Quotes about opportunity (2026 quotes, page 19)

Jeff Bezos (1964) American entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon's Impending Invasion Of Banking - Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2019/07/08/amazon-invasion/#3d99a1ad7921/

“The most important opportunity offered by increased exposure is the chance to focus with greater faith and intensity upon the hard work of writing.”

David Chariandy (1969) Canadian writer

On his increased exposure as a writer in “Interviews: David Chariandy” https://bookpage.com/interviews/22971-david-chariandy-fiction#.XfgMUulKjcs in BookPage (2018 Aug 1)

Chance , Faith

“My parents never overtly pushed us to marry Chinese (in fact, my dad was an equal opportunity dater in his time). However, they always encouraged us to value our Chinese-ness. It was never something to be ashamed of. I grew up in a very Chinese American household; Mom cooked Chinese food almost every night, yet she loved her French cooking classes. We all played multiple classical instruments, but were also avid Broadway fans.”

Stacey Lee

On her household’s value on being Chinese American in “AN INTERVIEW WITH STACEY LEE” http://www.bookslut.com/features/2015_07_021234.php in BookSlut (Jul 2015)

Time , Night , Food , Parent

“There are many undiscovered Mozarts, Beethovens, Einsteins, Shakespeares, Lincolns, and Washingtons out there today who do not have the freedom or the opportunity to explore their talents due to economic, political, and other constraints.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

Freedom

“Hindutva was a political argument made in a poetic register. It was an argument with and against an unnamed Gandhi at an opportune moment when he seemed finished with politics. Hindutva was also a political cry from behind prison walls, reminding the larger world outside that even if Gandhi was no longer on the political scene, Savarkar was back. He was still a leader, a politician capable of pulling together a nationalist community. But unlike Gandhi, he was offering a sense of Hindu-ness that could be the basis for a more genuine and, in the end, more effective nationalism than that of the Mahatma. The startling change for its time was Savarkar’s assertion that it was not religion that made Hindus Hindu. If Gandhi had officiated at the marriage of religion and politics, and Khilafat leaders were using the symbols of religion to forge a community, Savarkar argued that name and place were what bound the Hindu community, not religion . . . The fundamental (negative) contribution of Hindutva was to install a new term for nationalist discourse, one that was both modern and secular, if open to a secular understanding of religious identity. In place of religion qua religion, he secularized a plethora of Hindu religious leaders. In so doing, he did not create a sterilely secular nationalism. He did quite the opposite. He enchanted a secular nationalism by placing a mythic community into a magical land .”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

Janaki Bakhle quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)

Religion , Time , Understanding , Marriage

“The thing is that there aren’t many stories told that are being shown to everybody from this, so any opportunity that I have to see a project that we could just release that to people that they could see a slice of life that they may not recognize or they may not know. It’s about family, it’s about being good people, it’s about culture, whether it’s music, theater, arts. And the opportunity to show that in a neighborhood and in a culture that I grew up in is very important to me.”

David Zayas (1962) Puerto Rican actor

On his film Shine in “INTERVIEW: David Zayas Talks To Me about ‘SHINE’” https://www.ramascreen.com/interview-david-zayas-talks-to-me-about-shine/ in Rama’s Screen (2018 Oct 1)

Family , People , Art , Music

“I always enjoyed doing monster books. Monster books gave me the opportunity to draw things out of the ordinary. Monster books were a challenge — what kind of monster would fascinate people? I couldn’t draw anything that was too outlandish or too horrible. I never did that. What I did draw was something intriguing. There was something about this monster that you could live with. If you saw him you wouldn’t faint dead away. There was nothing disgusting in his demeanor. There was nothing about him that repelled you. My monsters were lovable monsters.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

1990, Gary Groth interview

Drawing , Books , People , Dead

“No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse. … Increasing prosperity tends to breed indifference and to corrupt moral soundness. Glaring inequalities in condition create discontent and strain the democratic relation. The vicious are the willing, and the ignorant are unconscious instruments of political artifice. Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses... The peril of this Nation is not in any foreign foe! We, the people, are its power, its peril, and its hope!”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Conditions of Progress in Democratic Government (1909).

Selfishness , Indifference , People , Hope

“When we began, we had no opportunities; we prepared in silence and created our own opportunity.”

Diego Rivera (1886–1957) Mexican painter, muralist, Communist

On making your own artistic opportunities in the book Conversations with Diego Rivera: The Monster in His Labyrinth https://books.google.com/books?id=KpZRDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq

Silence

“I hear so many complaints to the effect that Negroes do not take advantage of the educational opportunities offered them. Well, one of the reasons why more of my race do not go in for higher education is that as soon as one of us gets his head above the crowd there are millions of feet ready to crush it back again to that dead level of commonplace thus creating a racial deadline of culture in our Republic. For how am I to compete with other American artists if I am not to be given the same opportunity?”

