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Inexplicable Quotes

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Inexplicable Quotes

“And yet the world we live in-its divisions and conflicts, its widening gap between rich and poor, its seemingly inexplicable outbursts of violence-is shaped far less by what we celebrate and mythologize than by the painful events we try to forget. Leopold's Congo is but one of those silences of history.”

WorldTryingForgetPoorSilenceRichViolenceEventsConflictPainfulCelebrateDivisionGapsCongoRich And PoorInexplicableOutburst
Book:King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa
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“We made this inexplicable turn into Iraq, where we've lost lives, money, honour and the coalition on [George] Bush's watch. Surely he's not suggesting that if the Democrats win, things can get worse. I mean, all we can do now is to look at our field policy and change the course. We need more diplomatic outreach toward Iran, Syria and Middle Eastern allies, and less bluster and less threats, and fewer troops.”

IfsNeedsLooksMeanMadeTurnsCoursesWinningLostCan DoWatchesMiddlePolicyFieldsThreatDemocratIraqIranHonourAlliesFewerTroopsSyriaEasternCoalitionsSuggestingDiplomaticInexplicableOutreachBluster
Author:Jesse Jackson
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“The Bible is forbidding when you start to read it. The language is odd. The stories start and stop herkily-jerkily. The characters behave in inexplicable ways. It takes a little bit of time to get into the rhythm of the book. I found reading the first 15 chapters of Genesis very very difficult. Once I got past there, I loved reading, and found it very easy. When you get used to the Bible, it becomes thrilling to read (like any great book - I just had exactly the same experience with the Odyssey).”

WayFirstsLittlesBookCharacterStoriesPastUsedReadingFoundLanguageEasyBitsDifficultLittle BitRhythmOddBehaveChaptersThrillingGenesisGreat BookInexplicableOdyssey
Author:David Plotz
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“There is probably not one person, however great his virtue, who cannot be led by the complexities of life's circumstances to a familiarity with the vices he condemns the most vehemently--without his completely recognizing this vice which, disguised as certain events, touches him and wounds him: strange words, an inexplicable attitude, on a given night, of the person whom he otherwise has so many reasons to love.”

PersonsReasonNightCertainGivenAttitudeVirtueEventsStrangeCircumstancesVicesWoundsToleranceComplexityRecognizingFamiliarityInexplicableReason To Love
Author:Marcel Proust
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“When the object is perceived as particular and unique and not merely the member of a family, when it appears independent of any general notion and detached from the sanity of a cause, isolated and inexplicable in the light of ignorance, then and only then may it be a source of enchantment.”

MayArtLightCausesObjectsIgnoranceParticularSourceMembersUniqueIndependentNotionSanityIsolatedDetachedEnchantmentInexplicable
Book:The collected works of Samuel Beckett
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“The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.”

HumansReasonPhilosophyWholeResultsViewsOpinionDoubtMysterySubjectsJudgmentPhilosophicalSpeciesCalmUncertaintyRegionsSuperstitionsAccurateObscureDeliberateFuryIrresistibleOpposingRiddleScrutinyContentionInexplicableFrailtyEnigmaContagionHuman Reason
Author:David Hume
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“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”

WorldObjectsCircumstancesStonesEternityFamiliarCompositionAssuranceContradictoryInexplicableCoherence
Book:The Philosophical Works of David Hume ... Containing Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Essays on the Immortality of the Soul, Suicide ... &c. A New Edition
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“Here is one of the fundamental defects of American fiction--perhaps the one character that sets it off sharply from all other known kinds of contemporary fiction. It habitually exhibits, not a man of delicate organization in revolt against the inexplicable tragedy of existence, but a man of low sensibilities and elemental desires yielding himself gladly to his environment, and so achieving what, under a third-rate civilization, passes for success. To get on: this is the aim. To weigh and reflect, to doubt and rebel: this is the thing to be avoided.”

MenKindCharacterDesireLiteratureExistenceFictionKnownDoubtEnvironmentAchieveCivilizationLowsOrganizationThirdsTragedyAimFundamentalsRateContemporaryRebelDelicateSensibilityDefectsAvoidedRevoltExhibitsInexplicableContemporary FictionElementalsAmerican Literature
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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“By writing a horror novel where this inexplicable disorder takes over in our ordered lives, you make order look better by comparison. But below that, there's a part of us that responds to the Who bashing their instruments to pieces on the stage. There's a very primitive part that says, "Do it some more."”

