Quotes about a chance
page 15

“They say I used to scare pitchers just by strolling to the plate but those guys always had a remedy for me. Whenever they were afraid I'd knock one out of the park, they'd walk me and their worries would be over. But once Cobb got on base then their worries really began. He would upset not only the pitcher or catcher, but the infield as well by going from first to third on a sacrifice bunt, scoring from second on an infield out, taking two bases on an outfield fly and making delayed steals. Fans still talk about the home run I hit in the 1932 World Series off Charley Root of the Cubs after I pointed to the rightfield stands. Well, I once remember Cobb beating out four bunts down the third base line in one game against Billy Bradley, a wonderful third baseman for Cleveland. That was after Cobb warned Bradley he would bunt to him every time he got up. Another time Cobb warned Lou Criger, a great catcher with Boston, that he would steal second, third and home on him first chance he got. Well, the first time up Cobb walked and on three pitches stole second, third and home against the dumbfounded Criger.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in "Ruth Considers Ty Cobb As Greatest of Players" https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/55058790/

World, Guy, Home, Game

“If you are born into a poor family, if you are a woman you have seen the worst of poverty. In a cultural way in the families in Bangladesh it's the women who eats last. So if you have a scarcity in the family … she misses out so everything comes in the raw deal for her. So, given a chance she works very hard to make a change to improve her life. And by training she is the most efficient manager of scarce resources. Because with the little resource she has, she has to stretch it as much as she can to look after the children, look after the family and everything else.. unlike men - men want to enjoy right away. Whatever he got, whatever tiny bit of thing he got he doesn't care for much what's coming up.”

Muhammad Yunus (1940) Bangladeshi banker, economist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

"Interview with Prof. Muhammad Yunus" Australian Broadcasting Corporation (25 March 1997)

Life, Women, Men, Children

“I never said you had to offer me a second chance.
I never said I was a victim of circumstance.
I still belong, don't get me wrong.
And you can speak your mind
But not on my time.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

My Life.
Song lyrics, 52nd Street (1978)

Time

“And we danced, and we drank
And I've seen something you probably never got the chance to see
Don't worry, Mary
Cause I'm taking care of Danny
And he's taking care of me”

Dido (1971) English singer-songwriter

Mary's In India
Song lyrics, Life for Rent (2003)

Dance

“Oh, my love
You're searching
For your name
Beside the sea
Of dwells and dreams
Where Shadows're dancing
For your glance…
The sky would chance
The granting of a dream
To the restless soul
That dwells within your heart…”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Children of the Sun (1969)

Love, Dreams, Soul, Search

“Against a strong kicker there are two ways to fight. If you are experienced, just go into their center and hit. But if you aren't, then back up. Each time the opponent misses, he will lose one degree of confidence. After a while you have more chances.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Wong Shun Leung's Ways to Beat a Good Kicker Kicking and Kneeing Source: Comments From Wong Shun Leung and Tsui Shan Ting, by Ray Van Raamsdonk http://www.springtimesong.com/wcqanda.htm

Way, Confidence, Strong, Time

“One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and hold fast to the days, as to fortune or fame.”

Willa Cather (1873–1947) American writer and novelist

Source: Willa Cather in Europe (1956), Ch. 13 (10 September 1902)

Happiness, World

“The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Negro

Source: The Negro (1915), Ch. XI: The Negro in the United States

People, Intelligence, Learning

“Reverend Lawson:You lured those boys in here and made filth of them!
Bob: We don't think human bodies is filth until they're corpses, Reverend Lawson!
Bill: We loved every inch of those boys.
Bob: Every chance we got.
Bill: And we sent them away to war, since they had to go, with every surface of them—
Bob: Tinglin' with kisses an' love.”

Robert Patrick (playwright) (1937) Playwright, poet, lyricist, short story writer, novelist

"Bill Batchelor Road"
Untold Decades: Seven Comedies of Gay Romance (1988)

Love, War, Boy, Kiss

“If you were part of a group there was always the chance that the predator would take the next guy, not you. It was a cold-blooded lottery that paid off often enough to be worthwhile adapting for.
But there were disadvantages to group living: mainly, if there were large numbers of you, there was increased competition for food. As that competition resolved itself, the inevitable result was social complexity—and the size of the adapids’ brains had increased so that they were capable of handling that complexity. Then, of course, they were forced to become even more efficient at searching for food to fuel those big brains.
It was the way of the future. As primate societies became ever more complex, a kind of cognitive arms race would continue, increasing smartness fueled by increasing social complications.”

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Source: Evolution (2002), Chapter 5 “The Time of Long Shadows” section I (p. 113)

Food, Way, Guy, Search

“And in that place the cruel tyrant, Love,
Who treacherously every promise breaks,
Who bides his time and watches every move,
And every chance to thwart true lovers takes.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Quivi il crudo tiranno Amor, che sempre
D'ogni promessa sua fu disleale,
E sempre guarda come involva e stempre
Ogni nostro disegno razionale.
Canto XIII, stanza 20 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Love, Lovers, Time

“Charlie McCarthy: I can't take this schoolwork any more - it's driving me nuts.
Edgar Bergen: Well Charlie, I'm sorry, but hard work never killed anyone.
Charlie McCarthy: Still, there's no use in taking chances.”