Augusta Savage (1892–1962) American sculptor

On being denied a scholarship due to her race in “Sculptor Augusta Savage’s Towering Impact on the Harlem Renaissance” https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-sculptor-augusta-savages-towering-impact-harlem-renaissance in Artnet (2019 Apr 5)

Education , Dead

“Intriguingly, the mathematics of randomness, chaos, and order also furnishes what may be a vital escape from absolute certainty—an opportunity to exercise free will in a deterministic universe. Indeed, in the interplay of order and disorder that makes life interesting, we appear perpetually poised in a state of enticingly precarious perplexity. The universe is neither so crazy that we can’t understand it at all nor so predictable that there’s nothing left for us to discover.”

Ivars Peterson (1948) Canadian mathematician

Preface, “Infinite Possibility” (p. xiii)
The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari (1997)

Understanding , Universe , Appearance , Mathematics

“I was practically driven to Rome in order to obtain the opportunities for art-culture, and to find a social atmosphere where I was not constantly reminded of my color. The land of liberty had no room for a colored sculptor.”

Edmonia Lewis (1844–1907) American sculptor

On studying in Europe (as quoted in the book Improper Bostonians: Lesbian and gay history from the Puritans to Playland https://www.google.com/books/edition/Improper_Bostonians/azaIecghLVgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq)

Color , Art

“It was surprising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one’s inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one’s mind and often misled it. No one who has not lived for years in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the dread consequences of a regime’s calculated and incessant propaganda. Often in a German home or office or sometimes in a casual conversation with a stranger in a restaurant, a beer hall, a café, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons.”

William L. Shirer book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960)

Home , Beer , Personality , Intelligence

“The thing I really believe deep down is that everybody has a gift for something. Our job as adults is to make sure all children have the opportunity to find their gift.”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

On Times of India interview, 2016. source https://timesofindia.com/entertainment/english/music/news/We-are-greedy-to-play-a-full-concert-in-Mumbai-we-havent-played-here-before/amp_articleshow/55488508.cms

Children , Making love

“I’m very aware of the time I have on this planet…I lost loved ones at a young age. I realise the platform I have and the responsibility I have, and I’m aware of my mortality. No one like me has ever had this opportunity, so I’d be a fool not to make the most of it.”

Reggie Yates (1983) English actor, television presenter and radio DJ

On the scope of his current projects in “Reggie Yates on The Insider: ‘What I’m doing, no one else is doing’” https://www.thejackalmagazine.com/reggie-yates-interview in The Jackal Magazine (2017 Mar 10)

Time , Fools , Age , Love

“In the past century a myth has grown up that free market capitalism—equality of opportunity as we have interpreted that term—increases such inequalities, that it is a system under which the rich exploit the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever the free market has been permitted to operate, wherever anything approaching equality of opportunity has existed, the ordinary man has been able to attain levels of living never dreamed of before. Nowhere is the gap between rich and poor wider, nowhere are the rich richer and the poor poorer, than in those societies that do not permit the free market to operate.”

Milton Friedman book Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 5 “Created Equal”, p. 146

Truth , Dreams , Past

“Criminology, the study of crime and its causes, has a fundamental weak spot: it studies that proportion of the criminal population who are stupid or unlucky enough to get caught. The perfect criminal, should he or she exist, would be the one who is never apprehended—indeed, the one whose crimes may be huge but unnoticed, or indeed miscategorized as not crimes at all because they are so powerful they sway the law in their favor, or so clever they discover an immoral opportunity for criminal enterprise before the legislators notice it. Such forms of criminality may be indistinguishable, at a distance, from lawful business; the criminal a paragon of upper-class virtue, a face-man for Forbes.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Afterword, “The Golden Age of Spying” (pp. 388-389)
The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006)

Study , Law , Business , Perfection

“Why could the typical investor expect any better success in trying to buy at low levels and sell at high levels than in trying to forecast what the market is going to do? Because if he does the former he acts only after the market has moved down into buying levels or up into selling levels. His role is not that of a prophet but of a businessman seizing clearly evident investment opportunities. He is not trying to be smarter than his fellow investors but simply trying to be less irrational than the mass of speculators who insist on buying after the market advances and selling after it goes down. If the market persists in behaving foolishly, all he seems to need is ordinary common sense in order to exploit its foolishness.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Source: The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing (1949), Chapter II, The Investor and Stock-Market Fluctuations, p. 31

