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Might Quotes

“Fanaticism is the danger of the world, and always has been, and has done untold harm. I might almost say that I was fanatical against fanaticism.”

World Has Beens Done Might Danger Harm Fanaticism

Author:Bertrand Russell

“Great wealth may be to its owner a blessing or a curse. Alas! I fear it is too often the latter. It hardens the heart, blunts the finer susceptibilities, and transforms into a fiend what under more favourable circumstances might have been a human being.”

Humans Heart May Has Beens Might Wealth Human Beings Circumstances Blessing Curse Latter Owners Alas Might Have Been Susceptibility

Author:Arnold Bennett

“Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be.”

Has Beens Stills Might Together Life Is Working Together Stakes Might Have Been Too Short Life Is Too Short Short Time

Author:Hillary Clinton

“But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism.”

People Knows Years Wells Persons Has Beens Stills Might Three Numbers Millions Support Greater Benefits Argument Method Good People Murderer Lingering Cannibalism

Book:God of the Machine

Source: God of the Machine

“I've learned to distinguish between the greatness of God and the inexcusable evil that has been done by those professing his name. And so I do not deduce [as Christopher Hitchens does] that God is not great, and that religion poisons everything. After all, if I failed to distinguish between the genius of Einstein and the abuse of his science to create weapons of mass destruction, I might be tempted to say science is not great, and technology poisons everything.”

“This is the place to be. Baseball town. The intimacy of Fenway, the toughness of it. I like that. I'm used to it. I need it. If I went somewhere else, it might have been a bit of a letdown. I like the edge.”

Ifs Needs Has Beens Might Used Bits Baseball Towns Edges Intimacy Might Have Been Somewhere Else Toughness Letdowns

Author:David Cone

“In the [first] fifteen years [of field work] I can remember just ten times when I had really narrow escapes from death. Two were from drowning in typhoons, one was when our boat was charged by a wounded whale; once my wife and I were nearly eaten by wild dogs, once we were in great danger from fanatical lama priests; two were close calls when I fell over cliffs, once I was nearly caught by a huge python, and twice I might have been killed by bandits.”

“If you vent anger with the object of spreading your toxic feelings, the result will have nothing to do with healing. Your anger is your weapon. On the other hand, if you release anger the way you'd expel a rock from your shoe, your intention clearly has healing behind it. Once the anger starts flowing, both of these alternatives might feel the same. Anger is anger. But if you have a healing intention, two things will happen: you will feel more peaceful after your anger has been released, and you will feel like an old, fixed belief in enemies and injustice has started to move.”

“I hope through The L Word to become an honorary member of the gay tribe. I cherish the thought that some young girl or woman somewhere may one night turn on the television and for the first time ever see her life represented - not as an isolated incident but as a multiplicity. Her overwhelming fear may have been that she might never find her tribe, she might never find love and now she knows that they are both out there waiting for her.”

“How few of us appreciate the fact that a very great deal of physical suffering in after life comes from bad mental training in childhood! I do not mean suffering of an imaginary kind; I mean disease which may entirely ruin a life which might have been of use to the world, and which surely would have been happier but for the lost health. Many a chronic invalid might have preserved his health had he been taught to use his brain properly when a child.”

World Kind May Mean Children Has Beens Facts Use Might Suffering Lost Deals Brain Childhood Taught Disease Training Appreciate Ruins Imaginary Might Have Been

Author:Lyman Abbott

“A great many wise sayings have been uttered about the effects of solitary retirement; but the motives which impel men to seek it are not more various than the effects which it produces on different individuals. One thing is certain, that those who can with truth affirm that they are "never less alone than when alone," might generally add that they never feel more lonely than when not alone.”

Source: Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd

“There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. But the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires.”

Mind Has Beens Might Past Desire Energy Wish Difficult Worry Alive Amount Ego Happenings Relation Frustrated Idle Frozen Might Have Been Difficult Things When Things Go Wrong

Author:Meher Baba

“If we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favor of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted.”

Ifs Way Want Looks Has Beens Might Easy Dangerous Theory Evidence Favors Pet Overwhelming Confirmation Refutation

Book:The Poverty of Historicism

Source: The Poverty of Historicism

“National Socialism is what Marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with a democratic order.”

Ifs Has Beens Might Order Democracy Broken Democratic Socialism Absurd Ties Artificial Might Have Been Marxism

Author:Adolf Hitler

“As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe - it's a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.”

