Billions Quotes - Page 26

• Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit. So here we are several billion of us, crowded into our global concentration camp for the duration. How are we to survive? Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor, which in this case means a wry acceptance of our predicament. We don't have to like it but we can at least recognize its ridiculous aspects, one of which is ourselves.

  Ogden Nash

  Lying, Mean, Acceptance

  "A Gleeful Splash of Ogden Nash" by Jonathan Yardley, www.washingtonpost.com. May 08, 2005.

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• Separate from the other unnamed billions who walk the earth, each of these little groups of three or five or twelve, brought together by the shuffle of chance, then welded by blood, sees in itself the whole of earth, or all that matters of it. What happens to one of the three or five or twelve will happen to them all. Whatever grief or triumph may touch any one will touch every one, as they are carried forward into the unknowable under the brilliant, terrifying sun which nourishes all.

  Belva Plain

  Family, Grief, Blood

  Belva Plain (2009). “Evergreen”, p.441, Dell

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• Theres one fundamental law that all of nature obeys that mankind breaks every day. Now, this is a law thats evolved over billions of years, and the law is this: Nothing in nature takes more than it needs.

  Tom Shadyac

  Years, Law, Needs

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• I balanced the budget for four straight years, paid off $405 billion in debt - pretty conservative. The first entitlement reform of your lifetime - in fact, the only major entitlement reform now is welfare.

  Newt Gingrich

  Years, Four, Firsts

  "Cain to Push Passage of 9-9-9 Plan if Conservative Republican Occupies White House". "Hannity", www.foxnews.com. December 16, 2011.

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• My life goal is to see the world's one billion people with disabilities embraced and encouraged by the church.

  Joni Eareckson Tada

  People, Goal, Church

  "Joni Eareckson Tada on Wilberforce Award, 'Better Off Dead Than Disabled' Mentality". Interview with Eryn Sun, www.christianpost.com. March 16, 2012.

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• A billion dollars isnt what it used to be.

  Nelson Bunker Hunt

  Dollars, Used, Used To Be

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• The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure and teenage girls are paying the real price.

  Cecile Richards

  Girl, Teenage, Real

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• If we ensure access to health care and 'best practice' asthma treatment for children, especially those at high risk, there is the potential to save the health care system billions of dollars.

  Irwin Redlener

  Children, Best Practices, Risk

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• This is the assembly of life that took a billion years to evolve. It has eaten the storms - folded them into its genes - and created the world that created us. It holds the world steady.

  E. O. Wilson

  Years, Storm, World

  "The Diversity of Life". Book by Edward O. Wilson, 1992.

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• This influential, yet controversial idea requires that the mixture of species on Earth at any moment acts as a collective organism that continuously (yet unwittingly) tunes Earth's atmospheric composition and climate to promote the presence of life... But I'd bet there are some dead Martians and Venusians who advanced the same theory about their own planets a billion years ago.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Science, Ideas, Years

  Neil deGrasse Tyson (2007). “Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries”, p.210, W. W. Norton & Company

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• [M]y conception of liberty does not permit an individual citizen or a group of citizens to commit acts of depredation against nature in such a way as to harm their neighbors and especially to harm the future generations of Americans. If many years ago we had had the necessary knowledge, and especially the necessary willingness on the part of the Federal Government, we would have saved a sum, a sum of money which has cost the taxpayers of America two billion dollars.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Government, Years, Two

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• It will be good for us in the long run, and I mean there are six and a half billion people in this world. And it's great for 300 million to keep enjoying more and more property, but I think it's terrific if the remainder do. And I think if they can learn something from us in terms of our system, and I think they have, they are learning more about how to unleash the potential of their citizenry to turn out more goods and services that their citizens want or that we want, I think that's terrific.

  Howard Warren Buffett

  Running, Mean, Thinking

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• Somebody's buying these treasury bills at 1/20th of one percent. I mean we consuming about $2 billion a day of goods and services beyond what we're producing.As long as we consume more than we produce, and we trade away little pieces of the country daily, they're going to own something. Now, they can't run from American assets. I mean every day the rest of the world is going to have about two billion more of American assets than we have, as long as they sell us these goods.

  Howard Warren Buffett

  Running, Country, Mean

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• Somebody's buying these treasury bills at 1/20th of one percent. I mean we consuming about $2 billion a day of goods and services beyond what we're producing.And it reflects American's consumption ideas rather than its savings ideas.

  Howard Warren Buffett

  Mean, Ideas, Buying

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• All these different groups of people that are put right in the path of billions of dollars of American tax payers' money. If I had enough time I could have named all of those people [in the song], too! The song would have been 400 minutes long.

  John Fogerty

  Song, Long, People

  Interview with Joshua Klein, pitchfork.com. November 27, 2007.

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• The rewards we get by being those weird guys going against the grain to me are way more massive than selling a million billion records. I like climbing mountains or going on undersea dives for whales and stuff like that.

  Lupe Fiasco

  Whales, Climbing, Guy

  Interview with Joseph Hooper, www.elle.com. April 15, 2009.

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• At today's prices for medicines, doctors and hospitals-if the latter are available at any price-only millionaires can afford to be hurt or sick and pay for it. Very few people want socialized medicine in the U.S. But pressure for it is going to appear with the same hurricane force as the demand for pollution control if the medicine men and hospital operators don't take soon some Draconian measures... At the present rate of doctor fees and hospital costs under Medicare and Medicaid plans [taxpayers] are shovelling in billions with nothing but escalation in sight.

  Malcolm Forbes

  Hurt, Men, Doctors

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• It's discouraging how hard it is for a President to slice away large chunks of a $305 billion budget.

  Gerald R. Ford

  President, Discouraging, Chunks

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• All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star stuff.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Blood, Years

  Carl Sagan (1973). “Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective”, p.190, Cambridge University Press

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• China's Premier Zhao Ziyang, for all of his billion constituents, seemed in the evening's lovely flow like a favorite uncle, smiling a little too much, wanting to be a bit American, talking about peace and pork chops.

  Hugh Sidey

  Uncles, Talking, Favorite Uncle

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• Since China has a population of 1.1 billion, it won't feel lonely even if it becomes the only socialist country.

  Li Peng

  Country, Lonely, Socialist Countries

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• If some Western politician claims he is in a position to use the normal Western methods to feed and clothe 1.2 billion Chinese, we would be happily prepared to elect him president of China.

  Li Peng

  Chinese, President, Normal

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• Someone is an ignoramus who would say that, 'Oh, we had three hurricanes this year. This proves that somehow the climate is warming.' The earth is 4.5 billion years old, and you're going to say that we had four hurricanes and so it proves a theory?

  Rand Paul

  Nature, Party, Science

  "Rand Paul bashes ‘alarmist,’ ‘ignoramus’ climate change claims" By Aaron Blake, www.washingtonpost.com. April 23, 2014.

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• In truth we are not separate from each other or from the world, from the whole earth, the sun or moon or billions of stars, not separate from the entire universe. Listening silently in quiet wonderment, without knowing anything, there is just one mysteriously palpitating aliveness.

  Toni Packer

  Stars, Moon, Knowing

  Toni Packer (2007). “The Light of Discovery”, p.110, Shambhala Publications

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• Standardized tests are an indicator of the kind of service taxpayers are receiving - and whether schools, educators and policymakers are doing their jobs. In the United States, taxpayers spend almost $600 billion annually on public education, so it's not unreasonable to ask what all that money is producing. In fact, it's irresponsible not to know.

  Michelle Rhee

  Leadership, Education, Money

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