Sense , Success

“One step forward, two steps back. … It happens in the lives of individuals, and it happens in the history of nations and in the development of parties. It would be the most criminal cowardice to doubt even for a moment the inevitable and complete triumph of the principle of revolutionary Social-Democracy, of proletarian organization and Party discipline. We have already won a great deal, and we must go on fighting, undismayed by reverses, fighting steadfastly, scorning the philistine methods of circle wrangling, doing our very utmost to preserve the hard-won single Party tie linking all Russian Social-Democrats, and striving by dint of persistent and systematic work to give all Party members, and the workers in particular, a full and conscious understanding of the duties of Party members, of the struggle and Second Party Congress, of all the causes and all the stages of our divergence, and of the utter and disastrousness of opportunism., which, in the sphere of our programme and our tactics, helplessly surrenders to the bourgeois psychology, uncritically adopts the point of view of bourgeois democracy, and blunts the weapon of the class struggle of the proletariat.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Lenin Anthology, p. 119
1900s, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904)

Democracy , Fight , Understanding , History

“There have certainly been challenges throughout my career, but instead of looking at them as drawbacks, I look at them as opportunities and blessings.”

Nina Vaca businessperson

Q&A with Nina Vaca, Founder and CEO of Pinnacle Group https://interview.net/nina-vaca-pinnacle/, Interview.net (April 16, 2019)

“The inextricable way pleasure and pain are mixed up with each other in this world is a mournful fact to beings who are all the time striving for pleasure alone. In the ideal world there is no pain, no misery. There is nothing but happiness. But in our world pain seems to have been the original feeling, the first one to appear in the evolution of sentiency. Pleasure is a sort of after-thought, a secondary attribute of consciousness which developed later as an aid to pain in keeping living beings straight. Pain is a whip, a penalty. Pleasure is a reward or bribe. Pain is a curse. We are all the time trying to minimize and escape it. In an ideal world the inhabitants never have any impulses that drive them to improper acts. All their impulses are good. Every act is proper and right. Ideal beings need only to live and act in order to be happy. We are not ideal beings. Our world happens to be one affording almost unlimited opportunities for improvement.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Ethics and Education (1912), Contents of Ethics, pp. 52–53

Pain , Time , Penalty , Pleasure

“The criminal should be considered and pitied, not despised. He simply complies with the nature with which he came into the world, modified by the environment in which he has lived, the same as does every other being who breathes. You or I, with identical heredity and environment, would do identical deeds. Measured by his ability to do otherwise, the villain is not less divine than the humanitarian. Every creature acts out the impulses which arise in his own consciousness, and the will cannot create, but simply registers, those impulses. Punishment is one of the means possessed by society for its self-culture, and its administration should not be made an opportunity for pugilistic cocks to color their spurs.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Race Culture, p. 224

World , Self-confidence , Color , Nature

“One thing is certain, however, and that is, that the most powerful instinct of human nature, the instinct to struggle and survive, the instinct to be superior, must be destroyed or greatly subordinated before the state here outlined can be realized; for the ideal state will be practically bereft of opportunity for its satisfaction.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Ideal, p. 161

Nature

“Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society.”

John Rawls book Political Liberalism

Source: Political Liberalism (1993), p. 6

“In the face of all this, many of the standard ideas of science fiction seem to me to pale by comparison. I see the relative absence of these things and the distortions of scientific thinking often encountered in science fiction as terrible wasted opportunities. Real science is as amenable to exciting and engrossing fiction as fake science, and I think it is important to exploit every opportunity to convey scientific ideas in a civilization which is both based upon science and does almost nothing to ensure that science is understood.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 9, “Science Fiction—A Personal View” (p. 166)

Idea , Science , Thinking

“The only reason from beginning to end is that our foreign office is anti-German and that the Admiralty was anxious to seize any opportunity for using the Navy in battle practice. … Never did we arm our people and ask them to give us their lives for less good cause than this.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

Leicester Pioneer (7 August 1914), quoted in The Times (9 April 1918), p. 8 and The Times (18 January 1924), p. 14
1910s

People

“We have to persuade men and women who are themselves reasonably well off that they have a duty to forgo some of the advantages they would otherwise enjoy for the sake of others who are much poorer. We have to persuade car workers in my constituency that they have an obligation to low-paid workers in the public sector. We have to persuade the British people as a whole that they have an obligation to Africans and Asians whom they have never seen. Our only hope is to appeal to the latent idealism of all men and women of good will, irrespective of their income brackets, irrespective of their class origins. In place of the politics of envy, we must put the politics of compassion; in place of the politics of cupidity, the politics of justice; in place of the politics of opportunism, the politics of principle. Only so can we hope to succeed. Only so will success be worth having.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech in Worsley, Lancashire (11 March 1972), quoted in The Times (13 March 1972), p. 4
1970s

Justice , Success , People , Hope

“I do not deny that force has to be used, but I think the forms of the struggle should fit as closely as possible to the opportunities presented by the existing laws, which must be defended against reactionary attacks. There is no need to disorganise the old system, because it is disorganising itself enough as it is. That is why it seems to me insurrection against the old orders, against the law, is obsolete, old-fashioned.”

