Predictable Quotes - Page 13

• A child wants some kind of undisrupted routine or rhythm. He seems to want a predictable, orderly world.

  Abraham Maslow

  Children, Routine, World

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• You can concede to an opponent something he hasn't earned. It's one thing to underestimate an opponent. But maybe the worst thing is to overestimate. You always play your strengths. But that doesn't mean you become predictable.

  Chuck Knox

  Mean, Reality, Play

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• the English, although partakers in the most variable and quixotic climate in the world, never become used to its vagaries, but comment upon them with shock and resentment as if all their lives had been spent in the predictable monsoon.

  Ruth Rendell

  Weather, England, Climate

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• One of the most important things for a country, particularly when it's seeking to attract long-term capital in big risky projects that are going to have a payback over many years if not decades, is to be seen as being a predictable environment where tax changes will be few. But if they are going to come about they'll come about in a way that you know is predictable, understandable.

  Malcolm Turnbull

  Country, Years, Long

  "Malcolm Turnbull, Member for Wentworth". "Sunday Profile" with Monica Attard, www.abc.net.au. May 30, 2010.

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• Rock music is predictable, unless theres great talent involved.

  Zubin Mehta

  Rocks, Talent, Rock Music

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• If you grow up in a home where actions don't lead to predictable consequences, you don't develop strategies to control your impulses.

  David Brooks

  Growing Up, Home, Action

  "Ask the Author Live: David Brooks on the Composure Class". Live chat, www.newyorker.com. January 7, 2011.

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• The only difference between causation and the value is that the word "cause" implies absolute certainty whereas the implied meaning of "value" is one of preference. In classical science it was supposed that the world always works in terms of absolute certainty and that "cause" is the more appropriate word to describe it. But in modern quantum physics all that is changed. Particles "prefer" to do what they do. An individual particle is not absolutely committed to one predictable behavior. What appears to be an absolute cause is just a very consistent pattern of preferences.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Differences, World, Patterns

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• The exciting part for me, as a pilot, was the landing on the moon. That was the time that we had achieved the national goal of putting Americans on the moon. The landing approach was, by far, the most difficult and challenging part of the flight. Walking on the lunar surface was very interesting, but it was something we looked on as reasonably safe and predictable. So the feeling of elation accompanied the landing rather than the walking.

  Neil Armstrong

  Moon, Goal, Interesting

  Interview at The New Space Race, August 2007.

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• There is something about keeping Him divine that keeps Him distant, packaged, predictable. But don't do it. For heaven's sake, don't. Let Him be as human as He intended to be. Let Him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let Him in can He pull us out.

  Max Lucado

  Our World, Heaven, Sake

  Max Lucado (2013). “God Came Near: God's Perfect Gift”, p.8, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have - whether it's something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.

  Bill Gates

  Running, Cutting, Technology

  Remarks of Bill Gates, Harvard Commencement, news.harvard.edu. June 7, 2007.

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• Humanity seems bent on creating a world economy primarily based on goods that take no material form. In doing so, we may be eliminating any predictable connection between creators and a fair reward for the utility others may find in their works.

  John Perry Barlow

  Creating, Humanity, Connections

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• As soon as your mind knows that it's on and it's supposed to produce some lines, either it doesn't or it produces things that are very predictable. And that's why I say I'm not interested in writing something that I thought about. I'm interested in discovering where my mind wants to go, or what object it wants to pick up.

  Paul Simon

  Writing, Mind, Lines

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• A hunter that is worth his salt does not catch game because he sets his traps, or because he knows the hunting routines of his prey, but because he himself has no routines. This is his advantage. He is not at all like the animals he is after, fixed by heavy routines and predictable quirks; he is free, fluid, unpredictable

  Carlos Castaneda

  Animal, Hunting, Games

  CARLOS CASTANEDA (1972). “Journey to Ixtlan”

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• There is a future which is predictable, programmed, scheduled, foreseeable. But there is a future, l'avenir (to come) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected. For me, that is the real future. That which is totally unpredictable. The Other who comes without my being able to anticipate their arrival. So if there is a real future, beyond the other known future, it is l'avenir in that it is the coming of the Other when I am completely unable to foresee their arrival.

  Jacques Derrida

  Real, Able, Unexpected

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• A discussion between Haldane and a friend began to take a predictable turn. The friend said with a sigh, 'It's no use going on. I know what you will say next, and I know what you will do next.' The distinguished scientist promptly sat down on the floor, turned two back somersaults, and returned to his seat. 'There,' he said with a smile. 'That's to prove that you're not always right.'

  John B. S. Haldane

  Science, Two, Use

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• As soon as things become predictable, they become boring.

  Hunter Parrish

  Boring

  "Exclusive: Hunter Parrish Talks Weeds Season 7". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 27, 2011.

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• The universal human laws - need, love for the beloved, fear, hunger, periodic exaltation, the kindness that rises up naturally in the absence of hunger/fear/pain - are constant, predictable, reliable, universal, and are merely ornamented with the details of local culture.

  George Saunders

  Pain, Kindness, Law

  George Saunders (2012). “The Brain-Dead Megaphone”, p.55, A&C Black

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• Poland is an ally of the United States of America. It was our duty to show that we are a reliable, loyal, and predictable ally. America needed our help, and we had to give it.

  Adam Michnik

  America, Giving, Loyal

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• 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.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Progress, Littles, Tiny

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

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• In 302, the Roman emperor Diocletian commanded "there should be cheapness," declaring, "Unprincipled greed appears wherever our armies ... march. ... Our law shall fix a measure and a limit to this greed." The predictable result of Diocletian's food price controls were black markets, hunger and food confiscation by his soldiers. Despite the disastrous history of price controls, politicians never manage to resist tampering with prices -- that's not a flattering observation of their learning abilities.

  Walter E. Williams

  Army, Law, Greed

  "Economics for the Citizen (Part 9)". capitalismmagazine.com. January 20, 2005.

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• Reality looks much more obvious in hindsight than in foresight. People who experience hindsight bias misapply current hindsight to past foresight. They perceive events that occurred to have been more predictable before the fact than was actually the case.

  Hersh Shefrin

  Past, Reality, People

  Hersh Shefrin (2000). “Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing”, p.110, Oxford University Press

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• Social science and humanities ... have a mutual contempt for one another, the former looking down on the latter as unscientific, the latter regarding the former as philistine. ... The difference comes down to the fact that social science really wants to be predictive, meaning that man is predictable, while the humanities say that he is not.

  Allan Bloom

  Men, Differences, Humanity

  "The Closing of the American Mind". Book by Allan Bloom, 1987.

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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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• When common sense sees a puzzling phenomenon it looks for a causal agent. When it sees organization it looks for an organizer. This works amazingly well for purposes ranging from the diagnosis of diseases to the creation of governments. But it cannot account for emergence ... the appearance of complex phenomena not predictable from the basic elements and processes alone.

  Carl Bereiter

  Government, Organization, Common Sense

  Carl Bereiter (2005). “Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age”, p.200, Routledge

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• You can hit a nail on the head, or cause a machine to do so, and get a fairly predictable result. Hit a dog on the head, and it will either dodge, bite back, or die, but it will never again react in the same way. We can predict only those things we set up to be predictable, not what we encounter in the real world of living and reactive processes.

  Bill Mollison

  Dog, Real, Encounters

  "Permaculture: A Designers' Manual". Book by Bill Mollison, 1988.

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