I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“In the midst of uncertainty, Doubt stealthy in. And in the face of Doubt, One must hold steadfast to Hope.”
Source: A Passion and a Dream: Inspiring Stories of Actors, Writers, et. al., on the Eve of Their Big Break
“In the midst of unprecedented learning popular ignorance flourished, and chose its exemplars to rule the great cities of the world.”
Source: The Story of Philosophy: The lives and opinions of the world's greatest philosophers from Plato to John Dewey
“In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.”
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
“In the midst of wanton aggression, we still call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to return to the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, with full and equal citizenship and due representation in its bodies and institutions - provisional or permanent.”
“in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight”
Source: The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I; Barbara W. Tuchman's Great War Series
“In the midst of winter, I find within me the invisible summer...”
Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You
“In the midst of winter, time pulls back to look you in the eye and that's when the freezing begins to explode inside and igniting comes as a slow burn of dense emotions.....”
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”
“In the midst of World War II, Quincy Wright, a leader in the quantitative study of war, noted that people view war from contrasting perspectives:
“To some it is a plague to be eliminated; to others, a crime which ought to be punished; to still others, it is an anachronism which no longer serves any purpose. On the other hand, there are some who take a more receptive attitude toward war, and regard it as an adventure which may be interesting, an instrument which may be legitimate and appropriate, or a condition of existence for which one must be prepared”
Despite the millions of people who died in that most deadly war, and despite widespread avowals for peace, war remains as a mechanism of conflict resolution.
Given the prevalence of war, the importance of war, and the enormous costs it entails, one would assume that substantial efforts would have been made to comprehensively study war. However, the systematic study of war is a relatively recent phenomenon. Generally, wars have been studied as historically unique events, which are generally utilized only as analogies or examples of failed or successful policies. There has been resistance to conceptualizing wars as events that can be studied in the aggregate in ways that might reveal patterns in war or its causes. For instance, in the United States there is no governmental department of peace with funding to scientifically study ways to prevent war, unlike the millions of dollars that the government allocates to the scientific study of disease prevention. This reluctance has even been common within the peace community, where it is more common to deplore war than to systematically figure out what to do to prevent it. Consequently, many government officials and citizens have supported decisions to go to war without having done their due diligence in studying war, without fully understanding its causes and consequences.
The COW Project has produced a number of interesting observations about wars. For instance, an important early finding concerned the process of starting wars. A country’s goal in going to war is usually to win. Conventional wisdom was that the probability of success could be increased by striking first. However, a study found that the rate of victory for initiators of inter-state wars (or wars between two countries) was declining: “Until 1910 about 80 percent of all interstate wars were won by the states that had initiated them. . . . In the wars from 1911 through 1965, however, only about 40 percent of the war initiators won.”
A recent update of this analysis found that “pre-1900, war initiators won 73% of wars. Since 1945 the win rate is 33%.”. In civil war the probability of success for the initiators is even lower. Most rebel groups, which are generally the initiators in these wars, lose. The government wins 57 percent of the civil wars that last less than a year and 78 percent of the civil wars lasting one to five years.
So, it would seem that those initiating civil and inter-state wars were not able to consistently anticipate victory. Instead, the decision to go to war frequently appears less than rational. Leaders have brought on great carnage with no guarantee of success, frequently with no clear goals, and often with no real appreciation of the war’s ultimate costs. This conclusion is not new. Studying the outbreak of the first carefully documented war, which occurred some 2,500 years ago in Greece, historian Donald Kagan concluded:
“The Peloponnesian War was not caused by impersonal forces, unless anger, fear, undue optimism, stubbornness, jealousy, bad judgment and lack of foresight are impersonal forces. It was caused by men who made bad decisions in difficult circumstances.”
Of course, wars may also serve leaders’ individual goals, such as gaining or retaining power. Nonetheless, the very government officials who start a war are sometimes not even sure how or why a war started.”
Source: Resort to War: 1816 - 2007
“In the midst of world war the theater will be directed by men who believe themselves to be gods.”
“In the midst of your battles, never forget that God loves you and He has a plan for you.”
“In the midst of your daily life, may you learn to delight not only in the final form of your becoming but in the ongoing dance of transformation itself. May you savor the beauty of each stage, from the first spark of change to the graceful unfolding, knowing that within each moment lies the promise of something new and wondrous.”
“In the midst of your struggles, you WILL find a reason to keep going. Don’t give up!”
“In the midterm elections, a 102-year-old woman voted for the first time in a U.S. election. Unfortunately, she voted for Woodrow Wilson.”
“In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray,
Gone from the path direct.”
Source: The divine comedy
“In the Midwest... winter is an exercise in waiting — for relief, for a bird to sing, for the first purple crocus to push up through the snow.”
Source: Becoming
“In the mighty name of Jesus, all knees shall bow; all tongues shall confess! Now, in the name of Jesus, you are released!”
