Unthinkable Quotes - Page 9

• Creativity requires the freedom to consider 'unthinkable' alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices. Every organization, every society is under the spell of assumptions so familiar that they are never questioned, least of all by those most intimately involved.

  John W. Gardner

  Art, Creativity, Practice

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• Before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable, a dystopian fantasy of a society that had surrendered privacy and anonymity.

  Jeffrey Rosen

  Government, Surveillance Cameras, Shopping

  "A Watchful State" by Jeffrey Rosen, www.nytimes.com. October 7, 2001.

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• They were so exhausted and seasick and all they could do was crawl up those beaches. And thousands of them lay dead in no time at all. It's unthinkable.

  Barry Pepper

  Beach, Exhausted, Lays

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• That was how divorced from the human scale modern warfare had become. You could smash and destroy from unthinkable distances, obliterate planets from beyond their own system and provoke stars into novae from light-years off... and still have no good idea why you were really fighting.

  Iain Banks

  Stars, Distance, Fighting

  "Consider Phlebas (The Culture, Book 1)". Book by Iain Banks (Chapter 2 "The Hand of God 137", p. 32), 1987.

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• Historically, I guess that's how science fiction works: you start by using aliens to think the unthinkable — and then, eventually, another writer, having grown a little more comfortable with the earlier notion, brings it into the human.

  Samuel R. Delany

  Thinking, Fiction, Littles

  "Space Cowboy: An Interview with Samuel R. Delany". Interview with Scott Westerfeld, www.nerve.com. 2001.

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• Australia without the Irish would be unthinkable... unimaginable... unspeakable.

  Paul Keating

  Australia, Would Be, Unimaginable

  "Ned Kelly and 'Mary Poppins' Writer Among Top Irish-Australians". www.irishtimes.com. August 19, 2009.

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• As we have come to understand the psychology of evil, we have realized that such transformations of human character are not as rare as we would like to believe. Historical inquiry and behavioral science have demonstrated the "banality of evil" -- that is, under certain conditions and social pressures, ordinary people can commit acts that would otherwise be unthinkable.

  Philip Zimbardo

  Believe, Character, Evil

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• The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable.

  C. Vann Woodward

  War, Thinking, Discovery

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• The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving. I didn't want to destroy anything or anybody. I just wanted to slip quietly out the back door, without causing any fuss or consequences, and then not stop running until I reached Greenland.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Running, Divorce, Doors

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2009). “Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything”, p.13, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.

  William Gibson

  Light, Data, Cities

  1984 Neuromancer. This is the first recorded use of the term 'cyberspace'.

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• Life without music is unthinkable. Life without music is academic. That is why my contact with music is a total embrace.

  Leonard Bernstein

  Academic, Embrace, Life Without Music

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• Out yonder they may curse, revile, and torture one another, defile all the human instincts, make a shambles of creation (if it were in their power), but here, no, here, it is unthinkable, here there is abiding peace, the peace of God, and the serene security created by a handful of good neighbors living at one with the creature world.

  Henry Miller

  Peace, May, Abiding

  Henry Miller (1957). “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch”, p.404, New Directions Publishing

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• Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers
  and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt
  of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of
  sheep against the practice of eating mutton.

  Bertrand Russell

  Sheep, Practice, Differences

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Impact of Science On Society”, p.44, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Creativity requires the freedom to consider unthinkable alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices.

  John W. Gardner

  Freedom, Creativity, Practice

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• The fact of being an underdog changes people in ways that we often fail to appreciate. It opens doors and creates opportunities and enlightens and permits things that might otherwise have seemed unthinkable.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Opportunity, Doors, People

  "Malcolm Gladwell: 'If my books appear oversimplified, then you shouldn't read them'" by Oliver Burkeman, www.theguardian.com. September 29, 2013.

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• It was just one of those things," I said, "You know, that just happen. You don't think or plan. You just do it.

  Sarah Dessen

  Thinking, Said, Plans

  Sarah Dessen (2006). “The Truth About Forever”, p.173, Penguin

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• Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Each Day, Becoming

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• It was a time when the unthinkable became the thinkable and the impossible really happened

  Arundhati Roy

  Impossible, Happened, Thinkable

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• If you have ever, sir, been through a breakup of a romantic relationship that involved great love, you will perhaps understand what I experienced. There is in such situations usually a moment of passion during which the unthinkable is said; this is followed by a sense of euphoria at finally being liberated; the world seems fresh as if seen for the first time then comes the inevitable period of doubt, the desperate and doomed backpedaling of regret; and only later, once emotions have receded, is one able to view with equanimity the journey through which one has passed.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Breakup, Regret, Love You

  Mohsin Hamid (2007). “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, p.158, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In this country that grows more food than any other nation on this earth, it is unthinkable that any child should go hungry.

  Sela Ward

  Country, Children, Food Banks

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• Life without music is unthinkable.

  Leonard Bernstein

  Music Is, Life Without Music, Without Music

  Leonard Bernstein (1982). “Findings”, Anchor

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• It is unthinkable to allow complete strangers, whether individually or collectively as state legislators or others in government, to make such personal decisions for someone else.

  Sarah Weddington

  Government, Abortion, Decision

  Sarah Ragle Weddington (1993). “A question of choice”, Penguin Group USA

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• I want you to back yourself into a corner. Give yourself no choice but to succeed. Let the consequences of failure become so dire and so unthinkable that you’ll have no choice but to do whatever it takes to succeed.

  Jordan Belfort

  Giving, Choices, Want

  Jordan Belfort (2007). “The Wolf of Wall Street”, p.98, Bantam

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• Perhaps the way to meet tomorrow's challenges is not to use yesterday's solutions, but to dare to think the previously unthinkable, to speak the previously unspeakable, and to try that which was previously out of the question.

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Thinking, Yesterday, Challenges

  Neale Donald Walsch (2005). “The Complete Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue”, p.202, Penguin

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• It is all a matter of time scale. An event that would be unthinkable in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million.

  Carl Sagan

  Years, May, Matter

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.98, Ballantine Books

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