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Fortuitous Quotes

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Fortuitous Quotes

“I see no reason to believe that a creator of protoplasm or primeval matter, if such there be, has any reason to be interested in our insignificant race in a tiny corner of the universe, and still less in us, as still more insignificant individuals. Again, I see no reason why the belief that we are insignificant or fortuitous should lessen our faith.”

IfsShouldBelieveStillsMatterReasonScienceUniverseIndividualBeliefInterestRaceCreatorCornersTinyReason WhyNo ReasonInsignificantPrimevalFortuitous
Author:Rosalind Franklin
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“The Artist submits from day to day to the fatal rhythm of the impulses of the universal world which encloses him, continual centre of sensations, always pliant, hypnotized by the marvels of nature which he loves, he scrutinizes. His eyes, like his soul, are in perpetual communion with the most fortuitous of phenomena.”

WorldSoulEyeArtistUniversalRhythmImpulseHis EyesSensationsPerpetualSubmitCommunionDay To DayCentreScrutinizeFortuitous
Book:Nature and Imagination: The Work of Odilon Redon
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“I like to summarize what I regard as the pedestal-smashing messages of Darwin's revolution in the following statement, which might be chanted several times a day, like a Hare Krishna mantra, to encourage penetration into the soul: Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought, a tiny little twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life, which, if replanted from seed, would almost surely not grow this twig again, or perhaps any twig with any property that we would care to call consciousness.”

IfsHumansLittlesSoulEndsMightCareGrowsResultsConsciousnessProgressRevolutionMessagesRegardPropertyFollowingSeedsTinyStatementsCosmicPredictableKrishnaMantrasPedestalEnd ResultsHaresSmashingTwigsPenetrationAfterthoughtFortuitousHare Krishna
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“When we contemplate the world of Epicurus, and conceive the universe to be a fortuitous jumble of atoms, there is nothing grand in this idea. The clashing of atoms by blind chance has nothing in it fit to raise our conceptions, or to elevate the mind. But the regular structure of a vast system of beings, produced by creating power, and governed by the best laws which perfect wisdom and goodness could contrive, is a spectacle which elevates the understanding, and fills the soul with devout admiration.”

WorldMindIdeasSoulLawUniverseUnderstandingChancePerfectFitGoodnessCreatingRaisesBlindStructureAdmirationConceptionAtomsContemplatingFortuitous
Book:Philosophical works
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“It is conceivable that animal life might have the attribute of using the heat of surrounding matter, at its natural temperature, as a source of energy for mechanical effect . . . .The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific enquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms.”

HumansDifferentMatterMightMovingEnergyGrowthNaturalAnimalResultsGenerationsInfluenceEffectsSourceMiraclePlantSeedsRangeHeatFree WillAttributesAtomsVegetablesParticlesTemperatureAnimal LifeEnquiryFortuitousConcurrenceDaily Miracles
Author:Lord Kelvin
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“And then, one acting class turned into two, turned into four, and then turned into, "I love this. I could do this for the rest of my life. But, I don't have a background in acting. I never acted in college, or did anything like that. How can I go about doing this?" That meant going to grad school and getting some training, and I did. I literally walked down the path. It was real fortuitous for me to walk by that school, that one morning.”

TwoRealSchoolWalksActingClassMorningPathFourCollegeTrainingBackgroundsActing ClassesGradGrad SchoolFortuitous
Author:Tim Kang
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“The short story that eventually grew into Constellation was the first fiction set in Russia that I'd ever written, and that was right around the time I was giving up on a doomed, never-to-be-seen first novel. While I saw it could be something bigger, in hindsight fortuitous timing was as responsible as anything.”

GivingFirstsStoriesFictionNovelSawsWrittenGrewGiving UpBiggerResponsibleRussiaShort StoryTimingDoomedConstellationsHindsightFortuitous
Author:Anthony Marra
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“I am enthusiastic over humanity’s extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuity. If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem.”

