Surprising Quotes - Page 12

• Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?

  Michel Foucault

  School, Prison, Factories

  Michael Kelly, Michel Foucault (1994). “Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate”, p.176, MIT Press

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• What is surprising is that their ideological opponents, the Marxists - the anti-liberals, the representatives of the oppressed working classes - believed in progress with at least as much passion as the liberals.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Passion, Class, Progress

  Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (1995). “Capistalist Civilisation”, p.97, Verso

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• It's not surprising to me that in a country born of racial genocide, the issue of race is still an open wound on the American soul. We haven't dealt with it.

  Michael Moore

  Country, Issues, Race

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• I love a novel that’s funny, and The Taxman Cometh is very funny, delightfully well-written, yet with a serious message about how government bureaucracy affects us all. Read. Enjoy. And if a comparison to Catch 22 pops into your mind, that’s not surprising.

  Marvin Kalb

  Government, Mind, Messages

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• Life is always surprising to me. When you think it's going to get dull, it never really does.

  Conor Oberst

  Thinking, Doe, Dull

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• Why is it surprising that scientists might have long hair and wear cowboy boots? In fields like neuroscience, where the events you are recording are so minute, I suspect scientists cultivate a boring, reliable image. A scientist with a reputation for flamboyance might be suspect.

  Steven Pinker

  Cowboy, Hair, Long

  "This much I know". Interview with Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2008.

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• Malaysia is a country unlike any other: Full of promise and fragility. Its history, cultural and religious diversity make it a rich, compelling and surprising land.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Country, Religious, Land

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• I'm pretty good at surprising friends and family with gifts. I tend to go towards the more sentimental side of giving.

  Ryan Reynolds

  Giving, Family And Friends, Sides

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• It is not surprising that liberals believed in progress. The idea of progress justified the entire transition from feudalism to capitalism. It legitimated the breaking of the remaining opposition to the commodification of everything, and it tended to wipe away all the negatives of capitalism on the grounds that the benefits outweighed, by far, the harm.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Ideas, Progress, Transition

  Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (1995). “Capistalist Civilisation”, p.97, Verso

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• Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing.

  George Orwell

  Fear, Effectiveness, Challenges

  George Orwell (1987). “Animal farm: a fairy story”, Harvill Secker

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• I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Reality

  "Possible worlds, and other essays". Book by J. B. S. Haldane, 1927.

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• There is seemingly so little love shared in this world, it is not surprising that we ask, "Where have all the lovers gone?" Since love is the most vital energy for good that is within our power to utilize, it is puzzling why we so seldom do so. Love is just a useless, abstract idea until we put it into action...unless we are always actively living in love, we are not utilizing the greatest gift we have been given and which we, in turn, have to offer.

  Leo Buscaglia

  Love You, Love Is, Ideas

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• If an unusual necessity forces us onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain point, when, gradually or suddenly, it passes away and we are fresher than before!

  William James

  Perseverance, Passing Away, Unusual

  William James, Robert D Richardson (2010). “The Heart of William James”, p.267, Harvard University Press

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• If little else, the brain is an educational toy. Why it may be a frustrating play thing - one whose finer points recede just when you think you are mastering them - it is nonetheless perpetually fascinating, frequently surprising, occasionally rewarding, and it comes already assembled. [...] Alas! the brain is a toy that plays games of its own. Its very most favorite game is the one-thing-leads-to-another game.

  Tom Robbins

  Philosophy, Educational, Thinking

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• Golf is said to be an humbling game, but it is surprising how many people are either not aware of their weaknesses of else reckless of consequences.

  Bobby Jones

  Golf, Games, People

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• If biologists so often forget the most universal of all biologic principles [variation], it is not surprising that men and women in general expect their fellows to think and behave according to the pattern that may fit the law-maker, or the imaginary ideals for which the legislation was fashioned, but which are ill-shaped for all real individuals who try to live under them.

  Alfred Kinsey

  Real, Men, Thinking

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• Over time, I have come to see the work of literature less as narrating the world than "seeing the world with words." From the moment he begins to use words like colors in a painting, a writer can begin to see how wondrous and surprising the world is, and he breaks the bones of language to find his own voice. For this he needs paper, a pen, and the optimism of a child looking at the world for the first time.

  Orhan Pamuk

  Children, Color, Voice

  Orhan Pamuk (2011). “Other Colours”, p.15, Faber & Faber

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• What is both surprising and delightful is that the spectators are allowed, and even expected, to join in the vocal part of the game...There is no reason why the field should not try to put the batsman off his stroke at the critical moment by neatly timed disparagements of his wife's fidelity and his mother's respectability.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Baseball, Mother, Games

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• ...is it surprising that today we have become so morally blind (for wickedness blinds) that we save the baby whales at great cost, and murder millions of unborn children?

  Alice von Hildebrand

  Baby, Children, Whales

  Alice Von Hildebrand (2002). “The Privilege of Being a Woman”, Ignatius Press

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• At my 30th birthday party, one of my best friends gave a toast and said I'd been waiting for that day since I was 13. Everyone laughed, but he was right! Life continues to get more fun, more surprising, more delightful.

  Siobhan-Marie O'Connor

  Fun, Party, Waiting

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• The body is a reservoir of all sorts of tensions and dark forces. And it's also the potential source of amazing energy. This thing wants to live. It is a powerful engine. The brain (is) a reservoir of images, dreams, fears, associations, language. And its potential we can't even begin to understand. Movement begins to negotiate the distance between the brain and the body and it can be surprising what we learn about each other.

  Bill T. Jones

  Dance, Dream, Powerful

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• I like the most provocative and most surprising partnerships on stage. Intensity and surprise.

  Mikhail Baryshnikov

  Dance, Surprise, Partnership

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• Time is like an enterprising manager always bent on staging some new and surprising production, without knowing very well what it will be.

  George Santayana

  Time, Knowing, Eternity

  George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana: Soliloquies in England and Later soliloquies”

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• The wise man then followed a simple way of life-which is hardly surprising when you consider how even in this modern age he seeks to be as little encumbered as he possibly can.

  Seneca the Younger

  Life, Wise, Simple

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• Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence, and ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption; all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.

  James Madison

  Religious, Ignorance, Liberty

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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