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Birth Quotes

Browse 3916 quotes about Birth.

Birth Quotes

“What we have earned by the sweat of our brow, we defend with pride. What we have gained by the accident of birth, we guard with prejudice.”

Effort Pride Birth Prejudice Accidents Sweat Brows

Author:Robert Breault

“It is possible that our race may be an accident, in a meaningless universe, living its brief life uncared for, on this dark, cooling star: but even so - and all the more - what marvelous creatures we are! What fairy story, what tale from the Arabian Nights of the jinns, is a hundredth part as wonderful as this true fairy story of simians! It is so much more heartening, too, than the tales we invent. A universe capable of giving birth to many such accidents is - blind or not - a good world to live in, a promising universe. . . . We once thought we lived on God's footstool, it may be a throne.”

“By education I am an Englishman, by views an internationalist, by culture a Muslim and a Hindu only by accident of birth.”

Culture Views Birth Accidents Englishmen

Author:Jawaharlal Nehru

“The constructs of the mathematical mind are at the same time free and necessary. The individual mathematician feels free to define his notions and set up his axioms as he pleases. But the question is will he get his fellow mathematician interested in the constructs of his imagination. We cannot help the feeling that certain mathematical structures which have evolved through the combined efforts of the mathematical community bear the stamp of a necessity not affected by the accidents of their historical birth.”

Source: Gesammelte Abhandlungen

“We can become anything. That is why injustice is impossible here. There may be the accident of birth, there is no accident of death. Nothing forces us to remain what we were.”

May Force Impossible Birth Injustice Accidents

Book:Pig Earth

Source: Pig Earth

“Well, we all are what we are, I guess you might say by an accident of birth.”

Wells Might Birth Accidents

Author:Wilford Brimley

“Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of action and retirement; but the elevation of his birth and the accidents of his life never allowed him the freedom of choice. He might perhaps sincerely have preferred the groves of the Academy and the society of Athens; but he was constrained, at first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice of Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of Imperial greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world and to posterity for the happiness of millions.”

Source: THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages

“Tradition is only democracy extended through time; it may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who are merely walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father.”

“When we consider how much climate contributes to the happiness of our condition, by the fine sensation it excites, and the productions it is the parent of, we have reason to value highly the accident of birth in such a one as that of Virginia.”

Reason Values Parent Conditions Fine Birth Climate Productions Accidents Sensations Virginia

Book:Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts

Source: Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts

“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”

Source: Golden Hours with Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“[Keeping kosher was] the symbol of an initiation, like the insignia of a secret brotherhood, that set her apart and gave her freedom and dignity. Every law whose yoke she accepted willingly seemed to add to her freedom: she herself had chosen . . . To enter that brotherhood. Her Judaism was no longer a stigma, a meaningless accident of birth from which she could escape . . . It had become a distinction, the essence of her self-hood, what she was, what she wanted to be, not merely what she happened to be.”

Self Wanted Law Religion Women Secret Happened Birth Dignity Essence Add Accidents Accepted Chosen Symbols Distinction Meaningless Brotherhood Judaism Hood Stigma Yoke Initiation Kosher

Author:Jessie Sampter

“I've learned to judge of men by their own deeds; I do not make the accident of birth The standard of their merit.”

Men Judging Birth Standards Deeds Accidents Merit I've Learned

Author:Sarah Josepha Hale

“So much of our lives depends on accidents of birth, time, and geography. This haunts me. In some lives, few "or"s are possible. The pain of that is behind the second stanza of this poem.”

Pain Behinds Our Lives Depends Birth Accidents Geography

Author:Jane Hirshfield

“All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.”

Men Objects Birth Tradition Democrat Accidents

Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton

“I was certain that some people, whether by accident of birth or some pecularity of training, could tune in to another source of information and could know things about people we didn't think were possible to know.”