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English writer

“Stalin-Wells Talk: The Verbatim Report and A Discussion”, G.B. Shaw, J.M. Keynes et al., London, The New Statesman and Nation, (1934) p. 15

Fashion , Thinking , Law

“Making my own the concerns of my venerable Predecessors, I consider it opportune to offer appropriate responses so that the entire Church, allowing herself to be regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, may present herself to the contemporary world with a missionary impulse in order to promote the new evangelization.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2010, Ubicumque Et Semper (21 September 2010)

World , Making love

“We are going to energise the country. We are going to get Brexit done on 31 October and take advantage of all the opportunities it will bring with a new spirit of can do. We are once again going to believe in ourselves, and like some slumbering giant we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self doubt and negativity.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Boris Johnson wins race to be Tory leader and PM https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49084605 BBC News (23 July 2019)
2010s, 2019

Self-confidence , Guy , Country

“I say we have the duty to take advantage of every favorable opportunity that presents itself and bring about a war with France. Militarily speaking, we are definitely at anadvantage thanks to the new repeating rifle, and in other ways too. But if we do not make use of such opportunities, then politics has to provide us with better ones, although I see no prospect of this.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 1 November 1886

Way , War , Making love

“If the Kuomintang has the opportunity to rule (Taiwan) again, then we would have met the conditions stipulated by the (Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area) law. Assuming talks between the two sides (Taiwan and Mainland China) are successful, a Kuomintang government would be within its rights to sign a cross-strait peace treaty.”

Wu Den-yih (1948) Taiwanese politician

Wu Den-yih (2019) cited in: " Wu Den-yih says KMT could sign peace treaty if it regains presidency next year http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2019/02/15/2003709751" in Taipei Times, 15 February 2019.

Peace , Law , Success , People

“I believe, so I was taught, by my late father Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, and so he was taught by my grandfather of blessed memory, Rabbi Natan Milikowsky Netanyahu, I believe that the Holy One Blessed Be He and history have given the Jewish people another opportunity, a golden opportunity, to turn our country into a strong nation, one of the strongest nations of the world and it is to that end that I do what I do. A strong country, a country in which it is good to live, a country that it is good and safe to live in, for our sake and for the sake of the coming generations, for the sake of the eternal Israel.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

As quoted in, All 3 Major Israeli TV Channels Declare Netanyahu Victor In Election, April 9 2019, The Daily Wire
2010s, 2019

History , Country , Strong , People

“Not a day goes by that I don’t have a moment of sheer panic, raw terror, complete conviction that we are doomed, and then I do pull myself out of it. I’m renewed by this new generation that is so determined, so forceful. I’m inspired by the willingness to engage in electoral politics, because my generation, when we were in our 20s and 30s, there was so much suspicion around getting our hands dirty with electoral politics that we lost a lot of opportunities. What gives me the most hope right now is that we’ve finally got the vision for what we want instead, or at least the first rough draft of it. This is the first time this has happened in my lifetime.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

The Struggles Against Climate Change and Racism Are Inseparable, https://truthout.org/articles/naomi-klein-the-struggles-against-climate-change-and-racism-are-inseparable/ Truthout(15 September 2019)

Time , Hope

“Is the Iraqi state succeeding? I think there are some prospects for this country to be moving in the right direction. But the legacies of the past, the problems are really, really monumental… We need to deliver. Otherwise we will not be able to justify what we do in the eyes of our public. And public opinion does matter in Iraq. People speak their minds. People are engaged, are interested… Life is coming back… Every time I go out of the presidential palace in Baghdad — and I do try to go out as often as I can — I do see normalcy coming back, more and more. I do think there is a window of opportunity — it should be cherished. We’ve not had it like this for a long, long time… It’s precious, but precarious.”

Barham Salih (1960) President of Iraq

As quoted in "Iraq’s president explains why the U.S. must reengage with Baghdad" https://web.archive.org/web/20190320221430/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/20/iraqs-president-explains-why-us-must-reengage-with-baghdad/?utm_term=.400c91bdd2cf (20 March 2019), by Christian Caryl, The Washington Post
2010s

Time , Country , Past , People

“I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world which will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Speech at Amherst College

Democracy , Business , Personality , Art

“I would have this to say – that our primary responsibility is to find the right opportunity and create the necessary conditions for us to put into effect the local legislation, before we need a committee to ensure the legislation is being effectively enforced.”

Carrie Lam (1957) Chief Executive of Hong Kong

Carrie Lam (2018) cited in " Macau to form national security commission chaired by city’s leader as a ‘preventative measure’ https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/08/28/macau-form-national-security-commission-chaired-citys-leader-preventative-measure/" on Hong Kong Free Press, 28 August 2018

“He is a patsy and a fraud – the kind of public personality totalitarian regimes used to nurture for years in order to execute for a lack of orthodoxy at some opportune historical moment much later on.”