Edgar Bergen (1903–1978) American actor, radio performer, comedian and ventriloquist

Quoted in Todd Harris Goldman, Teachers: Jokes, Quotes, and Anecdotes (2001) p. 136

“Krapp: Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now.”

Samuel Beckett Krapp's Last Tape

Krapp's Last Tape (1958)

Happiness

“Meditation on the chance which led to the meeting of my mother and father is even more salutary than meditation on death.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Chance (1947), p. 277

Death

“In the land of a thousand dances,
I dance with you.
I was out I was taking my chances
When dreams came true
When you came into my dream
Like from a whisper to a scream.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Heavy Connection
Song lyrics, A Period of Transition (1977)

Dreams, Dance

“As far as physicians go, chance is more valuable than knowledge.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II, Ch. 37
Essais (1595), Book II

Knowledge

“You talk like a fellow with some education, like someone who knows how to use his head. If you wanted to lead a decent and proper life, there are all sorts of things you could do. Why do you choose to steal?"
"Sir, I know this is a perilous occupation, and I am familiar with many a way to earn an honest bit of money. But the world wouldn't let me live in peace, so that's why I naturally turned to crime."
"What a strange way to talk!"
"That is so, sir, but it's true. I went to live with people, but they didn't take care of me. I learned to do things, and people gave me no chance to do them. Every family I met treated me badly. People weren't nice to me, so I became an enemy of the people. Now I force people to give me what I need in my life.”

Nguyễn Công Hoan (1903–1977)

Abandonment (1937), as quoted in Understanding Vietnam by Neil L. Jamieson (University of California Press, 1995), ISBN 978-0520916586, pp. 158–159

Life, Money, People, World

“If they can in their proposals write the word Nano, the chances for funding increase.”

Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov (1928–2017) Soviet, Russian and American theoretical physicist

on the trends of scientific funding, especially all that relates to Nanotechnology, in an Interview http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2003/abrikosov-interview.html with Nobel Laureates in Physics, Alexei Abrikosov and Anthony Leggett, December 9, 2003. The interviewer is Joanna Rose.

“Responsibility has increased at times. We have no right to be in depression. We must pull ourselves out at any cost. We have a unique chance and we have no moral right to lose it. We have no right to lose Ukraine!”

Vasyl Slipak (1974–2016) Ukrainian opera singer

Vasyl Slipak // Ukraine and Israel. Oleg Vyshniakov consul Ukraine and Israel — 2017. — December 20. http://ukraine-consul.blogspot.com/2017/12/vasyl-slipak.html

Time

“Ecumenopolis is under way, but we lack the overall concept and the courage to guide Ecumenopolis rather than just letting it happen by chance and necessity.”

Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1914–1975) Greek architect

Source: Building Entopia - 1975, Chapter 15, Ecumenopolis, p. 232

Way, Courage

“Don took it and said, “Uh, thanks! That’s awfully kind of you. I’ll pay it back, first chance.”
“Instead, pay it forward to some other brother who needs it.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Between Planets

Source: Between Planets (1951), Chapter 8, “Foxes Have Holes, and Birds of the Air Have Nests—” (p. 91)

“Too many in Washington display a ruling class mentality and congressional term limits would go a long way towards restoring the citizen-legislator ethos of the Founding Fathers, Americans of all political background overwhelmingly support term limits, yet term limits have floundered in Congress. An approach that phases in congressional term limits reconciles the self-interest of members of Congress with the public–s desire to see these changes enacted and gives us the best chance to make term limits a reality.”

Ron DeSantis (1978) Florida politician

DeSantis Takes New Approach to Term Limits https://desantis.house.gov/press-releases?ID=CE85F6D8-D64B-4278-B99C-FF03D323DE2C (May 4, 2015)

Way, Support, Reality, Change

“It is difficult to pronounce on the opinion of the ministers of our Church as a body: one portion of them, by far the least informed, protests against anything which can advance the honour and the interests of science, because, in their limited and mistaken view, science is adverse to religion. This is not the place to argue that great question. It is sufficient to remark, that the best-informed and most enlightened men of all creeds and pursuits, agree that truth can never damage truth, and that every truth is allied indissolubly by chains more or less circuitous with all other truths; whilst error, at every step we make in its diffusion, becomes not only wider apart and more discordant from all truths, but has also the additional chance of destruction from all rival errors.”

Charles Babbage (1791–1871) mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable c…

Source: The Exposition of 1851: Views Of The Industry, The Science, and the Government Of England, 1851, p. 225

Men, Truth, Religion, Error

“I am a sporting man. I always give them a fair chance to get away.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Asked why he missed so many trains and aeroplanes, as cited in My Darling Clementine (1963), Fishman, W.H. Allen : Star Books edition (1974), p. 218 ISBN 0352300191
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Sport

“In single combat, we can confuse the enemy by attacking with varied techniques when the chance arises. Feint a thrust or cut, or make the enemy think you are going close to him, and when he is confused you can easily win.
This is the essence of fighting, and you must research it deeply.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book