People Thinking Knows Certain Information Source Birth Training Accidents Tunes

Book:Travels

Source: Travels

“Your life is not predestined, as in Calvinist thought, where everything is written down in the book of life long before your birth and is inescapable. There are choices, accidents, hints and wrong paths, and the ego you, or whatever you call yourself, is a factor in all this. But there is still this other factor that keeps calling. At some moment, people turn, in despair or when they are unable to go any longer on a certain route, and this inner voice says, "Where have you been? I've been waiting for you to turn to me for a long time."”

“Yogi Bear - there's everything before Yogi Bear and there's everything after Yogi Bear. Like a major car accident, or the birth of Christ.”

Christ Car Bears Birth Majors Accidents Yogi Car Accident Yogi Bear

Author:T. J. Miller

“My wish and hope, every year, is that people's life chances - their chances of having a happy, prosperous, healthy life for themselves and their family and friends - should not depend on accident of birth. It shouldn't depend on where you're born. It should depend on who you are and what you do. But it shouldn't depend on the chance and the luck of being born in the U.S. or in a poor village in Sub-Saharan Africa or India or wherever it may be.”

“Suffering always prompts heart-wrenching questions: if God is good, why would He allow this pain in my life? Is God truly sovereign over accidents and birth anomalies, or does the devil set the world's agenda? How do I counsel people who are despairing of their condition?”

People Ifs World Heart Doe Pain Life Is Suffering Conditions Birth Devil Accidents Agendas Sovereign Prompts Anomalies Heart Wrenching

Author:Joni Eareckson Tada

“The next time someone uses denial of citizenship as a weapon or brandishes the special status conferred upon him by the accident of birth, ask him this: What have you done lately to earn it?”

Done Use Next Asks Special Birth Weapons Accidents Denial Next Time Citizenship

Author:Eric Liu

“What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.”

Birth Thousand Accidents Composer Composing Music

Author:Ludwig van Beethoven

“To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine success--the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history--with a society that provides opportunities for all.”

World Needs Today Opportunity Break Birth Lucky Advantage Determine Accidents Fortunate Arbitrary Outliers Happy Accidents Patchwork Lucky Breaks

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“I'm telling you, if aliens landed on earth today and took a good hard look at why babies get born, they'd conclude that most people had children by accident, or because they drink too much on a certain night, or because birth control isn't one hundred percent, or for a thousand other reasons that really aren't very flattering.”

People Ifs Looks Children Hard Reason Today Earth Night Certain Born Too Much Baby Birth Drink Thousand Percent Hundred Accidents Aliens Flattering Birth Control

Author:Jodi Picoult

“It was no accident, no coincidence, that the seasons came round and round year after year. It was the Lord speaking to us all and showing us over and over again the birth, life, death, and resurrection of his only begotten Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. It was like a best-loved story being told day after day with each sunrise and sunset, year after year with the seasons, down through the ages since time began.”

Source: The Last Sin Eater

“Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a systems analyst, but it had to start somewhere. This is not science; it is merely metaphor. And the landscape in which the protein "starts" shapes its end as surely as bowls shape water.”

Ends Water Pieces Sea Keys Birth Shapes Metaphor Accidents Landscape Lions Crucial Bowls Geography Protein Analysts Snail

Book:Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

Source: Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

“I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.”

Source: Conversations with Maya Angelou

“The news of life is carried via telephone. A baby's birth, a couple engaged, a tragic car accident on a late night highway - most milestones of the human journey, good or bad, are foreshadowed by the sound of a ringing.”

Humans Life Is Night Sound Journey Car Baby Birth Couple Late News Accidents Engaged Tragic Telephones Highways Milestone Late Night Car Accident

Author:Mitch Albom

“If you have a faith, it is statistically overwhelmingly likely that it is the same faith as your parents and grandparents had. No doubt soaring cathedrals, stirring music, moving stories and parables, help a bit. But by far the most important variable determining your religion is the accident of birth. The convictions that you so passionately believe would have been a completely different, and largely contradictory, set of convictions, if only you had happened to be born in a different place.”

“Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace: respect for diversity.”