Knows Want Believe Has Beens War Moments Might Wish Produce Conflict Army Rate Iraq Accomplished Armor

Author:Donald Rumsfeld

“The notion that I might have been able to court friends, win attention, conjure it, would have spoiled it for me. Unbidden love was what I wanted.”

Has Beens Might Able Wanted Winning Attention Court Notion Might Have Been Spoiled

Book:A Boy's Own Story: Picador Classic

Source: A Boy's Own Story: Picador Classic

“The main object of the work was to present such a survey of the advances already made in physical knowledge, and of the mode in which they have been made, as might serve as a real and firm basis for our speculations concerning the progress of human knowledge, and the processes by which sciences are formed.”

Humans Has Beens Made Real Might Process Progress Objects Bases Firm Speculation Surveys Human Knowledge

Book:History of the Inductive Sciences: I. The Greek school philosophy, with reference to physical science. II. The physical sciences in ancient Greece. III. Greek astronomy. IV. Physical science in the middle ages. V. Formal astronomy after the stationary period

Source: History of the Inductive Sciences: I. The Greek school philosophy, with reference to physical science. II. The physical sciences in ancient Greece. III. Greek astronomy. IV. Physical science in the middle ages. V. Formal astronomy after the stationary period

“One of my heroes, almost necessarily from what I'm saying, of course, is Borges, who is a supreme master of doing thing -- being a data bank -- and the beauty of this economy is that he could have written War and Peace in three or four pages; who knows, it might have been a better book.”

Knows Has Beens Book War Might Three Courses Economy Four Written Masters Hero Pages Supreme Data Might Have Been My Hero Borges

Author:Peter Greenaway

“Much early alchemy seems to have been adventure. You heated and mixed and burnt and pounded and to see what would happen. An adventure might suggest an hypothesis that can subsequently be tested, but adventure is prior to theory.”

Has Beens Seems Might Happens Adventure Theory Tested Hypothesis Alchemy

Book:The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference

Source: The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference

“The universe has its secrets. Extra dimensions of space might be one of them. If so, the universe has been hiding those dimensions, protecting them, keeping them coyly under wraps. From a casual glance, you would never suspect a thing.”

Ifs Has Beens Might Universe Space Secret Extras Dimensions Suspects Hiding Glances Wraps Casual

Book:Warped passages: unravelling the universe's hidden dimensions

Source: Warped passages: unravelling the universe's hidden dimensions

“Becka might have been average in L.A., but average in L.A. is Queen of Mars in the visiting room of a federal penitentiary in North Carolina.”

Has Beens Might Rooms Average Queens Mars Might Have Been Visiting Carolina North Carolina

Author:Kelly Link

“There is a plan, it seems to me, that reaches out of the electron to the rim of the universe and what this plan may be or how it came about is beyond my feeble intellect. But if we are looking for something on which to pin our faith- and, indeed, our hope- the plan might well be it. I think we have thought too small and have been too afraid.”

Ifs Thinking Wells May Has Beens Seems Might Universe Plans Unity Intellect Reach Out Pins Electrons Rims

Book:A Choice of Gods

Source: A Choice of Gods

“It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history -- free culture. If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.”

Source: Free Culture

“It seemed to me singularly ill-contrived for the British government to be going to war with Hitler when Hitler might have been about to attack the Russians, and even more ill-contrived that, when Hitler did attack the Russians, he had already defeated the French army. What I'm saying is that the war shouldn't have been started in September 1939...from the point of view of Britain, the war was really not a good thing and I would regard it as, in effect, a defeat.”

“Plantinga has written a short, 5 page summary of his views on evolution and naturalism, and it’s lucid (for Plantinga) and goes straight to his main points. The workings of the man's mind sit there naked and exposed, and all the stripped gears and misaligned cogs and broken engines of his misperception are there for easy examination. Read it, and you'll wonder how a man so confused could have acquired such a high reputation; you might even think that philosophy has been Sokaled.”

Thinking Men Mind Has Beens Philosophy Might Easy Wonder He Man Broken Naked Reputation Confused Exposed Engines Examination Gears Cogs Misperception So Confused

Author:PZ Myers

“There are crimes which no one would commit as an individual which he willingly and bravely commits when acting in the name of his society, because he has been (too easily) convinced that evil is entirely different when it is done 'for the common good.'...one might point to the way in which racial hatreds and even persecution are admitted by people who consider themselves, and perhaps in some sense are, kind, tolerant, civilized and even humane.”