Thinking, Fight

“Any man can face death but to be committed to bring it as close as possible while performing certain classic movements and do this again and again and again and then deal it out yourself with a sword to an animal weighing half a ton which you love is more complicated than just facing death. It is facing your performance as a creative artist each day and your necessity to function as a skillful killer. Antonio had to kill quickly and mercifully and still give the bull one full chance at him when he crossed over the horn at least twice a day.
Everyone in bullfighting helps everyone else in bullfighting in the ring. In spite of all rivalries and hatreds it is the closest brotherhood there is. Only bullfighters know the risks they run and what the bull can do with his horns to their bodies and their minds.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: The Dangerous Summer (1985), Ch. 9

Love, Death, Help, Animals

“No statistician present at this moment will have been in doubt about the meaning of my words when I mentioned the common statistical model. It must be a stochastic device producing random results. Tossing coins or a dice or playing at cards are not flexible enough. The most general chance instrument is the urn filled with balls of different colours or with tickets bearing some ciphers or letters. This model is continuously used in our courses as a didactic tool, and in our statistical analyses as a means of translating realistic problems into mathematical ones. In statistical language " urn model " is a standard expression.”

Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) Dutch mathematician

Source: The Concept and the Role of the Model in Mathematics and Natural and Social Sciences (1961), p. 79; Partly cited in: Norman L. Johnson and Samuel Kotz (1977) Urn Models and Their Application: an. Approach to Modern Discrete Probability Theory http://dis.unal.edu.co/~gjhernandezp/sim/hide/Urn%20Models%20and%20Their%20Application%20-%20An%20approach%20to%20modern%20discrete%20probability%20theory_Norman%20L.Johnson(Wiley%201977%20413s).pdf, John Wiley & Sons.

Mathematics, Problem

“Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance,
For a break that would make it OK.
There's always some reason
To feel not good enough;
And it's hard at the end of the day.I need some distraction,
Oh, beautiful release.
Memory seeps through my veins.
Let me be empty,
Oh weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Angel
Song lyrics, Surfacing (1997)

Peace, Beauty, Feeling, Memory

“Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

C 23
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook C (1772-1773)

Understanding, Learning, Appearance, Science

“She had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance except, perhaps, fair play.”

Thomas Hardy book The Mayor of Casterbridge

Source: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Ch. 1

Time

“… the fear of God together with a keen eye for the main chance.”

Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) American philosopher

Chap XXXV. (Among the traits Barton Perry lists as being possessed by Americans and inherited from British Puritans.)
The Present Conflict of Ideals: A Study of the Philosophical Background of the World War (1918)

God, Fear

“During the warm season (August 8 and 9), Maine is a true "vacation paradise," offering visitors a chance to jump into crystal-clear mountain lakes and see if they can get back out again before their bodily tissue is frozen as solid as a supermarket turkey.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need (1991)

Mountain, Season

“Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948) Chapter 19 (Prague, Albania, and the Polish Guarantee).
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Hope, Victory, Fight

“Saying ‘yes’ to major life decisions when inside you are crying out to say ‘no’ is more serious. Doing the opposite of what you feel is right can destroy your chances of achieving your dreams and goals. I have coached too many people who regret going with the flow on major life decisions and now need help living with the consequences.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Life, People, Dreams, Feeling

“I never used to miss the chance to climb up on his knee
And listen to the many tales of life upon the sea.
We'd go sailing back on Barkentines we'd talk of things he did
Tomorrow just a day away, for the Captain and the kid.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

The Captain and the Kid
Song lyrics, Down to Earth (1970)

Life, Sea

“I touch your mouth, I touch the edge of your mouth with my finger, I am drawing it as if it were something my hand was sketching, as if for the first time your mouth opened a little, and all I have to do is close my eyes to erase it and start all over again, every time I can make the mouth I want appear, the mouth which my hand chooses and sketches on your face, and which by some chance that I do not seek to understand coincides exactly with your mouth which smiles beneath the one my hand is sketching on you.”

Julio Cortázar book Hopscotch

Rayuela (Hopscotch) (1963)

Smile, Understanding, Appearance, Time

“[Several] companies holds market share in excess of 50 percent in its prime market. All of them have been able to establish strongholds in the early majority segment, if not beyond, and to look forward from that position to continued growth, wondrously strong profit margins, and increasingly preferred relationships as suppliers to their customers. To be sure, some like Oracle and, more dramatically, Netscape have fallen on hard times, but even then customers often bend over backward to give market share leaders second and third chances, bringing cries of anguish from their competitors who would never be granted such grace.”

Geoffrey Moore book Crossing the Chasm

Source: Crossing the Chasm, 1991, p. 14

Strong, Time

“The principle of rotation… in the body of [bank] directors… breaks in upon the esprit de corps so apt to prevail in permanent bodies; it gives a chance for the public eye penetrating into the sanctuary of those proceedings and practices, which the avarice of the directors may introduce for their personal emolument, and which the resentments of excluded directors, or the honesty of those duly admitted, might betray to the public; and it gives an opportunity at the end of the year, or at other periods, of correcting a choice, which on trial, proves to have been unfortunate.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1803. ME 10:437
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

Personality

“If you depend on the widespread lover's delusion, 'With my love he or she will change,' you have little chance to help yourself. This delusion is external control to the maximum. If things are not good from the beginning, they are very likely to change, but not for the better.”

