Fortuitous Quotes - Page 2

• At quite uncertain times and places,
  The atoms left their heavenly path,
  And by fortuitous embraces,
  Engendered all that being hath.
  And though they seem to cling together,
  And form 'associations' here,
  Yet, soon or late, they burst their tether,
  And through the depths of space career.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Careers, Space

  James Clerk Maxwell, “Molecular Evolution”

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• The body is a fortuitous concourse of atoms. There is no death for the body, only an exchange of atoms. Their changing places and taking different forms is what we call 'death.' It's a process which restores the energy level in nature that has gone down. In reality, nothing is born and nothing is dead.

  U.G. Krishnamurti

  Reality, Energy, Different

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• Humans arose ... as a fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events, any one of which could have occurred differently and sent history on an alternative pathway that would not have led to consciousness.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Pathways, Events, Alternatives

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• I see no reason to believe that a creator of protoplasm or primeval matter, if such there be, has any reason to be interested in our insignificant race in a tiny corner of the universe, and still less in us, as still more insignificant individuals. Again, I see no reason why the belief that we are insignificant or fortuitous should lessen our faith.

  Rosalind Franklin

  Believe, Science, Race

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• When we contemplate the world of Epicurus, and conceive the universe to be a fortuitous jumble of atoms, there is nothing grand in this idea. The clashing of atoms by blind chance has nothing in it fit to raise our conceptions, or to elevate the mind. But the regular structure of a vast system of beings, produced by creating power, and governed by the best laws which perfect wisdom and goodness could contrive, is a spectacle which elevates the understanding, and fills the soul with devout admiration.

  Thomas Reid

  Law, Ideas, Creating

  Thomas Reid, William Hamilton, Harry M. Bracken, Thomas Reid, Sir William Hamilton (1967). “Philosophical Works”, p.496, Georg Olms Verlag

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• Photographs should celebrate the contingent, the spontaneous, the incomplete, the fortuitous. Direct, unblinking vision should be coupled with deliberate indifference as to subject. The ironic goal is a scrupulous recording of whatever chance brings to hand.

  Douglas McCulloh

  Hands, Goal, Ironic

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• It is conceivable that animal life might have the attribute of using the heat of surrounding matter, at its natural temperature, as a source of energy for mechanical effect . . . .The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific enquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms.

  Lord Kelvin

  Moving, Animal, Vegetables

  "The Life of Lord Kelvin, Volume 2" by Silvanus Phillips, (2005 edition, p. 1093), 1910.

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• They whose activity of imagination is often shifting the scenes of expectation, are frequently subject to such sallies of caprice as make all their actions fortuitous, destroy the value of their friendship, obstruct the efficacy of their virtues, and set them below the meanest of those who persist in their resolutions, execute what they design, and perform what they have promised.

  Samuel Johnson

  Imagination, Expectations, Focus

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.343

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• I like to summarize what I regard as the pedestal-smashing messages of Darwin's revolution in the following statement, which might be chanted several times a day, like a Hare Krishna mantra, to encourage penetration into the soul: Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought, a tiny little twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life, which, if replanted from seed, would almost surely not grow this twig again, or perhaps any twig with any property that we would care to call consciousness.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Soul, Progress, Pedestal

  "Dinosaur in a Haystack". Book by Stephen Jay Gould, "Can We Complete Darwin's Revolution?", p. 327, 1995.

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• Fortuitous mostly for me,Lady Holloway," she said, her gaze steadfast on her husband. "For without our being childhgood neighbors, I am certain that my husband woud never have found me." Michael's gaze lit with admiration, and he lifted his glass in her direction. "At some point I would have realized what I was missing, darling. An I would have come looking for you.

  Sarah MacLean

  Husband, Glasses, Missing

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• In August of 1921, one of the great American combinations was unveiled—even better than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This fortuitous new blend was radio and baseball.

