Unlikely Quotes - Page 9

• We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world will choose to end its orgy of fossil energy consumption, and the Third World its suicidal consumption of landscape. Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.

  David Graeber

  Suicidal, Energy, Viruses

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• As a people, we value family, education and success. Hunger is an enemy to all three. Scientific studies have demonstrated that even brief periods of hunger can permanently inhibit a child's mental, emotional and physical growth. Kids who are hungry do poorly in school and are unlikely to grow into productive adults. For families, experiencing hunger means living in a world of isolation and shame. Caring citizens must put an end to this disgrace.

  Ted Danson

  Children, School, Mean

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• Inspiration comes whenever it wants, even at the most unlikely times and in the most inappropriate situations. Often it arrives bit by bit. Therefore it must be anchored, and this is where a most valuable item makes its appearance: the notebook.

  Piero Ferrucci

  Notebook, Inspiration, Want

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• Any regeneration project that fails to put environmental and social benefits at its very heart is unlikely to achieve anything more than a very short-lived spasm of spurious prosperity

  Jonathon Porritt

  Future, Heart, Vision

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• First, we are born in the same galaxy. Born of the same spe­cies. Our life­times over­lap. The meet­ings between humans are so unlikely as to be mira­cu­lous. To laugh, to cry, and to fall in love. Every­one is made up of a col­lec­tion of 1% chances. Thus, I am dazzled by the fact that there are so many mir­acles in this world.

  Hikaru Nakamura

  Falling In Love, Laughing, Lap

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• It's easy to see why conservatives would be salivating at the thought of a Hillary primary challenge. Presidents who face serious primary challenges—Ford, Carter, Bush I—almost always lose. The last president who lost reelection without a serious primary challenge, by contrast, was Herbert Hoover. But in truth, the chances that Obama will face a primary challenge are vanishingly slim, and the chances that he will lose reelection only slightly higher. No wonder conservatives are fantasizing about Hillary Clinton taking down Barack Obama. If she doesn't, it's unlikely they will.

  Peter Beinart

  Challenges, President, Would Be

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• None but the most blindly credulous will imagine the characters and events in this story to be anything but fictitious. It is true that the ancient and noble city of Oxford is, of all the towns of England, the likeliest progenitor of unlikely events and persons. But there are limits.

  Edmund Crispin

  Character, Cities, Oxford

  Edmund Crispin (2014). “The Moving Toyshop”, p.6, A&C Black

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• But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.

  John Green

  Together, Towns, Happens

  John Green (2013). “The John Green Collection”, p.434, Penguin

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• What happens when we acknowledge the sovereignty and power of God without trusting in His goodness and faithfulness? A pitcher who saw God's power behind his extremely unlikely rise to the big leagues wondered if, at any difficulty he encountered there, God might be taking his ability away.

  Michael Lewis

  League, Might, Saws

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• It is unlikely Yanukovich won. If he did, his government made it impossible to determine.

  Bob Schaffer

  Government, Impossible, Made

  "Go Orange!". National Review Online Interview, www.nationalreview.com. November 30, 2004.

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• With the destruction of history, contemporary events themselves retreat into a remote and fabulous realm of unverifiable stories, uncheckable statistics, unlikely explanations and untenable reasoning.

  Guy Debord

  Events, Stories, Statistics

  Guy Debord (1998). “Comments on the Society of the Spectacle”, p.16, Verso

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• The charge is often made against the intelligentsia and other members of the anointed that their theories and the policies based on them lack common sense. But the very commonness of common sense makes it unlikely to have any appeal to the anointed. How can they be wiser and nobler than everyone else while agreeing with everyone else?

  Thomas Sowell

  Common Sense, Made, Theory

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• A blown-out tube ripped some of the grind from the amplifier, throwing us into a momentary tizzy. The unusual sound led me to play unusually, and the recorded take turned out to be a keeper. Insriration can come from the most unlikely places ... keep your head on and your ears open.

  Billy Gibbons

  Music, Play, Sound

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• Politicians are forever coming up with 'solutions' to virtually every imaginable imperfection in life. But, if we give them more power and more of our money, we are very unlikely to end up better off on net balance.

  Thomas Sowell

  Giving, Imperfection, Forever

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• I suppose I'm the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it's the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other.

  Alan Bennett

  Hands, Ballet, Collaboration

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• It is unlikely that we will ever see a star being born. Stars are like animals in the wild. We may see the very young, but never their actual birth, which is a veiled and secret event. Stars are born inside thick clouds of dust and gas in the spiral arms of the galaxy, so thick that visible light cannot penetrate them.

  Heinz Pagels

  Stars, Science, Animal

  Heinz R. Pagels (1985). “Perfect symmetry: the search for the beginning of time”, Simon & Schuster

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• It is sound planning that invariably earns us the outcome we want; without it, even the gods are unlikely to look with favour on our designs.

  Herodotus

  Design, Outcomes, Favour

  Herodotus (2008). “The Histories”, p.508, OUP Oxford

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• You may choose your friends, but not your unlikely saviors,” Magnus said cheerfully.

  Cassandra Clare

  May, Said, Savior

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess”, p.733, Simon and Schuster

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• It is unlikely that many people will take to heart the conclusion that coming into existence is always a harm. It is even less likely that many people will stop having children. By contrast, it is quite likely that my views either will be ignored or will be dismissed. As this response will account for a great deal of suffering between now and the demise of humanity, it cannot plausibly be thought of as philanthropic. That is not to say that it is motivated by any malice towards humans, but it does result from a self-deceptive indifference to the harm of coming into existence.

  David Benatar

  Children, Heart, Self

  David Benatar (2008). “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence”, p.225, Oxford University Press

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• It is likely that unlikely things should happen

  Aristotle

  Should, Happens

  Aristotle, George Maximilian Anthony Grube, Donald J. Zeyl (1958). “On Poetry and Style”, p.60, Hackett Publishing

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• Honestly, my character doesn't have much in common with Harry Potter besides the fact that he's an unlikely hero who's thrown into a huge situation.

  Logan Lerman

  Hero, Character, Facts

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• Humor, danger and a twisted tangle of unlikely prophecies make for a page-turning adventure.

  Gail Z. Martin

  Adventure, Pages Turning, Twisted

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• The real achievement in discoveries... is seeing an analogy where no one saw one before... The essence of discovery is that unlikely marriage of cabbages and kings — of previously unrelated frames of reference or universes of discourse — whose union will solve the previously insoluble problem.

  Arthur Koestler

  Real, Science, Discovery

  "The Act of Creation".

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• The Darkest Minds tend to hide behind the most unlikely faces.

  Alexandra Bracken

  Life, Mind, Faces

  Alexandra Bracken (2016). “The Darkest Minds”, p.485, Hachette UK

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• People are unlikely to know that they need a product which does not exist and the basis of market research in new and innovative products is limited in this regard.

  John Harvey-Jones

  Business, People, Doe

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