William Glasser (1925–2013) American psychiatrist

Source: Choice Theory (1997), p. 105

Love, Lovers, Change, Help

“The genetic systems is not closed, therefore. The genes do not simply hold information without any reference to the body’s living system. It does not exist, then -- the genetic structure -- like some highly complicated mechanism already programmed, started and functioning blindly so that once it is set into operation there is no chance for modification.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 910, Page 314
Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment, Volume Two (1986)

“Fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance,
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the main
At Kaux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.”

Michael Drayton (1563–1631) English poet

Source: To the Cambro-Britons and Their Harp, his Ballad of Agincourt (1627), Lines 1-8.

Training

“But you don't have a chance if you can't find a job. I don't think it penetrates the minds of this Administration what it must be like for a factory worker to arrive home to his family with the news that he's been laid off. What it must be like not to know what the future holds for your children, because you don't know what the future holds for you. What it must be like to see the government take hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used to fund job training, unemployment benefits, or jobs programs — and instead to send that money off to people who have such staggering wealth that the new money won't make the tiniest improvement in their lifestyle. What it must be like to be told that tax cuts for the rich are necessary to create jobs for working people, and then to see jobs fall month after month for more than 30 months. If that doesn't break your heart, you don't have a heart.”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

Jobs Plan speech (24 September 2003) http://www.clark04.com/speeches/002/

Money, Children, People, Family

“If you were a king up there on your throne
would you be wise enough to let me go?
For this queen you think you own
Wants to be a hunter again
wants to see the world alone again
to take a chance on life again
so let me go.”

Dido (1971) English singer-songwriter

Hunter
Song lyrics, No Angel (1999)

Life, World, Thinking

“If a person's religious ideas correspond not with your own, love him nevertheless. How different would yours have been, had the chance of birth placed you in Tartary or India!”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Article 25 "Declaration of Rights" http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/PShelley/declarat.html (1812)

Love, Idea, Birth, Personality

“The beat must not be like a tyrannical hammer, impeding or urging on, but must be to the music what the pulse-beat is to the life of man. There is no slow tempo in which passages do not occur that demand a quicker motion, so as to obviate the impression of dragging. Conversely there is no presto that does not need a quiet delivery by many places, so as not to throw away the chance of expressiveness by hurrying… Neither the quickening nor the slowing of the tempo should ever give the impression of the spasmodic or the violent. The changes, to have a musical-poetic significance, must come in an orderly way in periods and phrases, conditioned by the varying warmth of the expression. We have in music no signs for all this. They exist only in the sentient soul. If they are not there, then there is no help to be had from the metronome – which obviates only the grosser errors – nor from these extremely imperfect precepts of mine.”

Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826) German composer

quoted in Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Conductors (1981) ISBN 0671208349

Life, Music, Way, Error

“I think from my experience in war and life and science, it all has made me believe that we have one life on this planet. We have one chance to live it and to contribute to the future of society and the future of life. The only "afterlife" is what other people remember of you.”

Craig Venter (1946) American biochemist

San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/10/DD861808G2.DTL

Life, War, People, Thinking

“Through Chance, we are each a ghost to all the others, and our only reality; through Chance, the huge hinge of the world, and a grain of dust; the stone that starts an avalanche, the pebble whose concentric circles widen across the seas.”

Thomas Wolfe book Look Homeward, Angel

Source: Look Homeward, Angel (1929), p. 160

World, Reality, Sea

“For me the music is a vehicle for my lyrics. It's a chance to get some really good words across.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter

As quoted in [Coon, Caroline, w:en:Caroline Coon, 1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion, http://homepage.mac.com/blackmarketclash/Bands/Clash/Clash%20gigography/1976%20DATES.html, 2011-09-21, 1977, Hawthorn, London, 0801561299., 79262599, http://web.archive.org/20071026052834/homepage.mac.com/blackmarketclash/Bands/Clash/Clash%20gigography/1976%20DATES.html, 2007-10-26]

Music

“Vegan Bodybuilding is not only possible, it’s optimal. Within three years from first lifting weights properly and walking on a Bodybuilding stage as a novice, I had won Mr. Universe and become a Pro Bodybuilder. Steroids? Meat? Not a chance.”

Billy Simmonds (1980)

Interview with Living Vegan magazine (Autumn 2012); quoted in "Billy Simmonds" https://web.archive.org/web/20120708224928/http://www.treehugger.uproar.org.au/billy-simmonds/, Not Your Typical TreeHugger.

Universe

“Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves,
From chance, and death, and mutability,
The clogs of that which else might oversoar
The loftiest star of unascended heaven,
Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound

Spirit of the Hour, Act III, sc. iv, l. 200
Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)

Death, Star

“Mr. Cannon has told how he put through an appropriation for the entertainment of Prince Henry of Prussia when that foreign visitor came over years ago. He prearranged with Oscar W. Underwood, then in the House, that he would propose the appropriation late in the afternoon, when the House attendance was slim. Mr. Underwood, representing objecting Democrats, was to kick strenuously for a time about the cost of entertaining the prince; then Underwood was reluctantly to withdraw his opposition, the chances being no other Democrat would take it up. The 'Swapping of tobacco' across the aisles worked and the appropriation went through.”

