Instability Quotes - Page 2

• It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Civilization, Age, Degrees

  ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1925). “SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD”

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• I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.

  Petrarch

  Progress, Weakness, Humans

  Letter to Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro, April 26, 1336.

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• It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young; afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious. I take changes in all I see as a matter of course. The instability of all human things is familiar to me, to you it is new and oppressive." (Mr. Bell)

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Bells, Matter, Firsts

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2010). “The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (20+ Books)”, p.1672, BookCaps Study Guides

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• Frankly speaking, we all know that provoking military and political instability, regional, and other conflicts is a helpful means of distracting the public from growing domestic social and economic problems in certain countries. Such attempts cannot be ruled out, unfortunately.

  Vladimir Putin

  Honesty, Military, Responsibility

  Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Speech at the Opening Ceremony of the World Economic Forum, archive.premier.gov.ru. January 28, 2009.

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• When systems come to be far from points of equilibrium, they reach bifurcation points, wherein multiple, as opposed to unique, solutions, to instability become possible.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Unique, Bifurcation, Equilibrium

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• Climate Change is a national security issue. We found that climate instability will lead to instability in geopolitics and impact American military operations around the world. People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections. But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.

  Gordon R. Sullivan

  Military, Issues, Impact

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• Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Love, Change, Moving

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• Not only does the wind of accidents stir me according to its blowing, but I am also stirred and troubled by the instability of my attitude.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Attitude, Wind, Doe

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• Contrary to Piketty’s rentier hypothesis, I don’t see anyone on the [Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans] whose ancestors bought a great parcel of land in 1780 and have been accumulating family wealth by collecting rents ever since. In America, that old money is long gone - through instability, inflation, taxes, philanthropy, and spending.

  Bill Gates

  America, Land, Long

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• The decision-making process in the White House does not let most issues get up to the President. The Council thought opening up global markets to derivatives that would destabilize other countries wasn't likely to create a lot of jobs in the U.S. and might adversely affect U.S. interests by causing global economic instability.

  Joseph Stiglitz

  Country, House, President

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• No true Dharma Master behaves with rage, hate, ranting, self- importance. These are signs of mental instability, a character flaw. Never follow such a one as that.

  Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

  Love, Hate, Character

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• It has taken me a long time to realize where I most disagree with Marx. His assessment of capitalism is far too favorable. He took its instability, inhumanity and irrationality to be signs that it was a merely transitional form, which had delivered into humanity's hands the means to a much better way of life than any that have ever existed on earth. Marx could not bring himself to believe that our species is so benighted, irrational and slavish that it would put up with such a monstrous way of life.

  Allen W. Wood

  Believe, Taken, Mean

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• As I said, this [repercussions] may take different forms : direct and indirect. Direct when people want to retaliate, or governments. Indirect when you're going to have instability and the spread of terrorism all over the region that will influence the west directly.

  Bashar al-Assad

  Government, People, Different

  Source: legrandsoir.info

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• My view is that we're entering into a situation of enormous instability, insecurity, fragility.

  Tony Blair

  Views, Insecurity, Fragility

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• We have two other countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan - again it's the instability that is a problem there. So over the next several years, we expect to drive the number of [polio] cases back down to zero because that is likely to be the second disease after smallpox that we completely eradicate.

  Bill Gates

  Country, Zero, Years

  Source: www.ctvnews.ca

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• So, there is enormous instability in the global economy with a shift of winners and losers.

  David Korten

  Loser, Winner, Economy

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• The inborn instability of capitalism has been part of the history of the system for several hundred years, including recurrent speculative episodes. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that we're now having another one of those speculative episodes.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Years, Doubt, Mind

  Source: progressive.org

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• When we violate the law ourselves, whatever short-term advantage may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate the law; we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests.

  J. William Fulbright

  Law, Long, May

  J. William Fulbright (2011). “The Arrogance of Power”, p.114, Random House

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• The difference between tragedy and comedy is the difference between experience and intuition. In the experience we strive against every condition of our animal life: against death, against the frustration of ambition, against the instability of human love. In the intuition we trust the arduous eccentricities we're born to, and see the oddness of a creature who has never got acclimatized to being created.

  Christopher Fry

  Ambition, Animal, Frustration

  "Comedy". Vogue, January, 1951.

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• The actual basis of colour is instability. Once you accept that in lieu of something which is stable, which is form, you are dealing with something which is unstable in its basic character, you begin to get a way of dealing with it.

  Bridget Riley

  Character, Way, Accepting

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• Reflect frequently upon the instability of things, and how very fast the scenes of nature are shifted. Matter is in perpetual flux. Change is always and everywhere at work; it strikes through causes and effects, and leaves nothing fixed and permanent.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Matter, Causes, Scene

  Marcus Aurelius (2013). “The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius”, p.31, Read Books Ltd

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• Children who are brought up with one parent or another parent or shared parenthood, when there has been a divorce and hatred within families, it breeds a tremendous amount of instability in the life of a child. And many of these children end up in the homosexual movement. Even if they don't, they take so much baggage into their marriages, that they are unable sometimes, at least theoretically unable, to stand against all of the cultural forces that would disrupt them and their families.

  Erwin W. Lutzer

  Children, Divorce, Hatred

  Source: www1.cbn.com

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• Diplomacy has been exhausted .. Continued instability in the Balkans threatens important U.S. national interests,.

  Tom Daschle

  Important, Exhausted, Balkans

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• Instability of temper ought to be checked when it disposes men to wander from one scheme to another: since such a fickleness cannot but be attended with fatal consequences.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Schemes, Wander

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• Poverty and wealth inequality are a form of instability into the future.

  Tavis Smiley

  Poverty, Wealth, Form

  Source: www.pbs.org

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