Tucker Carlson (1969) American political commentator

Matt Taibbi

Personality , Fraud

“We stand against extremism and we condemn all acts of violence but at the same time you have to give people in our community that are concerned about the threat of Islam, which is a genuine threat, you have to give them an opportunity to have a voice. I share the same fact that Islam is a threat but we completely condemn any acts of violence against innocent people. What has happened over there (Norway) is horrific and will be remembered for the rest of eternity as a disgusting, deranged attack.”

Tommy Robinson (1982) English right-wing activist

Norway massacre: Police probe killer's links to UK https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14266140 BBC News (26 July 2011)
2011

Time , People , Communication

“As a local government, Kinmen should avoid becoming embroiled in (cross-strait) political affairs, but the county needs to seize opportunities (with Mainland China) when the atmosphere is right. Fujian and Kinmen are neighbors and during the trip to the (Fujian) province, the (Kinmen) county government can put forward ideas on future exchanges and cooperation between the two sides, in the hope of concrete results.”

Yang Cheng-wu (1972) Taiwanese politician

Yang Cheng-wu (2019) cited in " Fujian, Kinmen ties lauded by county magistrate http://focustaiwan.tw/news/acs/201901150024.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 15 January 2019

Idea , Future , Hope

“I think any such analysis must take into account the intelligence of the people. People’s ability to understand the arithmetic and the logic behind the coming together of the Mahamilawat (great contamination) parties should never be underestimated. People know exactly why they are coming together, no matter how much these parties themselves try to mislead. There was a time when many different parties did come together to fight an election. This was the Emergency era when survival of our democracy was first priority. So, when many parties united, there was a clear issue that brought them together in national interest and people blessed them. What is the uniting factor for the Mahamilawat now? Personal survival and personal interest. People are aware of this and will reject such opportunism.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2019, "2014 was a mandate for hope and aspiration, 2019 is about confidence and acceleration", 2019

Democracy , Time , Understanding , Personality

“I propose that where private enterprise has been proved to be palpably unable, under present conditions…to solve our national difficulties and fulfil our national needs unaided by the State, the administrative and financial resources of the nation as a whole should be made responsible for setting on foot and supporting those developments in town and country which would bring into fruitful activity our undeveloped resources and opportunities.”

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

Speech in Bangor (17 January 1935), quoted in The Times (18 January 1935), p. 7
Later life

Support , Country

“There can be only one peace which will be acceptable to the people of this country. That is a peace which takes every precaution in our power to see to it that neither Germany nor Japan has any avoidable opportunity of starting this business again.”

Anthony Eden (1897–1977) British Conservative politician, prime minister

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1944/sep/29/war-and-international-situation#column_698 in the House of Commons (29 September 1944)

Business , Peace , People , Country

“A future prime minister could always choose to alter the relationship between Britain and the European Union. But the Chequers approach is the right one for now because we have got to make sure that we respect that vote and take advantage of the opportunities of being outside the European Union.”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

Brexit: Future PM 'could change EU relationship' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45541240 BBC News (16 September 2018)
2018

Future , Making love

“I understand how angry people are on both sides. There are some angry Leavers and there are some very angry Remainers too, particularly young people who feel their future has been taken away from them on the basis of a very narrow majority, where a significant majority of the electorate did not vote and many young people did not get an opportunity to vote.”

Vince Cable (1943) British Liberal Democrat politician

European elections 2019: Remainers are angry too, says Vince Cable https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48339921, BBC News, 20 May 2019
2019

Feeling , Future , People , Understanding

“If, in the worst possible scenario, we leave the European Union without a deal, people must have the opportunity to reject that disastrous outcome, either through a public vote, or through parliamentary democracy.”

Leanne Wood (1971) Welsh Plaid Cymru politician

Plaid Cymru needs to earn trust of voters, Leanne Wood says https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-41679247, BBC News, 20 October 2017
2017

Democracy , People

“Be it on tourism, farming, higher education or jobs, we are determined to overcome the threats and seek out and seize upon the opportunities which may come with leaving the EU.”

Leanne Wood (1971) Welsh Plaid Cymru politician

Plaid manifesto pledge to protect Wales from 'tidal wave' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-39923713 BBC News (16 May 2017)
2017

Education

“He got very good opportunity to groom himself in various fields, and that too with rare distinction. Right from the beginning the destiny had been preparing him slowly and steadily for the highest office of the President of the Indian Republic – which he genuinely deserved.”

Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963) Indian political leader

Source: Presidents of India, 1950-2003, p. 1

“If I am elected, there may be an opportunity to change the tone for the better.”