Joseph Gurney Cannon (1836–1926) American politician

Reported in The Sun, Baltimore, Maryland (March 4, 1923); Congressional Record (March 4, 1923), vol. 64, p. 5714.
About

Time, Housing

“[Lloyd George] told me he did not see how we could get successfully through this war…"It is clear that that damn fool Neville [Chamberlain] never gave a thought to that question - whether we would win - when he declared war. I am not against war, but I am against war when we have no chance of winning."”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

A. J. Sylvester's diary entry (24 January 1941), Colin Cross (ed.), Life with Lloyd George. The Diary of A. J. Sylvester 1931-45 (London: Macmillan, 1975), p. 287
Later life

War, Fools, Question

“He would have died of loneliness and other things if the divine Omnipotence had not called him whenever It had the chance and invited him to become one with the radiant glory of heaven and earth. He tried whenever the opportunity occurred to obey this call and allow his soul to become one with a higher world beyond this world. He did not compose poetry openly now—his first experience at that had taught him a lesson; he resolved not to compose poetry openly until he was grown up and living among good and high-minded men, whom he imagined must exist elsewhere. But that did not stop him composing poetry; he composed just for himself now. Sometimes he scratched out a whole verse on the ice. He committed to memory every scrap of poetry he heard, and absorbed everything to do with knowledge, and was determined to write it all down in books later on—you see, he had the idea that there were too few books in the world, and that somewhere in the world there were people waiting impatiently, hungry for more books to be written.</b”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book One: The Revelation of the Deity

Men, People, Books, World

“I don't kno az i want tew bet enny money, and giv odds, on the man, who iz alwus anxious tew pray out loud, every chance he kan git.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

Money

“Give a human face to drug users and understand why they need narcotics is the only chance that we have to win the war on drugs. … Give a human face to terrorists and understand why they resort to violence is the only chance that we have to win the war on terror.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

War, Understanding

“The only chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law, as I have done, and as I shall continue to do.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Account of Matilda Joslyn Gage (20 June 1873) to Kansas Leavenworth Times (3 July 1873)
Trial on the charge of illegal voting (1874)

Women, Justice, Law, Country

“If we deal with our problem not knowing, or pretending not to know the general theory encompassing the concrete case before us, if we tackle the problem "with bare hands", we have a better chance to understand the scientist's attitude in general, and especially the task of the applied mathematician.”

George Pólya (1887–1985) Hungarian mathematician

Mathematical Methods in Science (1977)

Understanding, Problem

“The extreme moment of shock in battle presents in heightened and distorted form some of the distinctive characteristics of a whole society involved in war. These characteristics in turn represent a heightening and distortion of many of the traits of a social world cracked open by transformative politics. The threats to survival are immediate and shifting; no mode of association or activity can be held fixed if it stands as an obstacle to success. The existence of stable boundaries between passionate and calculating relationships disappears in the terror of the struggle. All settled ties and preconceptions shake or collapse under the weight of fear, violence, and surprise. What the experience of combat sharply diminishes is the sense of variety in the opportunities of self-expression and attachment, the value given to the bonds of community and to life itself, the chance for reflective withdrawal and for love. In all these ways, it is a deformed expression of the circumstance of society shaken up and restored to indefinition. Yet the features of this circumstance that the battle situation does share often suffice to make the boldest associative experiments seem acceptable in battle even if they depart sharply from the tenor of life in the surrounding society. Vanguardist warfare is the extreme case. It is the response of unprejudiced intelligence and organized collaboration to violence and contingency.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Plasticity Into Power: Comparative-Historical Studies on the Institutional Conditions of Economic and Military Success (1987), p. 160

Love, Life, War, World

“The democratic theory is that those Constitutions are likely to prove steadiest which have the broadest base, that the right to vote makes a safety - valve of every voter, and that the best way of teaching a man how to vote is to give him the chance of practice. For the question is no longer the academic one, "Is it wise to give every man the ballot?" but rather the practical one, "Is it prudent to deprive whole classes of it any longer?" It may be conjectured that it is cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them down, and that the ballot in their hands is less dangerous to society than a sense of wrong in their heads.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

On Democracy (6 October 1884)

Men, Way, Question, Sense

“Now take a person in this congregation who has knowledge with regard to being saved in the kingdom of our God and our Father and being exalted, one who knows and understands the principles of eternal life, and sees the beauty and excellency of the eternities before him compared with the vain and foolish things of the world, and suppose that he is taken in a gross fault, that he has committed a sin he knows will deprive him of the exaltation he desires, and that he cannot attain to it without the shedding of his blood, and also knows that by having his blood shed he will atone for that sin, and be saved and exalted with the Gods, is there a man or woman in this house but would say, 'shed my blood that I might be saved and exalted with the Gods?' All mankind love themselves, and let these principles be known by an individual and he would be glad to have his blood shed. That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exaltation. Will you love your brothers or sisters likewise, when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood?… I have known a great many men who have left this Church for whom there is no chance whatever for exaltation, but if their blood had been spilled, it would have been better for them. The wickedness and ignorance of the nations forbid this principle's being in full force, but the time will come when the law of God will be in full force.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses, 4:219 (February. 8, 1857)
Brigham Young describes the doctrine of Blood Atonement
1850s

