Unstable Quotes

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

Herodotus

Fun, Men, Knowing

"The Histories" by Herodotus, Book 2, Ch. 173, c. 440 BC.

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As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.

Arthur C. Clarke

Science, Self, Ethics

Arthur C. Clarke (2011). “Voices from the Sky”, p.87, Hachette UK

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I got so used to being unstable that I started to only be comfortable being unstable.

Josh Lucas

Used, Comfortable

"Sweet Home Alabama". Interview with Alec Cawthorne, www.bbc.co.uk. December 18, 2002.

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All stable processes we shall predict. All unstable processes we shall control.

John von Neumann

Meteorology, Process, Stable

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Right now too much American time and resources are spent dealing with situations caused by our dependence on oil that we import from unstable countries.

Dan Lipinski

Country, Oil, Too Much

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I don't know anybody that's not emotionally unstable or schizophrenic.

Lauryn Hill

Schizophrenic, Knows, Emotionally Unstable

"Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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I'm very unstable; there's no stability in a musician's life at all. You live on a bus or on the road hand to mouth and you don't know where your money's coming from.

James Taylor

Hands, Mouths, Musician

"Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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When I think about the world I would like to leave to my daughter and the grandchildren I hope to have, it is a world that moves away from unequal, unstable, unsustainable interdependence to integrated communities - locally, nationally and globally - that share the characteristics of all successful communities.

William J. Clinton

Success, Daughter, Moving

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Property is unstable, and youth perishes in a moment. Life itself is held in the grinning fangs of Death, Yet men delay to obtain release from the world. Alas, the conduct of mankind is surprising.

Plautus

Men, Delay, World

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There is much meaning in the word endure. For example, when dealing with unstable human feelings and uneven pathways in life, without endurance to hold you up, you may fall into a pit in the brush.

Zicheng Hong

Fall, Feelings, Taoism

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The transition state of manners and language cannot be too often insisted upon: for this affected the process at both ends, giving the artist in fictitious life an uncertain model to copy and unstable materials to work in.

George Saintsbury

Artist, Giving, Transition

George Saintsbury (2012). “The English Novel”, p.209, tredition

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The high prices also highlight the fact that the U.S. is too heavily dependent on fossil fuels that we import from unstable parts of the world. To protect our national security, we must become more energy secure.

Dan Lipinski

Facts, Energy, Burning Fossil Fuels

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In addition, each barrel of oil we save through conservation further decreases our dangerous reliance on unstable Middle East oil.

Paul Gillmor

Aunt, Oil, Middle East

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Chavez made a compete fool of himself in front of the entire world while giving the U.N. a black eye. But the real losers are the Venezuelan people who have to put up with this unstable character every day.

J. D. Hayworth

Real, Character, Eye

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Look, I think the worst case scenario is obvious. I think first of all it doesn't work for very long. It's an unstable government that raises taxes and destroys the image we're building for Canada as a strong place to invest.

Stephen Harper

Strong, Thinking, Government

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As a father now, I wouldn't do what my dad did, because it left me feeling emotionally unstable as a kid. But he didn't do the things he did out of selfishness or malice.

Anthony Kiedis

Dad, Father, Kids

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Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.

Charles Caleb Colton

Honor, Fickle, Opinion

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For while the subjects of poetry are few and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is the same in all arts.

John Drinkwater

Art, Men, Mood

John Drinkwater (1922). “The Lyric: An Essay”, p.8, Library of Alexandria

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People with high but unstable self-esteem exhibit the greatest hostility.

Roy Baumeister

Self Esteem, People, Exhibits

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Fortune is unstable, while our will is free.

Diogenes Laertius

Fortune

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To live as I incline, or not to live at all: so do I wish; so wisheth also the holiest. But alas! how have I still - inclination? Have I-still a goal? A haven towards which MY sail is set?A good wind? Ah, he only who knoweth WHITHER he saileth, knoweth what wind is good, and a fair wind for him.What still remaineth to me? A heart weary and flippant; and unstable will; fluttering wings; a broken backbone.This seeking for MY home: O Zarathustra, dost thou know that this seeking hath been MY home-sickening; it eateth me up.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Heart, Home, Wind

Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “Thus spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None”, p.281, Friedrich Nietzsche

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In large organizations there are discrete functions. I do this; you do that. I swim in my lane; you swim in your lane. That can be very effective for certain processes and in certain stable conditions. But it doesn't work in unstable conditions.

Daniel H. Pink

Leadership, Organization, Swim

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....nothing is so unhealthy or unstable as the reputation for power that is not based on one's own power.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Politics, Reputation, Unhealthy

Niccolo Machiavelli (1979). “The Portable Machiavelli”, p.87, Penguin

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I am apparently gentle, unstable, and full of pretenses. I will die a poet killed by the nonpoets, will renounce no dream, resign myself to no ugliness, accept nothing of the world but the one I made myself. I wrote, lived, loved like Don Quixote, and on the day of my death I will say: ‘Excuse me, it was all a dream,’ and by that time I may have found one who will say: ‘Not at all, it was true, absolutely true.’

Anais Nin

Dream, World, May

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I used to think I was unstable, because I had this thirst for something. I could never figure out what it was. I couldn’t sleep at night, and I always wanted to be somewhere else. I have a window tattooed, this little box, and it’s because wherever I was, I wanted to be somewhere else. And, I always saw myself, wherever I was in life, staring out the window.

Angelina Jolie

Sleep, Night, Thinking

"Angelina Jolie: Billy Bob, Knives and Sex". abcnews.go.com. July 11.

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