“I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.”
Rex Stout book Might as Well Be Dead
Source: Might as Well Be Dead
February 1985, in William Breit and Roger W. Spencer (ed.) Lives of the laureates
1980s–1990s
“I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.”
Rex Stout book Might as Well Be Dead
Source: Might as Well Be Dead
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher
Sixth Talk in New Delhi (31 October 1956) http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=570&chid=4889&w=%22It+seems+to+me+that+the+real+problem+is+the+mind+itself%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 561031, Vol. X, p. 155 <br class="br">1950s <br class="br">Context: It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself, and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness. If I have a little mind and I think of God, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I may clothe him with grandeur, beauty, wisdom, and all the rest of it. It is the same with the problem of existence, the problem of bread, the problem of love, the problem of sex, the problem of relationship, the problem of death. These are all enormous problems, and we approach them with a small mind; we try to resolve them with a mind that is very limited. Though it has extraordinary capacities and is capable of invention, of subtle, cunning thought, the mind is still petty. It may be able to quote Marx, or the Gita, or some other religious book, but it is still a small mind, and a small mind confronted with a complex problem can only translate that problem in terms of itself, and therefore the problem, the misery increases. So the question is: Can the mind that is small, petty, be transformed into something which is not bound by its own limitations?
Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter
"A Qualified Farewell" (essay, early 1950's), published in The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler (1976)
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer
Author, Third Day. Change of Position<!--p.153 [190]-->
Dialogues and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences (1638)
Context: It has been observed that missiles and projectiles describe a curved path of some sort; however no one has pointed out the fact that this path is a parabola. But this and other facts, not few in number or less worth knowing, I have succeeded in proving; and what I consider more important, there have been opened up to this vast and most excellent science, of which my work is merely the beginning, ways and means by which other minds more acute than mine will explore its remote corners.
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge
Interview (16 August 1990), quoted in The Times (17 August 1990), p. 1
Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist
This I Believe (1951)
Context: This reporter’s beliefs are in a state of flux. It would be easier to enumerate the items I do not believe in, than the other way around. And yet in talking to people, in listening to them, I have come to realize that I don’t have a monopoly on the world’s problems. Others have their share, often far bigger than mine. This has helped me to see my own in truer perspective: and in learning how others have faced their problems — this has given me fresh ideas about how to tackle mine.
Marshall Faulk (1973) All-American college football player, professional football player, running back, Pro Football Hall of Fame memb…
USA Today 2005-08-02.
Arnold Tustin (1899–1994) British engineer
Source: The Mechanism of Economic Systems (1953), p. v