to me that the past had actually happened in this or that way, for nothing about it could be called normal: most of it was absurd, and if not absurd, then appalling.

  W. G. Sebald

  Past, Way, Normal

  W. G. Sebald (2016). “Vertigo”, p.106, New Directions Publishing

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• Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice.

  Robert Fripp

  Music, Character, Voice

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• Yeah, there's some unlikely beasts in the world, and it's best to stay near the ones that you've bought drinks for.

  Tim Powers

  World, Drink, Beast

  Tim Powers (2016). “The Ghosts of the Past: Three historical novels by Tim Powers”, p.186, Atlantic Books

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• At one point I intended to write precursor and sequel novels, about the establishment of the Web and its next evolution, but I am very unlikely to now; they would take place in a different universe.

  John M. Ford

  Writing, Different Universes, Next

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• It is highly unlikely that an airplane, or fleet of them, could ever sink a fleet of Navy vessels under battle conditions.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Airplane, Navy, Battle

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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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• A head start is rarely large enough to matter, and time spent in stealth mode-away from customers-is unlikely to provide a head start. The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.

  Eric Ries

  Winning, Matter, Way

  Eric Ries (2011). “The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses”, p.111, Crown Business

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• Oak trees come out of acorns, no matter how unlikely that seems. An acorn is just a tree's way back into the ground. For another try. Another trip through. One life for another.

  Shirley Ann Grau

  Life, Tree, Trying

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• If turning from your sins means to stop sinning, then people can only be saved if they stop sinning. And it is unlikely that anyone has ever been saved, since we don't know anyone who has ever stopped sinning.

  Curtis Hutson

  Mean, People, Sin

  Curtis Hutson (2000). “Salvation Crystal Clear”, p.320, Sword of the Lord Publishers

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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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• 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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• Yet, upon the whole, the space I traversed is unlikely to become the haunt of civilized man, or will only become so in isolated spots, as a chain of connection to a more fertile country; if such a country exist to the westward.

  Charles Sturt

  Country, Men, Space

  Charles Sturt (1834). “Two expeditions into the interior of Southern Australia: during the years 1828, 1829, 1830 and 1831 with observations on ... New South Wales”, p.48

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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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• Sacredness grew like a pearl, sometimes around the most unlikely bits of grit.

  S.M. Stirling

  Grit, Pearls, Sometimes

  S. M. Stirling (2012). “Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change”, p.23, Penguin

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• So even the most unlikely events have to take place somewhere.

  David Lindsay-Abaire

  Events

  David Lindsay-Abaire (2011). “Rabbit Hole (movie tie-in)”, p.143, Theatre Communications Group

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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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• 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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