Nicola Sturgeon (1970) First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party

Said while campaigning for the SNP leadership in 2014. Khaleeli, Homa (30 September 2014) Is post-referendum Scotland a feminist paradise? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/30/post-referendum-scotland-feminist-paradise on the Guardian website. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
2014

Change

“I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold. The second female prime minister, but certainly not the last. I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Theresa May quits: UK set for new PM by end of July https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48395905 BBC News (24 May 2019)
2010s, On Brexit

Country , Gratitude , Love , Life

“Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation. The boy stands astonished, his impressions guide him: he learns sportfully, seriousness comes on him by surprise. Imitation is born with us: what should be imitated is not easy to discover. The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The height charms us, the steps to it do not: with the summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It is but a part of art that can be taught: the artist needs it all. Who knows it half, speaks much, and is always wrong: who knows it wholly, inclines to act, and speaks seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no force : the instruction they can give is like baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single day; but flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground. Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright, but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There are many such, and they like to be together. Their babbling detains the scholar: their obstinate mediocrity vexes even the best. The instruction which the true artist gives us opens the mind; for, where words fail him, deeds speak. The true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and more to being a master.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Book VII Chapter IX
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

Learning , Boy , Art , Thinking

“This is not a photo opportunity.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Existencilism (2002)

Photo

“But how shall the condition, the true subjection of the other to the law, be given? Not through signs of repentance, promises of future better behavior, offers of damages, etc.; for there is no ground to believe his sincerity. It is quite as possible that he has been forced by his present weakness into this repentance, and is only awaiting a better opportunity to renew the attack. This uncertainty does not warrant the other in laying down his arms and thus again exposing all his safety. He will, therefore, continue to exercise his compulsion; but since the condition of the right is problematical, his exercise also will be problematical. t is the same with the violator. If he has offered the complete restitution which the law inevitably requires, and it being possible that he may now have voluntarily subjected himself in all sincerity to the law, it is also likely that he will oppose any further restriction of his freedom, (any further compulsion by the other,) but his right to make this opposition is also problematical. It seems, therefore, that the decisive point can not be ascertained, since it rests in the ascertainment of inner sincerity, which can not be proved, but is a matter of conscience for each. The ground of decision, indeed, could be given only, if it were possible to ascertain the whole future life of the violator.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 145

Life , Law , Freedom , Future

“You will see…many very important differences between our methods of education and yours, but the main difference is that nowadays all persons equally have those opportunities of higher education which in your day only an infinitesimal portion of the population enjoyed. We should think we had gained nothing worth speaking of, in equalizing the physical comfort of men, without this educational equality….”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 21.

Education , Thinking , Personality , Men

“The very idea of philosopher as art curator deeply interests me. One swiftly dreams of what Gilles Deleuze might have done with the opportunity to curate an art exhibition at MoMA: Art and Alloverness perhaps?”

Joseph Nechvatal (1951) American artist

Or Michel Foucault: the New Panopticons at the Centre Georges Pompidou? What would Susan Sontag or Roland Barthes have done at the International Center of Photography or at the Tate? What could Friedrich Nietzsche have done at the Louvre Museum? What indeed could Georges Bataille have haughtily done at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?
Joseph Nechvatal. " Painting and Philosophy: An Assessment http://hyperallergic.com/90646/painting-and-philosophy-an-assessment/," at hyperallergic.com, October 28, 2013

Idea , Dreams , Art

“When he was Lieutenant-Governor of Pondicherry, he came into close contact with the Ashram and his association opened up opportunities for many more from Karnataka to get to know the work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.”

Basappa Danappa Jatti (1912–2002) Indian politician

Sri Aurobindo's Ashram in: "Sri Aurobindo's Ashram"

“His action which changed the course of Indian politics was implementation of a 10-year-old report advocating quotas in jobs and educational opportunities for those known as Other Backward Castes (OBCs)…. This action is seen as having been responsible for the rapid expansion of parties based on caste, particularly in northern India, although caste already played an important role in politics.”

V. P. Singh (1931–2008) Indian politician

VP Singh: Former prime minister of India who tried to improve the lot of his country's lower castes

Education , Change

“Immorality and opportunism holds sway in public life. Unprincipled alliances are being forged going against the verdict of the people. This alliance is not going to last long.”

Chandra Shekhar (1927–2007) Indian politician

Jyoti Basu in: Sanjoy Hazarika Rival of Singh Becomes India Premier http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/10/world/rival-of-singh-becomes-india-premier.html?scp=17&sq=%22v%20p%20singh%22&st=cse, The New York Times, 10 November 1990
On his appointment as Prime Minister after he toppled Singh engineering defections defections.

