Surprising Quotes - Page 9

• Success and failure are equally surprising.

  Daryl Hall

  Success And Failure

  19 Copy quote

• It's my mission to share this with the world and to let them know that there is life on the other side of those dark times that seem so hopeless and helpless. I want to show the world that there is life -- surprising, wonderful and unexpected life after diagnosis.

  Demi Lovato

  Dark, World, Want

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• Since, during storms, flames leap from the humid vapors and dark clouds emit deafening noises, is it surprising the lightning, when it strikes the ground, gives rise to truffles, which do not resemble plants?

  Plutarch

  Food, Dark, Clouds

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• Probably no branch of mathematics has experienced a more surprising growth than has... topology... Considered as a most specialized and abstract subject in the early 1920's, it is today [1938] an indispensable equipment for the investigation of modern mathematical theories.

  Raymond Louis Wilder

  Growth, Experience, Branches

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• Some conservatives are surprised to find people on the Left supporting the war in Afghanistan. It's not surprising at all...It is hard for the government to prosecute a war and not expand...Conservatives may think they can support war and oppose the expansion of the state, but that is like trying to square the circle. What makes them think they can contain the expansion?

  Sheldon Richman

  War, Thinking, Squares

  "Why everyone can be on the same side of war" by Sheldon Richman, www.sfgate.com. January 15, 2002.

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• Above all, it's never blind chance: it's a chance that is always planned, but also always surprising. And I need it in order to carry on, in order to eradicate my mistakes, to destroy what I've worked out wrong, to introduce something different and disruptive. I'm often astonished to find how much better chance is than I am.

  Gerhard Richter

  Art, Mistake, Order

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• The enemy of creativity... is fear. We're all born creative, it takes a little while to become afraid. A surprising insight: an enemy of fear is creativity. Acting in a creative way generates action, and action persuades the fear to lighten up.

  Seth Godin

  Creativity, Creative, Enemy

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• Who I am really keeps surprising me.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Who I Am

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• I have three best friends in this world. What's surprising is that they also happen to be your (audience) three best friends. They are Bachpan (childhood), Jawani (Youth) and Budhapa (old age).

  Kishore Kumar

  Childhood, Age, Three

  29 Copy quote

• Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Poetry, Curiosity, Mind

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1842). “The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.142

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• I had found a new friend. The surprising thing is where I’d found him – not up a tree or sulking in the shade, or splashing around in one of the hill streams, but in a book. No one had told us kids to look there for a friend. Or that you could slip inside the skin of another. Or travel to another place with marshes, and where, to our ears, the bad people spoke like pirates.

  Lloyd Jones

  Book, Kids, People

  Lloyd Jones (2011). “Mister Pip”, p.23, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• We human beings are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.

  Dalai Lama

  Happiness, Benefits, World

  "3 Keys to Lasting Happiness" by Randy Taran, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 12, 2011.

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• I had always been impressed by the fact that there are surprisingly many individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and yet are not stupid, and an equal number who obviously do use their minds but in an amazingly stupid way.

  Carl Jung

  Stupid, Numbers, Mind

  "The Collected Works of C. G. Jung: Miscellaneous writings".

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• Her tiny hand gripped mine with a surprising warmth, and in a shocking wash of emotion, I felt everything I knew shift. The scent of cinnamon and baby powder hit me, and as my eyes widened, my heart melted, making room for her.

  Kim Harrison

  Baby, Heart, Eye

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• The person I am in the company of my sisters has been entirely different from the person I am in the company of other people. Fearless, powerful, surprising, moved as I otherwise am only when I write.

  Franz Kafka

  Powerful, Writing, People

  Franz Kafka (1983). “Explain to me some stories of Kafka: complete texts with explanations”, Gordian Pr Inc

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• Surprising what you can dig out of books if you read long enough, isn't it?

  Robert Jordan

  Book, Long, Wheel Of Time

  Robert Jordan (2010). “The Shadow Rising: Book Four of 'The Wheel of Time'”, p.240, Macmillan

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• Everything is surprising, rightly seen.

  A. S. Byatt

  A. S. Byatt (2012). “Angels & Insects: Two Novellas”, p.183, Vintage

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• You can get an ice-cold Coke for around fifty cents in most developing countries, not just in the major population centers, but at the most remote and surprising places. The logistical challenges to resupplying all these outlets are enormous - and yet, the entire system works with incredible efficiency as is confirmed by the price of the product.

  Thomas Pogge

  Country, Ice, Challenges

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith.

  W. H. Auden

  Christmas, Friday, Easter

  "Melodies Unheard: Essays on the Mysteries of Poetry". Book by Anthony Hecht, p. 135, 2005.

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• Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.

  Frances Hodgson Burnett

  Two, Mind, Courageous

  Frances Hodgson Burnett (2015). “The Secret Garden”, p.224, Xist Publishing

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• He had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his method of “Zen” navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both.

  Douglas Adams

  Successful, Car, Getting Lost

  Douglas Adams (2016). “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.266, Simon and Schuster

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• But women are very differently situated with respect to eachother - for they are all rivals (...) Is it then surprising that when the sole ambition of woman centres in beauty, and interest gives vanity additional force, perpetual rivalships should ensue? They are all running the same race, and would rise above the virtue of morals, if they did not view each other with a suspicious and even envious eye.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Running, Ambition, Eye

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• It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.

  B. F. Skinner

  Effort, Mind, Behaviour

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• Seas of blood have been shed for the sake of patriotism. One would expect the harm and irrationality of patriotism to be self-evident to everyone. But the surprising fact is that cultured and learned people not only do not notice the harm and stupidity of patriotism, they resist every unveiling of it with the greatest obstinacy and passion (with no rational grounds), and continue to praise it as beneficent and elevating.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Passion, Self, Blood

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• I love love
  I love being in love
  I don't care what it does to me
  The Format, in "Inches and Failing".
  Masood, a young lady has fallen in love with me-at least so I judge from her letters. Awkward is it not-awkward and surprising. You would be flattered and twirl your moustache, but I am merely uncomfortable. I wish she would stop, as she is very nice, and I enjoyed being friends. What an ill constructed world this is! Love is always being given where it is not required.

  E. M. Forster

  Life, Nice, Being In Love

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