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Flukes Quotes

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Flukes Quotes

“We develop all our sciences, archeology, cosmology, psychology, we tabulate and classify and cling to our sacred definitions, our divisions, without any attempt to synthesis, without the humility to see that these are only parts of a total knowledge. ... But somehow we ought to be able to keep the idea of the totality of experience and knowledge at the back of our minds even though the front's busy from morning til night with the life cycle of the liver fluke.”

MindIdeasAbleNightKnowledgeMorningPsychologyFrontsHumilityOughtSacredBusyDefinitionsCyclesDivisionCosmologyTotalityLiverSynthesisSpecializationFlukesArcheology
Author:Maureen Duffy
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“If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself. Not conceive, but feel yourself, not as a stranger in the world, not as someone here on sufferance, on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke, but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental. What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.”

IfsWorldFeelsSelfBlackWhiteExistenceIllusionFundamentalsStructureStrangerFabricDeep DownFlukesProbation
Author:Alan Watts
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“Obama wanted to offer his support to birth control activist Sandra Fluke. He wanted to express his disappointment that she has been the subject of inappropriate personal attacks and thank her for exercising her rights as a citizen to speak out on an issue of public policy.”

Has BeensWantedSpeakSupportIssuesRightsSubjectsPolicyBirthCitizensExerciseOffersDisappointmentActivistSpeaks OutInappropriateBirth ControlPublic PolicyFlukesPersonal Attacks
Author:Jay Carney
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“Some people have set up sort of "gotcha" algorithms that apparently crawl through psychology articles and look for fraudulent p-values [a measure of the likelihood that experimental results weren't a fluke]. But they're including rounding errors that don't change the significance levels of the results, and they're doing it anonymously.”

PeopleLooksValuesLevelsResultsPsychologyErrorsIncludingSignificanceArticlesDon't ChangeLikelihoodAlgorithmsFlukes
Author:Susan Fiske
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“But we still find the world astounding, we can't get enough of it; even as it shrivels, even as its many lights flicker and are extinguished (the tigers, the leopard frogs, the plunging dolphin flukes), flicker and are extinguished, by us, by us, we gaze and gaze. Where do you draw the line, between love and greed? We never did know, we always wanted more. We want to take it all in, for one last time, we want to eat the world with our eyes.”

KnowsWorldWantStillsEnoughLightEyeWantedLastsLinesDrawsGreedLast TimeTigersFrogsDolphinsFlickerLeopardsFlukes
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“We are so used to the notion of our own inevitability as life's dominant species that it is hard to grasp that we are here only because of timely extraterrestrial bangs and other random flukes. The one thing we have in common with all other living things is that for nearly four billions years our ancestors have managed to slip through a series of closing doors every time we needed them to.”

YearsHardUsedCommonFourDoorsOne ThingNeededSeriesSpeciesNotionBillionsSlipsAncestorDominantBangsLiving ThingsClosingInevitabilityTimelyExtraterrestrialFlukesClosing Doors
Book:A Short History of Nearly Everything
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“No marshmallows. "I don't believe this! I'm going to write the president of General Mills! Don't they have any quality control?" "I'm sure it's just a fluke" "Doesn't make any difference whether it's a fluke or not. It shouldn't have happened. When a person buys a box of lucky charms he's got expectations”

WritingBelievePersonsPresidentDifferencesQualityHappenedLuckyExpectationsDon't BelieveBoxesCharmMillsFlukesMarshmallowQuality ControlLucky Charms
Author:Susan Elizabeth Phillips
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“James often wondered at the chain of flukes it must have taken to bring him through with his own life and limbs intact. Once he might have believed it to be the work of Providence but it seemed to him now that to thank God for his life would be to suggest God had shrugged off all the others flicked them away like cigarette butts by the thousands and that seemed like abominable conceit. James Dorsey took no credit for being alive. His higher power these days was Chance.”

MightWould BeChanceTakenAliveHigherCreditChainsThese DaysThank GodProvidenceCigaretteLimbsConceitHigher PowerFlukes
Author:Laini Taylor
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“We are here because over billions of years, countless variables fell into place, any of which could have taken another path. We are essentially a beautiful fluke, as are the millions of other species with which we share this planet. Our cells are composed of atoms and dust particles from distant galaxies, and from the billions of living organisms that inhabited this planet before us.”

YearsBeautifulMillionsPathTakenSharePlanetsSpeciesBillionsDustCellsMeaning Of LifeAtomsOrganismsGalaxyParticlesVariablesLiving OrganismsFlukes
Book:Jeremy Fink and the meaning of life
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“The book was in her lap; she had read no further. The power to change one’s life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark. The lines that penetrate us are slender, like the flukes that live in river water and enter the bodies of swimmers. She was excited, filled with strength. The polished sentences had arrived, it seemed, like so many other things, at just the right time. How can we imagine what our lives should be without the illumination of the lives of others?”

ShouldBookBodyWaterLinesOur LivesImagineRiversFilledExcitedSentencesRight TimeLapRemarksPenetrateIlluminationParagraphPolishedLives Of OthersLoneSwimmerSlenderPower To ChangeFlukes
Author:James Salter
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“It would be one thing if we could say the system works [in Illinois], and that individuals followed procedures and were found innocent, but in fact in all the cases it was really a fluke ... We find persistent wrongdoing on the part of law enforcement. It's really sheer luck that those convicted of these [capital] crimes were exonerated in the end.”

IfsEndsFactsWould BeLawFoundIndividualCasesOne ThingCrimeLuckInnocentSheerLaw EnforcementEnforcementPersistentDeath PenaltyProceduresWrongdoingIllinoisFlukes
Author:Jan Schakowsky
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