Love, Life, Men, God

“I certainly do not take the view that a war between England and Germany is inevitable. I fear very gravely however unless something happens to the Nazi regime in Germany there will be a devastating war in Europe, and it may come earlier than you expect. The only chance of stopping it is to have a union of nations, all well-armed and bound to defend each other, and thus confront the Nazi aggression with over-whelming force.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Lord Londonderry (6 May 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 732
The 1930s

War, Fear

“We've lost our chance.
We're the first and the last, ooh,
After the blast.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Never for Ever (1980)

“It is an exciting and dangerous time, for this generation of Americans has the opportunity so rarely granted to others by fate and history. We literally have the chance to shape the future - to put our own stamp on the face and character of America, to bend history just a little bit.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

On the national debate, Speech http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/10/us/biden-joins-campaign-for-the-presidency.html announcing entry into 1988 presidential race, Wilmington, Delaware (June 10, 1987) 1980s

Fate, History, Time, Future

“When I called the Right Hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) a pompous sod, Mr. Speaker said to me, 'You had better withdraw that'. I said I would withdraw 'pompous', but said, Mr. Speaker 'That's not the word I'm looking for.' There was laughter in the House and everyone thought that I had hit the nail on the head. I thought that that was a real parliamentary triumph, but Mr. Speaker thought differently. He said, 'Off you go,' and I did not get a chance to reply.”

Dennis Skinner (1932) British politician

Speech http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199192/cmhansrd/1992-02-28/Debate-1.html in the House of Commons (28 February 1992) 1990s

Laughter, Housing

“You could not predict what would happen in a single instance, a single throw of the dice, a single pitch in the seventh inning, a single toss of the coin. But you could predict three out of five, four out of ten, seven out of sixteen, and to that extent chance governed everyone, all the time. Just as surely as two equals two.”

Michael Crichton book Odds On

Odds On (1966)

Time

“One of the most obvious facts about grown-ups, to a child, is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. The child has not yet had the chance to know what it is like to be a grownup; he believes, even, that being a grownup is a mistake he will never make—when he grows up he will keep on being a child, a big child with power. So the child and grownup live in mutual love, misunderstanding, and distaste. Children shout and play and cry and want candy; grownups say Ssh! and work and scold and want steak. There is no disputing tastes as contradictory as these. It is not just Mowgli who was raised by a couple of wolves; any child is raised by a couple of grownups. Father and Mother may be nearer and dearer than anyone will ever be again—still, they are members of a different species. God is, I suppose, what our parents were; certainly the ogre of the stories is so huge, so powerful, and so stupid because that is the way a grownup looks to a child.
Grownups forget or cannot believe that they seem even more unreasonable to children than children seem to them.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“An Unread Book’, pp. 51–52
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

Love, God, Children, Stupidity

“It's such a simple thing, really. It's an awareness that the other people in the world are other people, and that you are one of them. That every time you have a chance to help somebody out, to do what's right instead of what you think you're supposed to do, you should do it.”

Keith Olbermann (1959) American sports and political commentator

" Senior Convocation Speech http://www.news.cornell.edu/campus/Olbermann_speech.html," Cornell University (1998-05-23)

People, World, Thinking, Time

“Another lottery mystery that raised many eyebrows occurred in Germany on June 21, 1995. The freak event happened in a lottery called Lotto 6/49, which means that the winning six numbers are drawn from 1 to 49. On the day in question the winning numbers were 15-25-27-30-42-48. The very same sequence had been drawn previously, on December 20, 1986. It was the first time in 3,016 drawings that a winning sequence had been repeated. What were the chances of that? Not as bad as you'd think. When you do the math, the chance of a repeat at some point over the years comes out to around 28 percent.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 4, Tracking The Pathways To Success, p. 65

Question, Thinking, Time, Drawing

“Himuin was excessively arrogant on account of his troops and elephants. He advanced, fought, and routed the Mughals, whose heads lay in heaps, and whose blood flowed in streams. He thus at first vanquished the Mughal army; but as the brilliancy of the star of Prince Akbar’s fortune was not destined to be diminished, it chanced that, by the decree of the Almighty, an arrow struck Himun in the forehead. He told his elephant driver to take the elephant out of the field of battle…
“When Shah Kuli Beg was told of what had occurred, he came up to the elephant, and brought it into the presence of Bairam Khan. Bairam Khan, after prostrating himself, and returning thanks, caused HImUn to descend from the elephant, after which he bound his hands, and took him before the young and fortunate Prince, and said, As this is our first success, let Your Highness’s own august hand smite this infidel with the sword. The Prince, accordingly, struck him, and divided his head from his unclean body (Nov. 5, AD 1556).”

