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Flapping Quotes

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Flapping Quotes

“History is often the tale of small moments—chance encounters or casual decisions or sheer coincidence—that seem of little consequence at the time, but somehow fuse with other small moments to produce something momentous, the proverbial flapping of a butterfly’s wings that triggers a hurricane.”

LittlesMomentsSeemsChanceDecisionProduceConsequenceWingsTalesEncountersButterflySheerCoincidenceTriggersCasualHurricanesFuseProverbialFlappingSmall MomentsChance Encounters
Book:Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East
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“I must confess that I and a few others are burdened with heavy responsibilities regarding the future of criticism. I am certainly, if not the inventor, then at least one of the first systematizers of an absurd critical practice that, as soon as it had peeked its beak out of the nest, flapping its new wet wings, took flight in the minds of the young, becoming a wild ox and sowing avant-garde literature with the mighty tomes of what might as well be called the abstract bear.”

IfsMindFirstsWellsMightYoungLiteratureResponsibilityPracticeBearsBecomingCriticismWingsHeavyCriticalAbsurdFlightAbstractWetInventorNestsAvant GardeSowingBeaksFlapping
Author:Louis Aragon
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“The artificial intelligence approach may not be altogether the right one to make to the problem of designing automatic assembly devices. Animals and machines are constructed from entirely different materials and on quite different principles. When engineers have tried to draw inspiration from a study of the way animals work they have usually been misled; the history of early attempts to construct flying machines with flapping wings illustrates this very clearly.”

WayMayDifferentProblemInspirationAnimalPrinciplesStudyDesignMaterialsApproachDrawsMachinesWingsFlyingDevicesArtificial IntelligenceArtificialEngineersConstructsAssemblyMisledFlappingFlying Machines
Author:Maurice Wilkes
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“But the owls themselves are not hard to find, silent and on the wing, with their ear tufts flat against their heads as they fly and their huge wings alternately gliding and flapping as they maneuver through the trees. Athena's owl of wisdom and Merlin's companion, Archimedes, were screech owls surely, not this bird with the glassy gaze, restless on the bough, nothing but blood on its mind.”

MindHardTreeBloodHugeBirdEarsWingsSilentFlatsCompanionRestlessOwlAthenaGlidingFlapping
Book:Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays
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“The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does.”

DoeStatesDoneHappensTodayAtheismProduceMonthsPeriodsWingsTinyAtmosphereButterflyCoastDevastatedTornadoesFlapping
Author:Ian Stewart
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“They trekked out along the crescent sweep of beach, keeping to the firmer sand below the tidewrack. They stood, their clothes flapping softly. Glass floats covered with a gray crust. The bones of seabirds. At the tideline a woven mat of weeds and the ribs of fishes in their millions stretching along the shore as far as the eye could see like an isocline of death. One vast salt sepulchre. Senseless. Senseless.”

EyeMillionsClothesBirdGlassesFishesBonesBeachSandCoveredGrayWeedShoreSaltFloatsStretchingWovenRibsCrescentFlapping
Book:The Road
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“Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare, And left the flushed print in a poppy there: Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came, And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame. With burnt mouth red like a lion's it drank The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank, And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine When the eastern conduits ran with wine.”

EarthLeftSunFireBloodWindSummerMouthsRedWineShiningLipsCupsGrassRanFlamesPrintLionsEasternDrankBosomsPoppiesFlapping
Book:God: thoughts in an age of uncertainty
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“From the time of Dante [Alighieri], when you have the Ptolemaic universe, you had God on the outside like a hypersphere, and then in the center you have the Earth, all the seven heavens and layers, and then you have the Mount of Purgatory and Hell right in the center, and here's Satan flapping his wings and he keeps making the lake of Cocytus ice so you can't get out. So, again, where Heaven and Hell are, who the hell knows that now?”

KnowsEarthUniverseHeavenHellWingsSevenIceSatanLakesLayersHeaven And HellPurgatoryFlapping
Author:Paul Laffoley
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“Good fences make good neighbors, and these were apparently good enough that they had not felt the need for razor wire at the top. I crested the fence, threw myself into the yard beyond, fell, rolled to my feet, and ran with the expectation of being garroted by a taut clothesline. I heard panting, looked down, and saw a gold retriever running at my side, ears flapping. The dog glanced up at me tongue rolling, grinning, as though jazzed by the prospect of an unscheduled play session.”

NeedsEnoughPlayRunningFeltSidesSawsHeardFeetDogExpectationsGoldEarsDown AndTongueNeighborRanGood EnoughRollingYardsFenceWireSessionRazorsGrinningRetrieversFlappingGood NeighborClotheslines
Book:The Odd Thomas Series 7-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd Hours, Odd Apocalypse, Odd Interlude, Deeply Odd
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“Nearly every morning, a certain woman in our community comes running out of her house with her face white and her overcoat flapping wildly. She cries out, "Emergency, emergency," and one of us runs to her and holds her until her fears are calmed. We know she is making it up; nothing is has really happened to her. But we understand, because there is hardly one of us who has no been moved at some time to do just what she has done, and every time, it has taken all our strength, and even the strength of our friends and families, too, to keep us quiet.”

KnowsDoneRunningFacesCertainHouseCommunityWhiteMorningTakenHappenedCryQuietMovedEvery MorningFamily And FriendsEmergenciesOur CommunityFlappingOvercoat
Author:Lydia Davis
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“As those who have seen Jurassic Park will know, this means a tiny disturbance in one place, can cause a major change in another. A butterfly flapping its wings can cause rain in Central Park, New York. The trouble is, it is not repeatable. The next time the butterfly flaps its wings, a host of other things will be different, which will also influence the weather. That is why weather forecasts are so unreliable.”

KnowsMeanDifferentNextCausesTroubleInfluenceNew YorkMajorsRainWingsTinyWeatherParksHostButterflyNext TimeDisturbanceUnreliableForecastsCentral ParkJurassic ParkMajor ChangeFlapping
Author:Stephen Hawking
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“Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur.”

MenCitiesCenturyWindowWingsWarmScreensDawnPresidentialGreat MenAutumnWeekendMondayBreezePalacesGrandeurStagnantRottingVultureBalconiesLethargyFlapping
Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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“An author, like any other so-called artist, is a man in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in. His over-powering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized nations, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression.”

MenSelfArtistNationsExpressionNormalPaperPoliceFellowsWingsVanityImpulseCivilizedSheerForbiddenImpossibilityFellow ManSelf ExpressionExaggeratedFlappingCivilized Nations
Book:Mencken Chrestomathy
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“I hold that in the flight of the soaring birds (the vultures, the eagles, and other birds which fly without flapping) ascension is produced by the skillful use of the force of the wind, and the steering, in any direction, is the result of skillful manoeuvres; so that by a moderate wind a man can, with an aeroplane, un- provided with any motor whatever, rise up into the air and direct himself at will, even against the wind itself.”

MenUseForceResultsAirWindBirdDirectFlightAviationPredictionsSoarModeratesEaglesMotorAeroplanesSkillfulSteeringAscensionVultureFlapping
Author:Louis Pierre Mouillard
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“I want you to notice nature, how geese are in flight and they form a V in a leadership role…The lead goose, when he gets tired of flapping his wings, he drops to the back and the next goose comes up front. Without stopping, without fussing, without whining. He becomes that next leader, he or she, that’s what we have to do.”

WantFormNextLeaderRolesFrontsTiredWingsCome UpFlightI Want YouStoppingGeeseWhiningLeadership RolesFlappingFussing
Author:Judy Bonds
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