“In the Milieu, there are no bodily wounds that can't be healed, but mental wounds cut by words often fester uncontrolled. Without dreams as outlets for toxicity, blood would stain the skies. - The Malwatch”
“In the military I could exercise the power of being automatically respected because of the medals on my chest, not because I had done anything right at the moment to earn that respect. This is pretty nice. It's also a psychological trap that can stop one's growth and allow one to get away with just plain bad behavior.”
Source: What It Is Like To Go To War
“In the military it was camouflage for the desert or the winter. And now it's the duck hunting colors - I think it's "real tree." It's comfortable. It's stuff that's made out of comfortable material, OK, and I'm comfortable in it.”
“In the military we also learn principles of war which also work in a corporate setting: How do you concentrate as much of your force as possible on a critical point and take a risk elsewhere? In business that translates into focusing your investment on marketing, sales, or R&D, whichever will give you the greatest return.”
“In the military we are always looking for ways to leverage up our forces. Having greater communications and command and control over your forces than your enemy has over his is a force multiplier. Having greater logistics capability than the enemy is a force multiplier. Having better-trained commanders is a force multiplier. Perpetual optimism, believing in yourself, believing in your purpose, believing you will prevail, and demonstrating passion and confidence is a force multiplier. If you believe and have prepared your followers, the followers will believe.”
“In the military, as in any organization, giving the order might be the easiest part. Execution is the real game.”
“In the military, I learned that 'leadership' means raising your hand and volunteering for the tough, important assignments.”
“In the military, if we don't know something, we say we don't know and proceed to shut up until we do. Some highly paid charlatans in the media think it's absolutely fine to take a wild guess at the truth and then tell a couple of million people it's cast-iron fact, just in case they might be right...I hope they're proud of themselves, because they nearly broke my mom's heart.”
“In the military, they give medals for people who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may survive. In business, we give bonuses to people who sacrifice others.”
“In the military, we are also taught to only use one third of the available decision-making time, so that our subordinates have time to go through their own decision processes when they learn what we want them to do.”
“In the military, you learn the essence of people. You see so many examples of self-sacrifice and moral courage. In the rest of life you don't get that many opportunities to be sure of your friends.”
“In the mind and nature of a man a secret is an ugly thing, like a hidden physical defect.”
Source: Last Tales
“In the mind engaged in struggling with hardship, one always finds something delightful. The sorrow of disappointment arises in the complacency of satisfaction.”
“In the mind of a woman for whom no place is home the thought of an end to all flight is unbearable.”
“In the mind of a woman, to give birth to a child is the short cut to omniscience.”
“In the mind of all the English soldiers there is absolutely no hate for the Germans, but a kind of brotherly though slightly comtemptuous kindness - as to men who are going through a bad time as well as ourselves.”
Source: Ivor Gurney: collected letters
“In the mind of all, fiction, in the logical sense, has been the coin of necessity;—in that of poets of amusement—in that of the priest and the lawyer of mischievous immorality in the shape of mischievous ambition,—and too often both priest and lawyer have framed or made in part this instrument.”
Source: The works
“In the mind of an ordinary, 1+1 = 2; but, in the mind of an extraordinary, 1+ 1 = 10.”
“In the mind of Bill Clinton, political considerations outweigh even life-and-death matters of great concern to his own law-enforcement officials, not to mention the nation.”
Source: The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House
“In the mind of every artist there is a masterpiece”
“in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.”
Source: Lyrical Ballads
“In the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there are few.”
“In the mind of The English, kissing in the rain, as well as other public displays of affection, belongs to the category of soft porn. Sane people don’t do soft porn in public. Only animals do. And aliens.”
Source: How to Be an Alien in England: A Guide to the English
“In the mind of the public, she seemed endowed with an almost supernatural power to commit heinous acts, no matter the time or place.”
Source: Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis
“In the mind of the public, she seemed endowed with an almost supernatural power to commit heinous acts, now matter the time or place.”
Source: Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis
“In the mind of western man, there is nearly always a tendency to overrate suffering. This tendency is inherited from Christianity and Romanticism. One has, for centuries, considered suffering to be an atonement, a purification, and a cause of uplift. Suffering may comprise such virtues but not necessarily so.”
Source: Be Who You Are
“In the mind there is no absolute or free will.”
Source: Spinoza: The Complete Works
“In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.”
Source: Ethics
“In the mind's eye, a fractal is a way of seeing infinity.”
Source: Chaos: Making a New Science
“In the mind, in the heart, I was always home. I always imagined, really, going back home.”
“In the mind, there are no limits...”
“In the minds and hearts of the American people, there is a great hunger for peace based on a universal recognition of the values of freedom and human dignity.”
“In the minds of great managers, consistent poor performance is not primarily a matter of weakness, stupidity, disobedience, or disrespect. It is a matter of miscasting.”