Wishful Thinking Quotes - Page 4

• Anyone who clings to the historically untrue-and thoroughly immoral-doctrine that, 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Thinking, Issues, Never Settle

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Starship Troopers”, p.27, Penguin

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• it is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Thinking, People, Desire

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1852). “Romance and reality”, p.78

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• Precisely because Marx was convinced that the cause of the proletariat was of decisive importance for the whole future of mankind, he wanted to create for that cause not a flimsy platform of rhetorical invective or wishful thinking, but the rock-like foundation of scientific truth.

  Ernest Mandel

  Thinking, Rocks, Foundation

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• Many of us like to think of financial economics as a science, but complex events like the financial crisis suggest that this conceit may be more wishful thinking than reality.

  Andrew Lo

  Reality, Thinking, Events

  "ANDREW LO: I Read 21 Books About The Financial Crisis And They Explained Nothing" by Rob Wile, www.businessinsider.com. February 6, 2012.

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• Focus on something that has high value to someone else, be really rigorous in making that assessment, because natural human tendency is wishful thinking, so the challenge to entrepreneurs is telling what's the difference between really believing in your ideals and sticking to them as opposed to pursuing some unrealistic dream that doesn't actually have merit, be very rigorous in your self analysis, certainly being extremely tenacious, and just work like hell. Put in 80-100 hours every week. All these things improves the odds of success

  Elon Musk

  Dream, Believe, Thinking

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• Maybe it's wishful thinking, this snaggly faith of mine, or maybe it's Miles Davis saying, Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

  Anne Lamott

  Thinking, Play, Miles

  Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.222, Anchor

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• Our blindest impulses become evidence of perspicacity when they fall in with the course of events.

  Edith Wharton

  Fall, Thinking, Events

  Edith Wharton (2016). “Early Short Stories: American Literature”, p.106, VM eBooks

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• It is possible to wish so greatly for the unattained that in time you believe it has been won - indeed, you can even remember the winning of it.

  Craig L. Rice

  Believe, Winning, Thinking

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• I could be a millionaire if I knew how to make stuff and wasn't afraid of electricity.

  Linda Sunshine

  Thinking, Stuff, Electricity

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• Many of us delude ourselves with the thought that if we could stand in the lot of our more fortunate neighbor, we could live better, happier and more useful lives. ... It is my experience that unless we can succeed in our present position, we could not succeed in any other.

  Helen Keller

  Thinking, Succeed, Neighbor

  Helen Keller (2000). “To Love this Life: Quotations”, p.108, American Foundation for the Blind

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• We must earn the peace we seek just as we earned victory in the war, not by wishful thinking but by realistic effort. At no time in our history has unity among our people been so vital as it is at the present time. Unity of purpose, unity of effort, and unity of spirit are essential to accomplish the task before us.

  Harry S. Truman

  War, Thinking, People

  "Special Message to the Congress on the Threat to the Freedom of Europe". www.presidency.ucsb.edu. March 17, 1948.

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• The article goes on later to say, "Hope is not then something for the future alone, a sort of wishful thinking aout what might be; it offers meaning for us today. Christian hope is founded on certain faith that life is not a meaningless riddle, but a mystery progressively revealed and finding the fulfillment in the redemption won by Jesus Christ and offered to all peoples."

  Raymond J. de Souza

  Christian, Hope, Jesus

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• A goal without real consequences is wishful thinking. Good follow-through doesn't depend on the right intentions. It depends on the right incentives.

  Tim Ferriss

  Real, Thinking, Goal

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• According to Hindu cosmology, we're in the kali yuga, a dark period when the cow of history is balanced precariously on one leg, soon to topple. Then there are our new-age friends who believe that this December we're in for a global cage-rattling which, once the dust has settled, will usher in a great spiritual awakening. Most of this apocalyptic noise appears to be just wishful thinking on the part of people who find life too messy and uncertain for comfort, let alone for serenity and mirth.

  Tom Robbins

  Spiritual, Believe, Dark

  "The Syntax of Sorcery". Interview with Tony Vigorito, realitysandwich.com. June 6, 2012.

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• In Marxism there are some very unhelpful ideas about the need to push for a revolution that will overturn all of society. Marx gets that from Hegel, and it leads to some very bad politics, such as the hope that things must get worse because that will then turn into the antithesis and get better from there. A kind of wishful thinking then grows out of not seeing a realistic path forward.

  Cynthia Kauffman

  Thinking, Ideas, Get Better

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I have frequently said, and I will repeat again, in the manner of any well-meaning seriality, that I'm interested in mixing the ingratiation of wishful thinking with the criticality of knowing better.

  Barbara Kruger

  Thinking, Knowing Better, Mixing

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• We always say we have wishful thinking that the Unites States would be unbiased, respect the international law, doesn't interfere in other countries around the world, and of course to stop supporting terrorists in Syria.

  Bashar al-Assad

  Country, Thinking, Law

  Source: www.globalresearch.ca

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• The notion that better engineering can solve all our problems is rooted in an ignorance of non-linear systems and selective/wishful thinking.

  Charles Hugh Smith

  Ignorance, Thinking, Engineering

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• The existence of life beyond Earth is an ancient human concern. Over the years, however, attempts to understand humanity's place in the cosmos through science often got hijacked by wishful thinking or fabricated tales.

  Jill Tarter

  Thinking, Years, Humanity

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• Nelson Mandela once remarked that he befriended his jailers, those grim, khaki-clad overseers of his decades of hard labor in a limestone quarry, by "exploiting their good qualities." Asked if he believed all people were kind at their core, he responded, "There is no doubt whatsoever, provided you are able to arouse their inherent goodness." If that sounds like wishful thinking, well, he actually did it.

  Marc Ian Barasch

  Life, Thinking, Compassion

  Marc Ian Barasch (2010). “The Compassionate Life: Walking the Path of Kindness”, p.11, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• [Freud's] sense of reality is less clouded by wishful thinking than is the case with other people and [he combines] the qualities of critical judgment, earnestness and responsibility.

  Albert Einstein

  Responsibility, Reality, Thinking

  Albert Einstein (2017). “Einstein on Peace”, p.274, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• Companies can add value and simultaneously promote themselves if their product or service truly improves the lives of their customers. I mean really improve lives, not wishful thinking, rationalization. That's the acid test.

  Guy Kawasaki

  Mean, Thinking, Add

  "Interview: Guy Kawasaki on Reciprocity, Influencers, Ecosystems and the Art of Enchantment". Interview with Ian Greenleigh, www.business2community.com. March 17, 2011.

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• The bubble hasn't popped yet and there's tremendous value in social media. ... But it's wishful thinking to believe that others on the 'me too' bandwagon will survive.

  Peter Fader

  Believe, Thinking, Media

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• Someone with a fresh mind, one not conditioned by upbringing and environment, would doubtless look at science and the powerful reductionism that it inspires as overwhelmingly the better mode of understanding the world, and would doubtless scorn religion as sentimental wishful thinking. Would not that same uncluttered mind also see the attempts to reconcile science and religion by disparaging the reduction of the complex to the simple as attempts guided by muddle-headed sentiment and intellectually dishonest emotion?

  Peter Atkins

  Powerful, Simple, Thinking

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• [Faith] is nothing more than wishful thinking, and the wish is no evidence of anything beyond itself. Yet so many religious people take their wishes for reality.

  Vincent Bugliosi

  Religious, Reality, Thinking

  Vincent Bugliosi (2011). “Divinity of Doubt: The God Question”, p.254, Vanguard Press

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