WritingLooksOrderNovelPiecesStageHorrorInstrumentsComparisonDisorderPrimitiveInexplicable
Book:Bare bones: conversations on terror with Stephen King
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“The believer's cross is no longer any and every kind of suffering, sickness, or tension, the bearing of which is demanded. The believer's cross must be, like his Lord's, the price of his social nonconformity. It is not, like sickness or catastrophe, an inexplicable, unpredictable suffering; it is the end of the path freely chosen after counting the cost. It is not, like Luther's or Thomas Muntzer's or Zinzendorf's or Kierkegaard's cross, an inward wrestling of the sensitive soul with self and sin; it is the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to come.”

WorldKindSoulEndsSelfRealitySufferingOrderSocialSinLordPathCostCrossesBelieverChosenSensitiveTensionSicknessWrestlingInwardCatastropheUnpredictableLutherCountingUnwillingRepresentingNonconformityInexplicableCounting The Cost
Author:John Howard
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“(There is) art that states the problems of society and wakes people up to make changes in their lives or in their communities,...art that offers an alternative, that demonstrates human behavior that can become a model for creativity, cooperation, freedom and playfulness, and...art that in itself provides glimpses of a larger consciousness or reflects upon the inexplicable.”

PeopleHumansArtStatesProblemCommunityConsciousnessCreativityOffersBehaviorModelsAlternativesCooperationHuman BehaviorGlimpseMaking ChangesInexplicablePlayfulness
Author:Meredith Monk
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“To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason. Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature, and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of evolution.”

WayWantNeedsMindReasonFactsFormLawResultsSpecialPositionEvolutionCapableStandingUniversalExcellenceNo ReasonIrrationalLaws Of NatureAccountingInexplicableUniformityUniversal Laws
Author:Charles Sanders Peirce
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“If you travel as much as I do - 165,000 miles last year - you exist nowhere. You're always between heaven and earth, you're always arriving in a new place, you're always starting from the beginning - talk about origins - and you don't know quite what's going to unfold. You live in the unexpected and the inexplicable all the time.”

IfsKnowsYearsEarthLastsHeavenStartingMilesUnexpectedLast YearHeaven And EarthArrivingInexplicableNew Places
Author:Jean Houston
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“We are made up of an entire parliament of pieces and parts and subsystems. Beyond a collection of local expert systems, we are collections of overlapping, ceaselessly reinvented mechanism, a group of competing factions. The conscious mind fabricates stories to explain the sometimes inexplicable dynamics of the subsystem inside brain. It can be disquieting to consider the extent to which all of our actions are driven by hardwired systems doing what they do best while we overlay stories about choices.”

MindMadeSometimesStoriesActionChoicesBrainPiecesGroupsConsciousDrivenLocalsExpertsCollectionsMechanismCompetingParliamentOur ActionsDynamicsFactionsInexplicableConscious MindOverlappingFabricate
Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain
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“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

IfsStatesHumorFunnyScienceUniverseEducationHappenedMysteryTheoryDiscoveryDisappearReplacedBizarreGalaxyPsychedelicInexplicableMystery Of LifeHitchhikers Guide To The GalaxyHitchhikers GuideHitchhikingSubtle AtheistFunny ScienceAstronomy And UniverseInfinite UniverseThings Are Not What They Seem
Author:Douglas Adams
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“Man depends on God for all things: God depends on man for one. Without man's love God does not exist as God, only as creator, and love is the one thing no one, not even God himself, can command. It is a free gift or it is nothing. And it is most itself, most free, when it is offered in spite of suffering, of injustice, and of death . . . The justification of the injustice of the universe is not our blind acceptance of God's inexplicable will, nor our trust in God's love, his dark and incomprehensible love, for us, but our human love, notwithstanding anything, for him.”

MenHumansDoeSufferingUniverseDarkLove IsOne ThingAcceptanceDependsAll ThingsAnd LoveBlindInjusticeCreatorCommandGod LoveSpiteTrust In GodJustificationGod's LoveInexplicableHuman LoveFree GiftsBlind Acceptance
Author:Archibald MacLeish
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“Religion begins in story. Yes, it does, because religion is an attempt to make sense of what is incomprehensible to us, what is inexplicable, what is awe-inspiring, what is frightening, what moves us to great wonder, and so on. That is the religious impulse, and it is part of our psychological makeup -- of everyone's psychological makeup.”

DoeStoriesMovingReligiousWonderPsychologicalImpulseMake SenseAweMakeupFrighteningInexplicableAwe Inspiring
Author:Philip Pullman
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