Life , People

“Rajiv Gandhi was not a great Prime Minister by any yardstick. He had his high points and his low points. He did try hard in some ways, but history will judge him not as a man who left behind a great legacy, but as someone who squandered the greatest opportunity India provided to any Prime Minister in living memory to take the country to new heights. He left the country in chaos and in self-doubt, and the economy in the dust.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

R Jagannathan, in "Dear Priyanka, your Dad Rajiv was no angel. He let India down (2 May 2014)"

History , Country , Self-confidence , Memory

“We must see that regional imbalances in the growth of various parties of the country are removed and all the states progress evenly. We shall ensure that all citizens of the country get full opportunity to contribute their might towards India’s progress.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

Independence Day speech on 15 August 1985, in p. 30
Quote, Memorable Quotes from Rajiv Gandhi and on Rajiv Gandhi

Country

“His Highness The Rajah Of Travancore, already celebrated for the munificence with which he promotes the education and mental improvement of his subjects, resolved in the latter part of last year on the establishment, at his capital, Trivandrum, of an Observatory of a superior kind; with the double view of affording his aid to the advancement of astronomical science, and of introducing by its means correct ideas of the principles of this science among the rising generation under his government; and having confided to me the superintendence of the institution as Astronomer, I take this early opportunity of introducing it to the notice of the public…”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

The marble tablet existing in the observatory building in Trivandrum, in 1837, quoted in "An enlightened and princely patron of true science".
About Swathi Thirunal

Science , Confidence , Self-confidence , Education

“He came up with this very simple idea which was recognising that the location which we identified, which is an axial view straight up the main promenade of the museum at its highest point, would be the place where a simple hour glass form would offer the opportunity to invert the Jerusalem sky and built landscape. And that’s what he created – and it’s a superb thing.”

Anish Kapoor (1954) British contemporary artist of Indian birth

Israeli sky in Anish’s steel- India-born artist sculpts landmark symbol for museum

Idea

“There was a feeling of rebellion in the society and the star with a biggest rebel in celluloid screen Amitabh Bachhan became the icon. His angry young man image caught the attention of all the sections of society. The frustrated youth in his angry young man image saw a window of opportunity to rise against all odds.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Review by Abhishek Dubey in [Dubey, Abhishek, Dressing Room, http://books.google.com/books?id=qRvJ2wdReV0C&pg=PA128, 2006, Diamond Pocket Books (P) Ltd., 978-81-8419-191-2, 128–]
About Amitabh Bachhan

Feeling , Star , Youth

“He also created opportunities for Kerala to prove its capabilities at the national and international levels.”

E. M. S. Namboodiripad (1909–1998) Indian politician

Above two quotes of Achuthanandan cited in 20 March 2009, 13 December 2013, The Hindu http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/20/stories/2009032059610300.htm,
About E.M.S.

“The generally accepted interpretation of Jagadish Chandra’s scientific activities is that he had essentially the biologist’s conception of Nature; lack of opportunities for biological studies while as a student in Calcutta and later lack of any teaching post in biology, induced Jagadish Chandra to take up the post of teacher in physics.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

By D.M. Bose
Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose in Vijayaprasara

Teachers , Study , Nature

“Thought that the discourses were everything – the place where they were delivered was nothing. He wanted his ideas to reach his countrymenand he had no objection to going wherever they were assembled, provided he got an opportunity to speak to them.”

Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901) Indian scholar, social reformer and author

Gokhale's observation on Ranade’s preachings as a moderate quoted in "Mahadev Govind Ranade" page =116

Idea

“I have had such close opportunities of watching and for whom I entertain so sincere a regard as the young Maharaja of Mysore. Indeed, I think I may add that I should not have come all the way from Simla at this season of the year had I not felt the keenest personal interest both in this State and in its future Ruler. About the latter I shall have a word to say presently. But first let me explain how it is that the fortunes of the Mysore State occupy such a place in the concern and regard of the Government of India…. The young Maharaja whom I am about to instal has recently attained his eighteenth birthday. He has passed through a minority of nearly eight years. They have not been idle or vapid years spent in enjoyment or dissipated in idleness. They have been years of careful preparation for the duties that lie before him and of laborious training for his exalted state. It is no light thing to assume the charge of 5,000,000 of people and it is no perfunctory training that is required for such a task.”

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (1884–1940) King of Mysore

Viceroy Lord Curzon in his investiture speech installing him as the Maharaja of Mysore stated in a Durbar held on 8 August 1902. Modern_Mysore, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, 26 November 2013, archive.org, 187 http://archive.org/stream/modernmysore035292mbp/modernmysore035292mbp_djvu.txt,
From Modern Mysore

Light , Personality , Future , People

“Physics by its very nature requires extreme specialization on the part of its students. Its conclusions, which must eventually predict numbers for the results of actual measurements, are best expressed in mathematical formulae. This has the disadvantage of making the subject well-nigh unintelligible to the layman. There are unfortunately few teachers who are able to surmount this handicap. Professor Raman has written a book which avoids this pitfall and thus should give the lay reader an opportunity of penetrating at least part of the way into the mysteries of this interesting and important science.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

