Unlikely Quotes - Page 4

• It’s unlikely that any of those natural hazards will do us in within the next 100 years if we’ve already survived 100,000. By contrast, we are introducing, through human activity, entirely new types of dangers by developing powerful new technologies. We have no record of surviving those.

  Nick Bostrom

  Powerful, Technology, Years

  9 Copy quote

• Make a mistake in the interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s plays, falsely scan a piece of Spenserian verse, and there is unlikely to be an entailment of eternal consequence; but we cannot lightly accept a similar laxity in the interpretation of Scripture. We are dealing with God’s thoughts: we are obligated to take the greatest pains to understand them truly and to explain them clearly.

  D. A. Carson

  Pain, Mistake, Play

  D. A. Carson (1996). “Exegetical Fallacies”, p.9, Baker Books

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere.

  Max Tegmark

  Space, Events, Infinite

  "Parallel Universes". Scientific American magazine. Volume 288, Issue 5, May 2003.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• The first and most important impact of climate change on human civilisation will be an acute and permanent crisis of food supply. Eating regularly is a non-negotiable activity and countries that cannot feed their people are unlikely to be reasonable about it.

  Gwynne Dyer

  Country, Impact, People

  Gwynne Dyer (2010). “Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats”, p.8, Oneworld Publications

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can.

  Barack Obama

  Simple, Odds, Yes We Can

  Barack Obama, (2008). “Change We Can Believe In”, p.222, Canongate Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Almost all paleontologists recognize that the discovery of a complete transition is in any case unlikely.

  George Gaylord Simpson

  Discovery, Transition, Cases

  7 Copy quote

• Keep thy hook always baited, for a fish lurks even in the most unlikely swim.

  Ovid

  Swim, Hook, Fishes

  4 Copy quote

• Instead of noting down things I’m unlikely to forget, I will write a poem. Even if I have never written one before and even if I never do so again, I will at least know that I once had the courage to put my feelings into words.

  Paulo Coelho

  Writing, Feelings, Forget

  4 Copy quote

• It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?

  Epictetus

  Men, Shells, Should

  "Discourses". Book by Epictetus. Book I, Chapter 20,

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you don't work very hard, it is extremely unlikely that you will be a good trader.

  Bruce Kovner

  Traders, Hard, Ifs

  53 Copy quote

• If you can’t be happy at the prospect of lunch, you are unlikely to be happy about anything

  Robert Johnson

  Lunch, Ifs

  27 Copy quote

• Without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it's unlikely to be worth the journey. Persist.

  Seth Godin

  Journey, Talking, People

  Seth Godin (2008). “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us”, p.63, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Finding a master of the dark art of ninjutsu in modern westernized Japan seems as unlikely as finding an active practitioner of the magic of Merlin in contemporary industrialized England.

  Stephen K. Hayes

  Art, Dark, Japan

  Stephen K. Hayes (2011). “The Ninja and Their Secret Fighting Art”, p.33, Tuttle Publishing

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Paul's One Way Out is a fresh, intelligently arranged, and satisfyingly complete telling of the lengthy (and unlikely) history of the group that almost singlehandedly brought rock up to a level of jazz-like sophistication and virtuosity, introducing it as a medium worthy of the soloist's art. Oral histories can be tricky things: either penetrating, delivering information and backstories that get to the heart of how timeless music was made. Or too often, they lie flat on the page, a random retelling of repeated facts and reheated yarns. I'm happy to say that Paul's is in that first category.

  Ashley Kahn

  Art, Lying, Rocks

  4 Copy quote

• For children mastery entails struggle. This means they must be permitted to struggle. If parents inappropriately step in to "help"-out of impatience or solicitude-they sabotage important learning. Among other things, the child is unlikely to discover the advantages of perseverance and self-discipline.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Perseverance, Children, Struggle

  10 Copy quote

• In the heat of battle, heroes emerge, sometimes from the most unlikely of sources.

  Brian Herbert

  Hero, Battle, Heat

  Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson (2010). “Dune: The Butlerian Jihad”, p.353, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• A neat and orderly laboratory is unlikely. It is, after all, so much a place of false starts and multiple attempts.

  Isaac Asimov

  Science, Neat, Multiple

  9 Copy quote

• So I think rather than being attracted so much now to working with my heroes, I'm sort of more attracted to working with completely unlikely strangers because it's more exciting really.

  Neil Finn

  Hero, Thinking, Stranger

  "New Zealand's Neil Finn: 'I'm a lifer" By Ayesha Lawrence, www.cnn.com. March 4, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some books I've kept because the binding is beautiful - I'm unlikely ever to read my grandmother's copy of 'The Life of Lord Nelson.' I'm addicted to secondhand bookshops.

  Hari Kunzru

  Beautiful, Book, Grandmother

  4 Copy quote

• Similar to the telescope or the telephone, television enables us to see or hear things we never dreamed of. When you look at the details, a concrete scene between people is really something incredibly unlikely, something subtle that requires extended description.

  Alexander Kluge

  People, Details, Looks

  7 Copy quote

• The perfect Semite (Jews are not Semites but are Khazars, descended from Japheth) is positive and impassioned. The two elements exercise a reciprocal influence, each moderating what is too excessive and therefore unlikely to live in the other, creating a being apart who easily arrives at domination, for nothing can stop such a man...It is the eternal opposition of Shylock and Jessica. It is the illogical and monstrous mixture of the rarest qualities with the most abject defects, mixture of irresistible force and of irremediable weakness.

  Kadmi Cohen

  Exercise, Men, Two

  4 Copy quote

• It’s unlikely to change – there’s nothing in King Salman’s past as governor of Riyadh for about forty years that suggests that he was particularly a reformer, not on the role of women, not on democratic development. There’s been a rumor in the last couple of days that he said to someone in an e-mail that he’s in favor of a constitutional monarchy, but I would be surprised if the level of repression started to go down … I think the kind of thing that we would view as significant reforms is unlikely.

  Elliott Abrams

  Kings, Couple, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• The vast majority of people do not have, nor will they ever have a personal computer. They haven't been exposed to Windows or Office, or anything like that, and in their lives it's unlikely that they will.

  Stephen Elop

  People, Office, Majority

  "The phone is the key to everything: Microsoft now owns Nokia's device business" by Brad Chacos, www.pcworld.com. April 25, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The idea that He would take his attention away from the universe in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds is just so unlikely I can't go along with it.

  Quentin Crisp

  Order, Ideas, Giving

  9 Copy quote

• We are told that the first part of the process is to select the very smallest seeds from the smallest plants, which is not at all unlikely, but I cannot speak to the fact from my own observation.

  Robert Fortune

  Firsts, Facts, Speak

  Robert Fortune (1847). “Three Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China: Including a Visit to the Tea, Silk, and Cotton Countries; with an Account of the Agriculture and Horticulture of the Chinese, New Plants, Etc”, p.85

  4 Copy quote

  Show source