Hemu (1501–1556) General and Chief Minister of Adil Shah Suri

Tarikh-i Salatin-i Afaghana of Ahmad Yadgar, translated in Elliot and Dowson, Volume V, pp. 65-66. Quoted in S. R. Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition (1999) ISBN 9788185990583

Star, Success

“Sometimes you say things in songs even if there's a small chance of them being true. And sometimes you say things that have nothing to do with the truth of what you want to say and sometimes you say things that everyone knows to be true. Then again, at the same time, you're thinking that the only truth on earth is that there is no truth on it. Whatever you are saying, you're saying in a ricky-tick way. There's never time to reflect. You stitched and pressed and packed and drove, is what you did.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Source: Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 220

Truth, Way, Thinking, Time

“What I have learned from my travels is that by listening at least as much as we speak, and by trying to understand before we act, we perhaps stand a better chance of coming up with the right answers…”

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (1947) second wife of Prince Charles

The Duchess of Cornwall speaking in 2007
Unsourced

Travel, Understanding, Learning

“The situation also gave U. N. Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali a chance to start the U. N.'s disegagement from Bosnia, something he had long wanted to do. After a few meetings with him, I concluded that this elegant and subtle Egyptian, whose Coptic family could trace its origins back over centuries, had disdain for the fractious and firty peoples of the Balkans. Put bluntly, he never liked the place. In 1992, during his only visit to Sarajevo, he made the comment that shocked the journalists on the day I arrived in the beleaguered capital: "Bosnia is a rich man's war. I understand your frustration, but you have a situation here that is better than ten other places in the world. … I can give you a list." He complained many times that Bosnia was eating up his budget, diverting him from other priorities, and threatening the whole U. N. system. "Bosnia has created a distortion in the work of the U. N.", he said just before Srebrenica. Sensing that our diplomatic efforts offered an opportunity to disengage, he informed the Security Council on September 18 that he would be ready to end the U. N. role in the forme Yugoslavia, and allow all key aspects of implementation to be placed with others. Two days later, he told Madeleine Albright that the Contact Group should create its own mechanism for implementation - thus volunteering to reduce the U. N.'s role at a critical moment. Ironically, his weakness simplified our task considerably.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), pp. 174-175

War, People, World, Family

“If I take a man into battle, my lord, i like to offer him a better than even chance that he'll march away with his skin intact. If I wanted to kill the buggers I'd just strangle them in their sleep. It's kinder.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 88
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

Sleep

“Decision Points is based primarily on my recollections. With help from researchers, I have confirmed my account with government documents, contemporaneous notes, personal interviews, news reports, and other sources, some of which remain classified. There were instances in which I had to rely on memory alone. If there are inaccuracies in this book, the responsibility is mine. In the pages that follow, I have done my best to write about the decisions I got right, those I got wrong, and what I would do differently if given the chance. Of course, in the presidency, there are no do-overs. You have to do what you believe is right and accept the consequences. I tried to do that every day of my eight years in office. Serving as president was the honor of a lifetime, and I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to share my story.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Source: 2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010), p. xii

Books, Decision, Memory, Help

“Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 29

Life, Marriage, Happiness, Youth

“I felt as if I had blundered into someone else's life by chance, discovered I wanted to stay, then blundered back into my own, without a clue, a hint, or a way of finishing the story.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

The Powerbook (2000)

Life, Way

“"Why not just kill all the bad people? Isn't that kind of cruel to destroy the whole world? After all, the penguins didn't sin." Well, we know that God destroyed the whole world. I think there are some things to consider about this flood. Number one, the Flood left evidence where a miracle would not. If God had just said, "Okay, I want everybody to die, except for Noah and his family", then what evidence would be left behind from that? The effects are here today for us to see and remember the judgment of God on sin. Plus, by God telling Noah to build the boat, that gave everybody warning time. Here is Noah out there for many years, some people say seven years, some people say a hundred and twenty years. The Bible doesn't say, but Noah is building this ark for a long time. People are watching him put this big boat together and said, "Noah, are you crazy? What are you doing?" He says, "Man, it's going to rain." Now keep in mind, I don't think you can prove this dogmatically, but it probably never rained before the Flood came. So Noah was preaching about something that had never happened. He said, "Hey guys, guess what. Rain is going to fall out of the sky." Everybody is looking around saying, "Yeah right, that's never happened." They thought that he was nuts. Hey, we're doing the same thing today as Christians. We're going around saying, "Hey, one of these days and angel is going to come down with the Lord and they're going to come through the clouds and blow a trumpet and the Southern Baptists rise first, (you know the dead in Christ go first) and then the rest of us are going to take off for heaven." And everybody is looking at us and saying, "Yeah right. Nobody has ever heard a trumpet blown from a cloud and seen people take off for the clouds. That's just never happened." We are preaching that something is going to happen that has never happened in the history of humanity. That's what Noah was doing. He was preaching something that was going to happen and what he was preaching about had never happened. So while he was preaching, this gave people a chance to repent.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Hovind theory

God, People, World, Family

“The killing of the horses [a bullfight in Madrid, he visited in June 1910] by the bull is very horrible, much more so as they have no chance to escape and are ridden up to the bull to be butchered.... the entry of the bull into the ring however is very beautiful; his surprise and the first charges he makes are very pretty.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

Quote of Hopper's letter to his sister, June 9, 1910; as cited in Edward Hopper, Gail Levin, Bonfini Press, Switzerland 1984, p. 23
1905 - 1910

Beauty, Horse

“The time has come for the dismantling of fantasies. That is already happening to our universe. Now that we have this one chance of survival we must finally rid ourselves of fantasies and seize that chance!
For centuries our race has built on false assumptions. If you build a fantasy based on a false assumption and continue to build on such a fantasy, your whole existence becomes a lie which you implant in others who are too lazy or too busy to question its truth.
In this manner you threaten the very existence of reality, because, by refusing to obey its laws, those laws engulf and destroy you. The human race has for too long been manufacturing convenient fantasies and calling them laws. For ages this was so. Take war, for instance. Politicians assume that something is true, assume that strife is inevitable, and by building on such false assumptions, lo and behold, they create further wars which they have, ostensibly, sought to prevent.
We have, until now, accepted too many fantasies as being truths, too many truths as fantasies. And we have one last chance to discover the real nature of our existence. I am prepared to take it!”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Source: The Sundered Worlds (1965), Chapter 7 (pp. 229-230)