People Way Kind Has Beens Different Done Might Evil Names Individual Common Acting Crime Hatred Convinced Commit Civilized Persecution Humane Common Good

Author:Thomas Merton

“If we want to postulate a deity capable of engineering all the organized complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution, that deity must have been vastly complex in the first place. The creationist, whether a naive Bible-thumper or an educated bishop, simply postulates an already existing being of prodigious intelligence and complexity. If we are going to allow ourselves the luxury of postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation, we might as well make a job of it and simply postulate the existence of life as we know it!”

“You point out that war is only a symptom of the whole horrid business of human behavior, and cannot be isolated. And that, even if we abolish war, we shall not abolish hate and greed. So might it have been argued about slave emancipation, that slavery was but one aspect of human disgustingness, and that to abolish it would not end the barbarity that causes it. But did the abolitionists therefore waste their breath? And do we waste ours now in protesting against war?”

“Now this is over thirty years later and the guy said he was that cab driver. He apologized and he was serious. I felt awful. He might have been spending his whole life thinking he had jinxed me, but I told him he hadn't. My number was up.”

Thinking Years Has Beens Said Whole Might Guy Felt Numbers Serious Spending Whole Life Awful Thirty Drivers Might Have Been Yankees Thirty Years New York Yankees Cab Cab Drivers

Author:Joe DiMaggio

“Then there was the time in Hollywood when I sat down in a breakaway chair and it collapsed on me. I was nearly knocked out and might have been even more seriously hurt but my fall was broken by the smog.”

Has Beens Might Funny Fall Hurt Broken Hollywood California Sat Chairs Might Have Been Smog Breakaway

Book:I KID YOU NOT

Source: I KID YOU NOT

“In the old days it would have been a relatively simple matter to have checked Hitler's territorial ambitions. All you'd have needed would have been the 1914 combination of Britain, France and Russia. Indeed, if such an alliance had acted decisively to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler might even have been overthrown by his own military. But it was not to be.”

Ifs Has Beens Matter Might Simple History Military Needed Ambition Russia France Combination Britain Alliances Old Days Territorial Czechoslovakia

Author:Niall Ferguson

“Cruel and paradoxical though it undoubtedly is, the record shows that yje most succesful 20th century monarchs have been those who were not actually born to succeed. King George VI was 41 when the abdication of Edward VIII propelled him suddenly and unexpectedly to take up the crown; and Queen Elizabeth II spent her first decade with no inkling thay she herself might one day have to reign. Taken together, these examples suggest that the best preparation for the job of sovereign is not to be prepared for it at all, ir not to be too well prepared for it, or for too long.”

“'A Naval History of Britain' which begins in the 7th century has to explain what it means by Britain. My meaning is simply the British Isles as a whole, but not any particular nation or state or our own day... 'Britain' is not a perfect word for this purpose, but 'Britain and Ireland' would be both cumbersome and misleading, implying an equality of treatment which is not possible. Ireland and the Irish figure often in this book, but Irish naval history, in the sense of the history of Irish fleets, is largely a history of what might have been rather than what actually happened.”

“Kitty Kelley's method, already perfected in her unauthorised and unflattering biographies of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan, is to write bestsellers that take what she describes as an 'unblinking look' at their subjects - which might, of course, mean that her eyes are permanently open or permanently closed... the result is a work so bad that Britons cannot realise how fortunate they are in being unable to buy it. The great mistake with this book is not that it has been published in Britain, but that it has actually been published anywhere else.”

Writing Looks Mean Has Beens Book Might Eye Courses Language Results Mistake Subjects Method Fortunate Britain Realising Frank Her Eyes Biographies Nancy Great Mistakes Kitties Britons

Author:David Cannadine

“He was in the right place at the right time, but he might have been elsewhere on a different afternoon.”

Has Beens Different Might Football Afternoon Elsewhere Right Time Might Have Been Right Place Commentators

Author:Tony Gubba

“So that, were it the purpose of God to produce comets as signs of his wrath it would be true to say that he is quickening a false devotion almost all over the world, increasing the number of pilgrims to Mecca, multiplying the offerings to the most famous impostors, inducing men to build mosques for Mohammedan worship, causing the invention of new superstitions among the dervishes - in a word, stimulating many abominable things which otherwise might not have been.”

