Ifs Quotes - Page 7

• Without doubt, matter is unlimited in extent, and, in this sense, infinite; and the forces of Nature mould it into an innumerable number of worlds. Would it be at all astonishing if, from the universal dice-box, out of an innumberable number of throws, there should be thrown out one world infinitely perfect? Nay, does not the calculus of probabilities prove to us that one such world out of an infinite number, must be produced of necessity?

  William Batchelder Greene

  Numbers, Perfect, Doubt

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• If it be true that God and man are in one image or likeness (and the affirmation that they are so is not unplausible) then it is the duty of man to bring out into its full splendor that Divine Image which is latent, on one side, in the complexity of his own nature.

  William Batchelder Greene

  Men, Sides, Splendor

  William Batchelder Greene (1872). “The blazing star; with an appendix treating of the Jewish Kabbala, also a tract on the philosophy of H. Spencer, and one on New-England transcendentalism”, p.4

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• If the people at the top think that reaching for a gun will solve the problem, why shouldn't the people at the bottom think the same?

  Michael Moorcock

  Gun, Thinking, People

  "The Eternal Champion". Book by Michael Moorcock, 1970.

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• If I cared for human approval, I would have been dead long ago.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Long Ago, Approval, Humans

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2012). “The Drowned Cities: Number 2 in series”, p.71, Hachette UK

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• Nature has become something new. It is ours now, truly. And if our creation devours us, how poetic will that be?

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Poetic, Creation, Something New

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2010). “The Windup Girl”, p.214, Hachette UK

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• They say in the military that a good battle plan can last as long as five minutes in real fighting. After that, it comes down to if the general is favored by fate and the spirits.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Military, Real, Fighting

  "The Windup Girl". Book by Paolo Bacigalupi, 2009.

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• There was a positive side to not trying at something: you could always pretend that your life would have been different if you had.

  Chris Abani

  Trying, Sides, Different

  Chris Abani (2005). “GraceLand: A Novel”, p.65, Macmillan

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• Sometimes we say we want an end to hate or racism or sexism. But we all participate in keeping these structures alive. If everyone decided to relinquish the past what would happen to people who feel that there hasn't been proper atonement made to them? And what happens to the person who feels that the constant atonement is their identity?

  Chris Abani

  Hate, Past, People

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• The Internet is really our meeting place. We have this amazing listserv. Every time I log onto it I feel a sense of pride, because if you log on and say, "Oh I was just in San Diego and I was in a park and I saw a lion," the flurry of replies on average is just like--wow! All these existential questions about what it means to be an African, and never having seen a lion at home, but having seen a lion here. Everything you say turns into this real philosophical debate--it's incredible in so many ways. And it's an invigorating place to be.

  Chris Abani

  Real, Philosophical, Mean

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• If Americans actually have the conversation about our disastrous prison policies, we'll understand the trends all move in very dangerous directions: we lock up more people, for less violent crime, at ever greater expense, breeding more dangerous criminals who often come out unemployable, violent and isiolated.

  Dahlia Lithwick

  Moving, People, Locks

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• Tocqueville saw the brute repression of deviants as a necessity if men were to keep convincing themselves of their collective dignity through their collective sameness. The "poets of society," the men who challenged the norms, would have to be silenced so that sameness could be maintained.

  Richard Sennett

  Men, Saws, Dignity

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• Lucifer comes to give to us the final gift of wholeness. If we accept it then he is free and we are free. This is the Luciferic initiation. It is one that many people now, and in the days ahead, will be facing, for it is an initiation in the New Age.

  David Spangler

  People, Giving, Religion

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• You need to know a lot about what's going on, but when it comes to making the work, I take almost an anti-intellectual stance. You've got to be stupid enough, in some ways, to plunge into something that you have no idea what it's about. If you know what you're going to do before you do it, you just end up illustrating an idea.

  Tim Zuck

  Stupid, Ideas, Intellectual

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• I don't worry much about whether or not one of my stories contains elements of the supernatural. If I come up with what I think is a nifty concept, I'll give it a whirl.

  Richard Laymon

  Thinking, Giving, Worry

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• The universe has its secrets. Extra dimensions of space might be one of them. If so, the universe has been hiding those dimensions, protecting them, keeping them coyly under wraps. From a casual glance, you would never suspect a thing.

  Lisa Randall

  Space, Secret, Might

  Lisa Randall (2005). “Warped passages: unravelling the universe's hidden dimensions”, Lane, Allen

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• Just as a royal rule, if not a mere name, must exist by virtue of some great personal superiority in the king, so tyranny, which is the worst of governments, is necessarily the farthest removed from a well-constituted form; oligarchy is little better, for it is a long way from aristocracy, and democracy is the most tolerable of the three.

  Aristotle

  Kings, Names, Government

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.299, Simon and Schuster

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• If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother.

  Maximilian Kolbe

  Mother, Religious, Brother

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• If anyone does not believe that Holy Mary is the Mother of God, he is severed from the Godhead. If anyone should assert that He passed through the Virgin as through a channel, and was not at once divinely and humanly formed in her (divinely, because without the intervention of a man; humanly, because in accordance with the laws of gestation), he is in like manner godless.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Mother, Religious, Believe

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• If you invoke the Blessed Virgin when you are tempted, she will come at once to your help, and Satan will leave you.

  John Vianney

  Religious, Blessed, Helping

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• If you ever feel distressed during your day - call upon our Lady - just say this simple prayer: 'Mary, Mother of Jesus, please be a mother to me now.' I must admit - this prayer has never failed me.

  Mother Teresa

  Mother, Religious, Jesus

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• Do not marvel at the novelty of the thing, if a Virgin gives birth to God.

  St. Jerome

  Religious, Giving, Novelty

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• No matter how sinful one may have been, if he has devotion to Mary, it is impossible that he be lost.

  Hilary of Poitiers

  Religious, May, Matter

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• And if I were to ask myself from what literature we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of the Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw the corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human a life... again I should point to India.

  Max Muller

  Race, Order, Perfect

  Max Muller (1999). “India: What Can it Teach Us?”, p.24, Book Tree

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• I feel that the constitution is workable, it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peacetime and in wartime. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that Man was vile.

  B. R. Ambedkar

  Country, Strong, Men

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• Patriotism can be good or bad. Knee-jerk patriotism can be very bad. I'm patriotic almost to the point of self-consciousness, but I love my country the way I love a friend or a child who I would correct if she was going the wrong way. Who I expect the very best from.

  Emmylou Harris

  Country, Children, Patriotic

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