War, Truth, Lie, Age

“Love is a great thing. It is not by chance that in all times and practically among all cultured peoples love in the general sense and the love of a man for his wife are both called love. If love is often cruel or destructive, the reason lies not in love itself, but in the inequality between people.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

Love, People, Sense, Time

“Chance in uncertain, fortune double-faced,
Smiling at first, she frowneth in the end:
Beware thine honor be not then disgraced,
Take heed thou mar not when thou think'st to mend.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Giunta è tua gloria al sommo e per lo innanzi
Fuggir le dubbie guerre a te conviene,
Ch' ove tu vinca sol di stato avvanzi
Nè tua gloria maggior quindi diviene;
Mal' Imperio acquii'tato e prefo dianzi
El' onor perdi, se 'l contrario avviene.
Canto II, stanza 67 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Smile

“I only wanted to play baseball. I only wanted to play shortstop. I only wanted to play for the Yankees. My whole life. It wasn't like I wanted to play for another team and ended up in New York. It wasn't like I wanted to play another position and ended up at short. This has always been the dream of mine: to play shortstop for the New York Yankees. And I get a chance to do it.”

Derek Jeter (1974) American baseball player

Reported in Tom Verducci, " Derek Jeter: In his own words http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/magazine/specials/sportsman/2009/11/30/jeter.interview/index.html", Sports Illustrated (November 30, 2009). 2000s, 2009

Life, Dreams

“It is only when we speak what is right that we stand a chance at night of being blown to bits in our homes. Can we call this a free country, when I am afraid to go to sleep in my own home in Mississippi?… I might not live two hours after I get back home, but I want to be a part of setting the Negro free in Mississippi.”

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) American civil rights activist (October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977)

As quoted in This Little Light of Mine, ch. 8, by Hay Mills (1993). Said on September 13, 1965, in a hearing before the United States House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Elections.

Home, Sleep, Parting, Night

“An explanation of the "institutional approach" to economic theory is a plea for a particular kind of theory. It is possible to come upon the same object from different angles; but more often those who take different routes chance upon different things. The "institutional approach" doubtless has some importance because it is a happy way to acceptable truth, but its significance lies in its being the only way to the right sort of theory. An appeal for "institutional economics" implies no attack upon the truth or value of other bodies of economic thought, but it is a denial of the claims of other systems of thought to be "economic theory." This, however, is no pointless struggle in method to be carried on by breaking syllogisms over concepts and by engaging in polemics over niceties in statement. On the contrary, it involves the very nature of the problems which the theorist should set himself; its real issue is over what economic theory is all about.”

Walton Hale Hamilton (1881–1958) Yale Law Professor

Source: The Institutional Approach to Economic Theory, 1919, p. 309: Introduction

Happiness, Truth, Way, Nature

“My coaches and teammates really trusted me and gave me a chance to improve. They would come to me after a game I didn't score and say, 'Hey, don't worry about it. Next game you'll score.' The guys were great. It's an unbelievable team. It feels like home for me.”

Alexander Ovechkin (1985) Russian ice hockey player

The Canadian Press (June 23, 2006) "Ovechkin captures Calder Trophy; Russian sniper picked over Cole Harbour's Crosby", The Chronicle Herald, p. C4.

Guy, Feeling, Home, Game

“One life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us for evermore!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Man of Letters

Life, Time

“For the happiest life, days should he rigorously planned, nights left open to chance.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Life, Night

“Interaction may begin for quite different reasons. One or both persons may know something about the other and, on the basis of this information, may (anticipate that interaction would yield good outcomes. This would result in a deliberate decision to seek out the other person and interact with him. Under other circumstances the two persons may be thrown together by the operation of factors beyond their control. Their jobs may bring them together, common friends may introduce them, or residence in the same neighborhood may result in a chance meeting. In these instances interaction is begun in response to the immediate situation without any necessary anticipation of the possible consequences by either participant.”

John Thibaut (1917–1986) American social psychologist

Source: The social psychology of groups. 1959, p. 19-20

Decision, Personality

“I used to practice scales, but I think mainly in positions. I do runs that go from position to position, basically around chord shapes. I can get around pretty easily from one position to another, and on a good night it sound pretty hot. I'll take chances. Sometimes I'll trip over myself, but most times I'm lucky.”

Albert Lee

[Denyer, Ralph, The Guitar Handbook, 2002, 140, 0-679-74275-1]

Thinking, Time, Night

“Even if animal experiments did result in a cure for AIDS, of which there is no chance, I’d be against it on moral grounds.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

McGraw, Michael, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "PETA and AIDS research" http://www.cnsnews.com/letterstotheeditor/letters_archive/2006/letters20060515.asp, Letters to the Editor, CNSNews.com, May 15, 2006. On animal research and activism against it

Animals