Arbitrary Quotes - Page 12

• Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different.

  Frances Mayes

  Different, Would Be, Way

  "Under the Tuscan Sun". www.imdb.com. September 26, 2003.

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• Personally, I believe “Young Adult” to be an arbitrary title that means the book "Can be enjoyed by anyone/Has a main character who’s not quite an adult/Isn’t really boring.

  Shannon Hale

  Believe, Book, Character

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• It's so hard to believe in anything anymore, you know what I mean? It's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, 'cause it seems so mythological, and seems so arbitrary; and then on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.

  Steve Martin

  Funny, Believe, Humor

  "A Wild and Crazy Guy". Comedy album by Steve Martin, 1978.

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• Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person's God-given potential.

  Condoleezza Rice

  Dream, Life Changing, Keys

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• The reason it's worth standing up for punctuation is not that it's an arbitrary system of notation known only to an over-sensitive elite who have attacks of the vapours when they see it misapplied. The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning.

  Lynne Truss

  Vapour, Way, Punctuation

  "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation". Book by Lynne Truss, November 6, 2003.

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• Learning should take place when it is needed, when the learner is interested, not according to some arbitrary, fixed schedule

  Donald A. Norman

  Schedules, Should, Fixed

  Donald A. Norman (2007). “Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things”, p.182, Basic Books

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• Each man had only one genuine vocation - to find the way to himself....His task was to discover his own destiny - not an arbitrary one - and to live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one's own inwardness.

  Hermann Hesse

  Work, Destiny, Men

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• To create a community of radical scholars, men and women who recognize that rules and social conventions are arbitrary, but have mastered them nonetheless, a community which shares such a scorn and disrespect for the present society that it can embrace the whole bundle of rules and subvert them thereby, that should be our goal.

  Howard Adelman

  Men, Goal, Community

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• What is time? The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand, day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries-these are but arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of Time, not Time itself. Time is the Life of the Soul.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Inspirational, Summer, Running

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1854). “The Works of Henry W. Longfellow”

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• The line we draw between animals that are socially acceptable and those we find repugnant can be awfully arbitrary.

  Alexandra Harney

  Animal, Lines, Draws

  "A Love Story About... A Rat Named Mr. Tiffany" by Alexandra Harney, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 9, 2013.

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• I just think lots of words have physicality. How about the word 'wobble?' You think that's arbitrary? When you say the word 'wince,' you wince. How about that?

  Roy Blount, Jr.

  Thinking, Wince, Physicality

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• I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing.

  Mark Twain

  Clothes, Use, Might

  Mark Twain (2002). “Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 6: 1874-1875”, p.660, Univ of California Press

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• A slave government is an oligarchy; and one, too, of the most arbitrary and criminal character.

  Lysander Spooner

  Character, Government, Criminals

  Lysander Spooner (1845). “The Unconstitutionality of Slavery”, p.125

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• People who don't like my work say that the connections seem too arbitrary. But that's how life is.

  Paul Auster

  People, Connections, Life Is

  "Paul Auster: 'I'm going to speak out as often as I can, otherwise I can't live with myself'". Interview with Paul Laity, www.theguardian.com. January 20, 2017.

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• The birth of science rang the death-knell of an arbitrary and constantly interposing Supreme Power.

  Annie Besant

  Birth, Supreme, Supreme Power

  Annie Besant (2012). “The Theosophical Writings of Annie Besant”, p.226, Jazzybee Verlag

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• I try to very hard to avoid a situation where I would be eating cat or dog; I've managed to gracefully avoid that. It's hypocritical of me and an arbitrary line, but one that I have managed to avoid crossing.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Dog, Cat, Trying

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• My father was a Little League dictator. That really affected me, his control-freakery, his impunity, his arbitrary unreasonable power.

  Junot Diaz

  Father, League, Littles

  Interview with Meghan O'Rourke, www.slate.com. April 8, 2008.

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• I don't concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to do, acting becomes a lot more fun and pure.

  Jesse Eisenberg

  Fun, Character, Thinking

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• Charities are really good. To a certain extent, the ones you pick are arbitrary.

  Penn Jillette

  Charity, Certain, Picks

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• 'Arbitrary' and 'odd' are the words which best describe the pattern of my career. I'm perpetually baffled by the whole thing.

  Moby

  Careers, Patterns, Baffled

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• One of the reasons why fundamentalists are so aggressive in trying to promote fundamentalism is because deep down they know it's arbitrary. If you're comfortable with your belief you don't need to convince other people to agree with you.

  Moby

  People, Trying, Needs

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• At times, in medicine, you feel you are inside a colossal and impossibly complex machine whose gears will turn for you only according to their own arbitrary rhythm. The notion that human caring, the effort to do better for people, might make a difference can seem hopelessly naive. But it isn't.

  Atul Gawande

  Caring, Medicine, Differences

  Atul Gawande (2010). “Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance”, p.10, Profile Books

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• Indeed, there is nothing more arbitrary than intervening as a stranger in a destiny which is not ours.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Destiny, Existential, Stranger

  Martin Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre (2016). “The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism”, p.99, Open Road Media

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• A word is an arbitrary label - that's the foundation of linguistics. But many people think otherwise. They believe in word magic: that uttering a spell, incantation, curse, or prayer can change the world. Don't snicker: Would you ever say, 'Nothing has gone wrong yet' without looking for wood to knock?

  Steven Pinker

  Prayer, Believe, Thinking

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• You can build a statistical model and that's all well and good, but if you're dealing with a new type of financial instrument, for example, or a new type of situation - then the choices you're making are pretty arbitrary in a lot of respects.

  Nate Silver

  Choices, Example, Financial

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