IfsThinkingWayMeanSometimesEnoughProblemFormHumanityGivenAcceptingGoneDesignExtraordinaryYesterdayBest WayBoatPianoEnthusiasticSpectacularIngenuityClingingTimelyShipwreckFortuitous
Author:R. Buckminster Fuller
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“Fortuitous mostly for me,Lady Holloway," she said, her gaze steadfast on her husband. "For without our being childhgood neighbors, I am certain that my husband woud never have found me." Michael's gaze lit with admiration, and he lifted his glass in her direction. "At some point I would have realized what I was missing, darling. An I would have come looking for you.”

SaidCertainFoundMissingHusbandGlassesNeighborMy HusbandAdmirationLitDarlingSteadfastFortuitous
Author:Sarah MacLean
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“The greatest dread of ordinary man is death, with its rude imposition interrupting fortuitous plans and fondest attachments with an unknown and unwelcome change. The yogi is a conqueror of the grief associated with death. By control of mind and life force and the development of wisdom, he makes friends with the change of consciousness called death-he becomes familiar with the state of inner calmness and aloofness from identification with the mortal body.”

MenMindStatesBodyDeathForceGriefConsciousnessPlansDevelopmentOrdinaryFamiliarMortalsAttachmentDreadRudeCalmnessIdentificationConquerorOrdinary ManYogiImpositionUnwelcomeInterruptingFortuitousAloofness
Author:Paramahansa Yogananda
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“How is it to be explained that something inside me revolts against the playing of obvious moves? Perhaps we may perceive the underlying reason in the fact that I derive satisfaction from seeking to reveal the concealed meaning of a position by means of maneuvering play and therefore I do not wish to see this satisfaction curtailed by a banal, more or less fortuitous decision. Naturally, this phenomenon is played out beneath the threshold of consciousness. The waking consciousness will, of course, in each individual case, give preference to the more rapid means of deciding the game.”

GivingMayMeanReasonPlayFactsMovingCoursesGamesIndividualWishDecisionConsciousnessCasesPositionSatisfactionObviousSeekingPerceivePhenomenonWakingPreferenceRapidsConcealedRevoltThresholdFortuitous
Author:Aron Nimzowitsch
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“However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable.”

LifeBelieveHumansEyeLawIndividualBeliefSeeingDifficultyBottomAffairSeedsConvincedInevitableGoverningInevitabilityInexorableFortuitous
Book:Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
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“They whose activity of imagination is often shifting the scenes of expectation, are frequently subject to such sallies of caprice as make all their actions fortuitous, destroy the value of their friendship, obstruct the efficacy of their virtues, and set them below the meanest of those who persist in their resolutions, execute what they design, and perform what they have promised.”

ActionValuesImaginationVirtueFocusSubjectsDesignSceneActivityExpectationsResolutionPersistShiftingEfficacyCapriceFortuitous
Book:The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
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“We are the product of 4.5 billion years of fortuitous, slow biological evolution. There is no reason to think that the evolutionary process has stopped. Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation.”

ThinkingMenYearsReasonProcessAnimalCreationProductsEvolutionBillionsNo ReasonClimaxFortuitousBiological Evolution
Book:Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective
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“PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today . . . is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.”

TodayTimeNatureAncientPunishmentFamiliarInnocentInstanceInnocenceManifestationRulersPlagueImmuneAncient TimesPharaohsAdmonitionFortuitous
Book:The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World
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“To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives.”

PleasureOur LivesConvenienceFortuitous
Book:The Vicar of Wakefield ... Nach Walter Scott's verbessertem Texte durchgängig accentuirt. Nebst ... Noten und einem vollständigen Wörterbuche ... Bearbeitet von Christian Heinrich Plessner ... Fünfte Auflage
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“Composition is a side issue. Its role in my selection of photographs is a negative one at best. By which I mean that the fascination of a photograph is not in its eccentric composition but in what it has to say: its information content. And, on the other hand, composition always also has its own fortuitous rightness.”

MeanArtHandsSidesRolesIssuesInformationNegativePhotographTechniqueCompositionSelectionFascinationEccentricFortuitous
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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