  George Vecsey

  Baseball, August, Radio

  George Vecsey (2008). “Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game”, p.95, Modern Library

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• Painting embraces and contains within itself all the things which nature produces or which results from the fortuitous actions of men... he is but a poor master who makes only a single figure well.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Men, Action, Painting

  Leonardo da Vinci (2008). “Notebooks”, p.213, OUP Oxford

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• Composition is a side issue. Its role in my selection of photographs is a negative one at best. By which I mean that the fascination of a photograph is not in its eccentric composition but in what it has to say: its information content. And, on the other hand, composition always also has its own fortuitous rightness.

  Gerhard Richter

  Art, Mean, Issues

  Gerhard Richter, Dietmar Elger, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (2009). “Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007”

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• The greatest dread of ordinary man is death, with its rude imposition interrupting fortuitous plans and fondest attachments with an unknown and unwelcome change. The yogi is a conqueror of the grief associated with death. By control of mind and life force and the development of wisdom, he makes friends with the change of consciousness called death-he becomes familiar with the state of inner calmness and aloofness from identification with the mortal body.

  Paramahansa Yogananda

  Death, Grief, Men

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• There is no explanation in the Big Bang theory for the seemingly fortuitous fact that the density of matter has just the right value for the evolution of a benign, life supporting universe.

  Robert Jastrow

  Bangs, Density, Matter

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• How is it to be explained that something inside me revolts against the playing of obvious moves? Perhaps we may perceive the underlying reason in the fact that I derive satisfaction from seeking to reveal the concealed meaning of a position by means of maneuvering play and therefore I do not wish to see this satisfaction curtailed by a banal, more or less fortuitous decision. Naturally, this phenomenon is played out beneath the threshold of consciousness. The waking consciousness will, of course, in each individual case, give preference to the more rapid means of deciding the game.

  Aron Nimzowitsch

  Moving, Mean, Games

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• The short story that eventually grew into Constellation was the first fiction set in Russia that I'd ever written, and that was right around the time I was giving up on a doomed, never-to-be-seen first novel. While I saw it could be something bigger, in hindsight fortuitous timing was as responsible as anything.

  Anthony Marra

  Giving Up, Russia, Saws

  Source: therumpus.net

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• And then, one acting class turned into two, turned into four, and then turned into, "I love this. I could do this for the rest of my life. But, I don't have a background in acting. I never acted in college, or did anything like that. How can I go about doing this?" That meant going to grad school and getting some training, and I did. I literally walked down the path. It was real fortuitous for me to walk by that school, that one morning.

  Tim Kang

  Morning, Real, School

  Source: collider.com

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• He that resigns his peace to little casualties, and suffers the course of his life to be interrupted for fortuitous inadvertencies or offences, delivers up himself to the direction of the wind, and loses all that constancy and equanimity which constitutes the chief praise of a wise man.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Men, Wind

  Samuel Johnson (1793). “The Rambler”, p.254

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• I like to summarize what I regard as the pedestal-smashing messages of Darwin's revolution in the following statement, which might be chanted several times a day, like a Hare Krishna mantra, to encourage penetration into the soul: Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Atheism, Cosmic, Afterthought

  "Dinosaur in a Haystack". Book by Stephen Jay Gould, "Can We Complete Darwin's Revolution?" (p. 327), 1995.

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• I didn't start acting until I was 27, and that was just through Gary Shandling and Ben Stiller who I knew through stand-up. And they both in the same year offered me parts on their programs which was unbelievably lucky and fortuitous.

  Janeane Garofalo

  Years, Acting, Lucky

  Source: brightestyoungthings.com

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• The Artist submits from day to day to the fatal rhythm of the impulses of the universal world which encloses him, continual centre of sensations, always pliant, hypnotized by the marvels of nature which he loves, he scrutinizes. His eyes, like his soul, are in perpetual communion with the most fortuitous of phenomena.

  Odilon Redon

  Eye, Artist, Soul

  Michael Wilson, Odilon Redon (1978). “Nature and Imagination: The Work of Odilon Redon”, Phaidon Press

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