Odds Quotes - Page 12

• Giving Papa time to think, as Arty put it, was like pumping random rounds into a fireworks factory. The odds favored dramatic results.

  Katherine Dunn

  Thinking, Giving, Papa

  Katherine Dunn (2011). “Geek Love: A Novel”, p.131, Vintage

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• I didn't know the odds were so stacked against me. I went for TV shows and never got them. But I kept glued to the pursuit. I was the biggest fool in town, but ultimately I was the biggest fool in town with a job.

  Julia Roberts

  Perseverance, Jobs, Tv Shows

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• Wall Street sometimes gets confused between risk and uncertainty, and you can profit handsomely from that confusion. The low-risk, high-uncertainty [situation] gives us our most sought after coin-toss odds. Heads, I win; tails, I don't lose much.

  Mohnish Pabrai

  Wall, Confused, Winning

  Mohnish Pabrai (2011). “The Dhandho Investor: The Low-Risk Value Method to High Returns”, p.108, John Wiley & Sons

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• It is true there is nothing displays a genius, I mean a quickness of genius, more than a dispute; as two diamonds, encountering, contribute to each other's luster. But perhaps the odds is much against the man of taste in this particular.

  William Shenstone

  Mean, Men, Two

  William Shenstone (1868). “Essays on men and manners”, p.98

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• it is only on posters and in advertisement pages that Americans have those chubby cheeks, expanding smiles, smooth looks, and faces flushed with well-being. In fact, almost all are at odds with themselves; drink offers a remedy for this inner malady of which boredom is the most usual sign: as drinking is accepted by society, it does not appear as a sign of their [Americans'] inability to adapt themselves; it is rather the adapted form of inadaptability.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Drinking, Boredom, Inability

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• Reason's voice and God's, Nature's and Duty's, never are at odds.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Voice, Reason, Duty

  John Greenleaf Whittier (2012). “Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems, Complete Volume II., the Works of Whittier”, p.199, tredition

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• I am constantly torn between the attitude of the conscientious journalist who is a recorder and interpreter of the facts and of the creative artist who often is necessarily at poetic odds with the literal facts.

  W. Eugene Smith

  Attitude, Artist, Often Is

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• I really like Barack Obama. I think that he's working very hard. He's trying to rebuild our reputation throughout the world. The previous administration was a total disaster, a total catastrophe. He was handed a pretty bad deck of cards. And I'm not saying I agree with everything he's doing. He's a champion. I mean, he won against all odds. When he first announced, people were giving him virtually no chance. And he's just done something that's amazing.

  Donald Trump

  Mean, Thinking, Working Very Hard

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• There is no one who cannot be hated, against whatever odds. Nor anyone who cannot be loved, against all reason.

  Ellis Peters

  Hate, Reason, Hated

  Ellis Peters (2016). “Brother Cadfael: The Complete Chronicles”, p.3071, Head of Zeus Ltd

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• To write about the monstrous sense of alienation the poet feels in this culture of polarized hatreds is a way of staying sane. With the poem, I reach out to an audience equally at odds with official policy, and I celebrate our mutual humanness in an inhuman world.

  Maxine Kumin

  Writing, Hatred, World

  Maxine Kumin (2000). “Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry”

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• Overachievement is aimed at people who want to maximize their potential. And to do that, I insist you throw caution to the wind, ignore the pleas of parents, coaches, spouses, and bosses to be "realistic." Realistic people do not accomplish extraordinary things because the odds against success stymie them. The best performers ignore the odds. I will show you that instead of limiting themselves to what's probable, the best will pursue the heart-pounding, exciting, really big, difference-making dreams-so long as catching them might be possible.

  John Eliot

  Inspirational, Dream, Heart

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• Most of the time you should use reason, there is no doubt about that because gut often makes us susceptible to lots of different biases, particularly if what you're deciding is something that you really, that expertise can be brought to bear on it, there is a way in which you can align the odds, so then you should really use reason.

  Sheena Iyengar

  Doubt, Different, Use

  Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

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• Reaganism is not only at odds with the Judeo-Christian heritage, it will not work.

  George McGovern

  Christian, Heritage, American Politics

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• All American wars (except the Civil War) have been fought with the odds overwhelmingly in favor of the Americans. In the history of armed combat such affairs as the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars must be ranked, not as wars at all, but as organized assassinations. In the two World Wars, no American faced a bullet until his adversaries had been worn down by years of fighting others.

  H. L. Mencken

  Peace, War, Fighting

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• If you criticize a fine genius, the odds are that you are out of your reckoning, and, instead of the poet, are censuring your owncaricature of him.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Criticism, Genius, Poet

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• It's like a crapshoot in Las Vegas, except in Las Vegas the odds are with the house. As for the market, the odds are with you, because on average over the long run, the market has paid off.

  Harry Markowitz

  Running, Las Vegas, Average

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• Historically, the stock market is like a gambling casino with the odds in your favor. Over the long pull, stocks are given something like nine and a half to ten percent compounded per year. The banks have probably given you something in the order of four to five.

  Burton Malkiel

  Gambling, Order, Years

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• If you roll dice, you know that the odds are one in six that the dice will come up on a particular side. So you can calculate the risk. But, in the stock market, such computations are bull - you don't even know how many sides the dice have!

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Risk, Investing, Bulls

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• No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the "margin of safety" - never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be - can you minimize your odds of error.

  Benjamin Graham

  Errors, Safety, Risk

  Benjamin Graham (2009). “The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed”, p.13, Harper Collins

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• Being a member of the labor force and a full-time parent means trying to manage against overwhelming odds in an unresponsive society.

  Sheila Kamerman

  Mean, Labor Force, Parent

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• Women who bring up children by themselves do it heroically, they do it against all odds, men who don't feel responsible for being part of their child's life create real strains on that family.

  Jeb Bush

  Life, Children, Real

  "Jeb Bush: 'I'm not in favor of shaming women'" by Betsy Klein, www.cnn.com. June 17, 2015.

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• One thing about Guantánamo, beyond anything else, is the commitment against all odds to allow Americans to view themselves as the good guy, no matter what the situation is.

  Molly Crabapple

  Commitment, Views, Guy

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Some people do need to be held to account because some of the conduct is so widely at odds with our values. But making an example out of a few people would be a disservice.

  Thomas R. Pickering

  People, Example, Would Be

  "Torture report: U.S. faces harsh realities" by Tim Lister, www.cnn.com. December 10, 2014.

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• Ideas that are at odds with the inherited collective wisdom of antiquity are always, on their face suspect.

  Andrew Thomas

  War, Ideas, Faces

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• It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Integrity, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.197, Jazzybee Verlag

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