Unusual Quotes - page 6

The ill-success of the projects of misdirected ingenuity has very naturally the effect of driving those men of practical skill, who, though without scientific knowledge, possess prudence and common sense, to the opposite extreme of caution, and of inducing them to avoid all experiments, and to confine themselves to the careful copying of successful existing structures and machines; a course which, although it avoids risk, would, if generally followed, stop the progress of all improvement. A similar course has sometimes... been adopted by men possessed of scientific as well as practical skill: such men having, in certain cases, from deference to popular prejudice, or from a dread of being reputed us theorists, considered it advisable to adopt the worse and customary design for a work in preference to a better but unusual design. (William John Macquorn Rankine)
It is not unusual for electorates to want contradictory things, and politicians often make promises accordingly. View quote
Chris Patten
There is no evidence that risk takers in the economic domain have an unusual appetite for gambles on high stakes; they are merely less aware of risks than more timid people are. View quote
Daniel Kahneman
My character is somebody who is smaller in stature and yet who's strong, so to see the fighting situations between people who are not generally thought of being strong is in itself unusual and therefore interesting, I think. View quote
Chiaki Kuriyama
Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual. View quote
Ernest Hemingway
He would look so young. They were both so young. Tessa knew it was unusual to marry at seventeen and eighteen, but they were racing a clock. The clock of Jem's life, before it wound down. View quote
Cassandra Clare
I feel like you can look inside me and see all the places I am odd or unusual and fit your heart around them, for you are odd and unusual in just the same way. We are the same. View quote
Cassandra Clare
Akhmatova's seeming successor as the best living Russian poet is Voznesensky. His talent is dazzling. He has the gift of fresh, witty perception, works with unusual images and modern rhythms. His poetry is marvelously dynamic. View quote
Andrey Voznesensky
Julian read the Bible as if it were a work of contemporary fiction, open to criticism or even revision. Once, when I queried him about the purpose of his unusual reinterpretations, he said to me, "I want a better Bible, Adam. I want a Bible in which the Fruit of Knowledge contains the Seeds of Wisdom, and makes life more pleasurable for mankind, not worse. I want a Bible in which Isaac leaps up from the sacrificial stone and chokes the life out of Abraham, to punish him for the abject and bloody sin of Obedience. I want a Bible in which Lazarus is dead and stubborn about it, rather than standing to attention at the beck and call of every passing Messiah.”. View quote
Robert Charles Wilson
England is better only because I stand out there as 'unusual'. View quote
Emo Philips
Do have an unusual day, won't you? (Vivian Stanshall)
Pollock looks unusual and radical even now. View quote
Donald Judd
And what a clever guy this Harpole is, isn't he? Awfully good at noticing all kinds of little unusual things about people and keeping them on file in his head. So he's built a theory around us, has he? He added two and two and came up with five, but nobody else in the house was aware there was anything to count. View quote
Kage Baker
Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart showed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question. View quote
Christopher Smart
People always talk about human sacrifice as if it were an unusual and aberrant activity,” she said thoughtfully. "Over the centuries, it's really been fairly common in a number of societies. Think about it. There're a number of religions in the United States whose worship centers on a particular human sacrifice.” She glanced at me. "Jesus Christ on the cross,” I said slowly. "Certainly. Thousands of people consume Christ's body and blood each Sunday.” "That's different.” She shrugged. "Not really. Christ died long ago in a faraway place, and that might make it seem different. His worshipers claimed he was God incarnate, but the Aztecs claimed the same for the god-king they sacrificed. It happened only once, and that speaks for moderation on the part of the Christians, but that's not a fundamental difference, just one of degree. View quote
Pat Murphy
Magic has been confounded too long with the jugglery of mountebanks, the hallucinations of disordered minds and the crimes of certain unusual malefactors. There are otherwise many who would promptly explain Magic as the art of producing effects in the absence of causes; and on the strength of such a definition it will be said by ordinary people - with the good sense which characterises the ordinary, in the midst of much injustice - that Magic is an absurdity. (Introduction) View quote
Eliphas Levi
I will never be convinced by any anecdotal report, ever, especially if something extremely unlikely or unusual. Memory is not a reliable piece of data. View quote
Steven Novella
I got the idea for that story in May of 1979. I didn't know what it was going to be; I just thought it would be neat to write something about Jack the Ripper's dog, and ask Gahan Wilson to illustrate it, partly because of the fact that a dog is such an unusual person. No matter who owns a dog, if that person is nice to the animal, the dog is going to love him. I thought at the time, if you take a really despicable person, a serial killer or someone like that, and tell a story from his dog's point of view it would make him look pretty good. View quote
Roger Zelazny
I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things? View quote
Philip Zimbardo
I loved almost everything about being a teacher, but I was an unusual teacher. View quote
Dan Simmons
Revealing great, unusual, and remarkable spectacles, opening these to the consideration of every man, and especially of philosophers and astronomers; as observed by Galileo Galilei, Gentleman of Florence, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Padua, with the aid of a spyglass lately invented by him, in the surface of the Moon, in innumerable fixed stars, in nebulae, and above all in four planets swiftly revolving about Jupiter at differing distances and periods, and known to no one before the author recently perceived them and decided they should be named the Medicean Stars. (Galileo Galilei)
There's a tradition of scientists approaching senility to come up with grand, improbable theories. Wolfram is unusual in that he's doing this in his 40s. View quote
Stephen Wolfram
There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time studiously ignoring his fundamental ones. View quote
Desmond Morris
Comedy is unusual people in real situations; farce is real people in unusual situations. View quote
Chuck Jones
What people do isn't determined by where they live. It happens to be their damned fault. They decided to watch TV instead of thinking when they were in high school. They decided to blow-off courses and drink beer instead of reading and trying to learn something. They decided to chicken out and be intolerant bastards instead of being openminded and, finally, they decided to go along with their buddies and do things that were terribly wrong when there was no reason they had to. Anyone who hurts someone else decides to hurt them, goes out of their way to do it.... The fact that it's hard to be a good person doesn't excuse going along and being an asshole. If they can't overcome their own fear of being unusual, it's not my fault, because any idiot ought to be able to see that if he just acts reasonably and makes a point of not hurting others, he'll be happier. View quote
Neal Stephenson