“It might be said that religious freedom in the American sense, incorporating the separation of church and state, has been the pivotal concept of the national development of the United States of America.”

“I think her friends were worried that the bulimia might come back, about some psychological slide, and she was given breathing space to some extent by the media as much as she ever has been.”

Thinking Has Beens Might Literature Given Space Media Psychological Worried Breathing Slides Bulimia Breathing Space

Author:Anthony Holden

“You can make an argument that Bill O'Reilly is a conservative or a Republican. Bill's kind of unpredictable. Somebody might say that he would have been comfortable in the Democratic Party of Scoop Jackson.”

Kind Has Beens Might Literature Party Republican Comfortable Argument Bills Democratic Conservative Unpredictable Democratic Party Bill O Reilly

Author:Brit Hume

“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

“Surely we all occasionally buy books because of a daydream we're having - a little fantasy about the people we might turn into one day, when our lives are different, quieter, more introspective, and when all the urgent reading, whatever that might be, has been done. We never arrive at that point, needless to say.”

People Littles Has Beens Book Different Done Might Turns Reading Fantasy Our Lives One Day Urgent Daydreaming Introspective

Book:More Baths Less Talking: Notes from the Reading Life of a Celebrated Author Locked in Battle with Football, Family, and Time Itself

Source: More Baths Less Talking: Notes from the Reading Life of a Celebrated Author Locked in Battle with Football, Family, and Time Itself

“I've died so many times. I'm 65. On my 40th birthday, my girlfriend gave me a reel with ways I had died, whether it was by knife, or electrocution or drowning or being thrown off a building or whatever it might have been. I've died a lot of times!”

Way Has Beens Might Building Died Girlfriend Thrown Knives Might Have Been Drowning My Girlfriend 40th Birthday

Author:Jonathan Banks

“The family trees of Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer are everywhere so laden with figures of accomplishment that one might expect future generations to be burdened by it all. But the welter of wonderfulness that was their heritage seemed to have been a boon, one that buoyed them up so that each child seems not only to have stood on the shoulders of giants but also to have danced on them.”

Children Has Beens Seems Might Generations Tree Figures Shoulders Accomplishment Giants Heritage Future Generation Boon Bonhoeffer

Book:Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

Source: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot.”

Ifs Has Beens Might Streets Possibility Shots Expected Teenager

Author:Rand Paul

“As there are some faults that have been termed faults on the right side, so there are some errors that might be denominated errors on the safe side. Thus we seldom regret having been too mild, too cautious, or too humble; but we often repent having been too violent, too precipitate, or too proud.”

Has Beens Might Sides Regret Proud Safe Errors Faults Humble Violent Repent Cautious

Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“A distinction has been made between acuteness and subtlety of understanding. This might be illustrated by saying that acuteness consists in taking up the points or solid atoms, subtlety in feeling the air of truth.”

Has Beens Made Feelings Might Understanding Air Distinction Atoms Subtlety

Book:Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

“I have been formerly so silly as to hope that every servant I had might be made a friend; I am now convinced that the nature of servitude generally bears a contrary tendency. People's characters are to be chiefly collected from their education and place in life; birth itself does but little.”

People Littles Doe Has Beens Made Character Might Bears Birth Convinced Contrary Silly Tendencies Servant Servitude Place In Life

Book:Essays on Men and Manners

Source: Essays on Men and Manners

“It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or pity has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Caesar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a sergeant and the other an exciseman.”

Has Beens Country Character Might Attention Circumstances Fortune Excited Favors Pity Merit Might Have Been Sergeants Concurrence Cromwell

Book:Essays and poems, by Dr. Oliver Goldsmith. To which are prefixed, memoirs of the author

Source: Essays and poems, by Dr. Oliver Goldsmith. To which are prefixed, memoirs of the author

“I work continuously within the shadow of failure. For every novel that makes it to my publisher's desk, there are at least five or six that died on the way. And even with the ones I do finish, I think of all the ways they might have been better.”

Thinking Way Has Beens Might Novel Five Six Shadow Died Desks Publishers Might Have Been

Author:Gail Godwin

“I think it's easier to play when you do have a balanced home. I think if I did have alcoholism in my personal life, or my mother, or somebody close to me, it might have been much more uncomfortable to get in there.”

Ifs Thinking Has Beens Play Home Might Mother Easier Uncomfortable Balanced Personal Life Might Have Been Alcoholism

Author:Angelina Jolie