Home / Topics / Chance Quotes

Chance Quotes

Browse 7631 quotes about Chance.

Chance Quotes

“Intellectuals cannot tolerate the chance event, the unintelligible: they have a nostalgia for the absolute, for a universally comprehensive scheme.”

Chance Atheism Events Absolutes Positive Atheism Nostalgia Tolerate Schemes Comprehensive

Author:Raymond Aron

“It is often said that the progression from simple to complex runs counter to the normal statistics of chance that are formalized in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Strictly speaking, we could avoid this criticism simply by insisting that the Second Law does not apply to living systems in the environment in which we find them. For the Second Law applies only when there is no overall flow of energy into or out of a system, whereas all living systems are sustained by a net inflow of energy.”

Doe Said Running Law Energy Chance Simple Environment Atheism Normal Flow Criticism Complexes Positive Atheism Statistics Progression Insisting Thermodynamics

Author:Jacob Bronowski

“In this infinite space is placed our universe (whether by chance, by necessity, or by providence I do not now consider).”

Universe Chance Space Atheism Infinite Positive Atheism Providence Infinite Space

Book:Giordano Bruno; his life and thought: With annotated translation of his work, On the infinite universe and worlds

Source: Giordano Bruno; his life and thought: With annotated translation of his work, On the infinite universe and worlds

“The web of this world is woven of Necessity and Chance. Woe to him who has accustomed himself from his youth up to find something necessary in what is capricious, and who would ascribe something like reason to Chance and make a religion of surrendering to it.”

World Reason Chance Atheism This World Youth Woe Accustomed Woven Capricious

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“It seems the height of antiquated hubris to claim that the universe carried on as it did for billions of years in order to form a comfortable abode for us. Chance and historical contingency give the world of life most of its glory and fascination. I sit here happy to be alive and sure that some reason must exist for "why me?" Or the earth might have been totally covered with water, and an octopus might now be telling its children why the eight-legged God of all things had made such a perfect world for cephalopods.”

Source: An Urchin in the Storm: Essays about Books and Ideas

“The ignorant are a reservoir of daring. It almost seems that those who have yet to discover the known are particularly equipped for dealing with the unknown. The unlearned have often rushed in where the learned feared to tread, and it is the credulous who are tempted to attempt the impossible. They know not whither they are going, and give chance a chance.”

Knows Giving Seems Chance Known Impossible Atheism Positive Atheism Ignorant Daring Tempted Reservoirs

Book:Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

“During the ages of faith the Church argued, not illogically, that any degree of cruelty towards sinners and heretics was justified, if there was a chance that it could save them, or others, from the eternal torments of hell. Thus, in the name of the religion of love, hundreds of thousands of people were not merely killed but atrociously tortured in ways that made the gas chambers of Beslen seem humane.”

People Ifs Way Made Seems Age Names Church Chance Hell Atheism Degrees Eternal Positive Atheism Cruelty Gas Sinner Torment Justified Chamber Humane Heretic Gas Chambers

Author:Margaret E. Knight

“Assuredly whatsoever things are fabled to exist in deep Acheron, these all exist in this life. There is no wretched Tantalus, fearing the great rock that hangs over him in the air and frozen with vain terror. Rather, it is in this life that fear of the gods oppresses mortals without cause, and the rock they fear is any that chance may bring.”

May Causes Chance Air Atheism Rocks Terror Mortals This Life Vain Frozen Wretched Hang Over

Author:Lucretius

“I can't think of any decision where the entire Congress immediately rushes to condemn a decision by the court. It's getting to be election time and this gives everyone in Congress a chance to prove they are patriotic.”

Thinking Giving I Can Chance Decision Atheism Prove Election Court Congress Positive Atheism Patriotic Election Time

Author:Stephen Reinhardt

“There comes a day of public ceremonial, and a chance to make a speech.... A million voters with IQs below 60 have their ears glued to the radio. It takes four days' hard work to concoct a speech without a sensible word in it. Next a dam must be opened somewhere. Four dry Senators get drunk and make a painful scene. The Presidential automobile runs over a dog. It rains.”

Hard Running Next Chance Millions Four Atheism Dog Hard Work Scene Speech Rain Ears Painful Radio Positive Atheism Drunk Presidential Dry Voters Sensible Senators Automobile Dams

Author:H. L. Mencken

“Nature is not personal. She is the compound of all these processes which move through the universe to effect the results we know as Life and of all the ordinances which govern that universe and that make Life continuous. She is no more the Hebrew's Jehovah than she is the Physicist's Force; she is as much Providence as she is Electricity; she is not the Great Pattern any more than she is the Blind Chance.”

Knows Moving Universe Force Process Chance Results Atheism Effects Blind Patterns Positive Atheism Providence Electricity Physicist Compounds Hebrew Jehovah Ordinances

Author:Luther Burbank

“What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? To see rare effects, and no cause ; a motion, without a mover ; a circle, without a centre ; a time, without an eternity ; a second, without a first : these are things so against philosophy and natural reason, that he must be a beast in understanding who can believe in them. The thing formed, says that nothing formed it ; and that which is made is, while that which made it is not, This folly is infinite.”