Francis Low, a distinguished theoretical physicist then working at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, wrote in the introduction to this book quoted in Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman:A Legend of Modern Indian Science, 22 November 2013, Official Government of India's website Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/cvraman/raman1.htm,

Nature , Teachers , Books , Mathematics

“His love of creating, the joy he took in it whether it was drama or comedy or his music, was inspiring to grow up around. The spirit he created on the set of The Andy Griffith Show was joyful and professional all at once. It was an amazing environment. And I think it was a reflection of the way he felt about having the opportunity to create something that people could enjoy. It was always with respect and passion for the opportunity and really what it could offer people in a very unpretentious and earthy way. He felt he was always working in service of an audience he really respected and cared about. He was a great influence on me. His passing is sad. But he lived a great rich life.”

Andy Griffith (1926–2012) American actor, television producer, Southern-gospel singer, and writer

Ron Howard, Nikki Finke, Editor in Chief. "EXCLUSIVE: Ron Howard On Andy Griffith". Deadline.com. Retrieved 2014-04-16.

Making love , People , Music , Joy

“I did not teach him everything he knows. He just absorbed everything I knew. The rest he discovered himself by asking, probing, begging, watching, observing, reading, demanding, investigating, improvising, experimenting, experiencing, learning and not being afraid of stretching himself beyond his own limits. I only gave him the platform and the opportunity to discover himself. In the process, I was blessed enough to discover myself.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

K Balachander, in “His Master's voice 1 September 2010”

Reading , Learning

“There is no doubt for me that Paul Scholes is still in a class of his own. He’s almost untouchable in what he does. I never tire of watching him play. You rarely come across the complete footballer, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get. One of my regrets is that the opportunity to play alongside him never presented itself during my career.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Zinedine-Zidane-has-admitted-not-playing-with-Paul-Scholes-is-one-of-the-biggest-regrets-of-his-career-article560373.html
Zinedine Zidane, August 2010

Football

“Manson arrived at the déjeuner given by the minister of Beaux Arts fantastically drunk—punctuated the ceremony with cat-calls and cock-a-doodle-doos, and finally staggered to his feet, hurled obscene insults at the company in general and the minister in particular, and precipitated himself on the ambassadress, Lady Phipps, some say with amorous intent others with lethal intent… the guests fled ices uneaten, coffee undrunk… I hope an example will be made, and that they will seize the opportunity for turning the sot out of the Tate, not because he is a sot, but because he has done nothing but harm to modern painting.”

James Bolivar Manson (1879–1945) British artist

Clive Bell, quoted in Frances Spalding, The Tate: A History (1998), pp. 62–70. Tate Gallery Publishing, London. ISBN 1854372319.

Painting , Hope , Art , Cats

“In the order of his thoughts, his intellectual capacity to defend his political posture with lucidity, clarity and brilliance – many of us Cubans who had the opportunity to know him could appreciate his unquestionable talent.”

Miguel Enríquez (1944–1974) Chilean politician

Armando Hart http://www.bnjm.cu/librinsula/2004/octubre/40/colaboraciones/colaboraciones207.htm

“Duran knew how to fight. He knew what to do. If he looked at the corner the only thing I ever had to do was pretend to jab, once he was using his jab I knew he’d have no trouble. Even more important he knew how to think. When you talk about great fighters, always remember there was a guy named Roberto Duran. He was never given the opportunity to really display his wares because at his peak, he was overshadowed by Muhammad Ali.”

Roberto Durán (1951) Panamanian boxer

Ray Arcel, Duran's trainer http://coxscorner.tripod.com/duran.html
About Durán

Fight , Guy , Thinking

“Gerrard will fit in with any club in the world. He’s one of the players in the world that have all what it takes to play for Real Madrid. I want to urge Gerrard to join Real Madrid. If you don’t play for Real Madrid you always feel that something is missing. There is nothing better than wearing Real Madrid’s jersey. This is a big opportunity for Gerrard. I’m not talking money wise, but victories wise. I’m sure that Gerrard has alot of respect towards Mourinho. Steven signing for Real Madrid will be perfect for him.”

Steven Gerrard (1980) English footballer

Kaka on Steven Gerrard, (August 2010)

Money , Victory , Perfection , World

“What he’s done over the past five years has never, ever been done — and probably will never, ever happen again. Regardless if he won there or not, he goes down as the greatest ever. This just confirms it. Now that he has won in Paris, I think it just more solidifies his place in history as the greatest player that played the game, in my opinion. I’m a huge Laver fan, and he had a few years in there where he didn’t have an opportunity to win majors. But you can’t compare the eras. And in this era, the competition is much more fierce than Rod’s.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

Pete Sampras, winner of 14 Grand Slams, after Federer winning 2009 French Open Final http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news?slug=ap-frenchopen-sampras&prov=ap&type=lgns

Past , Game , Thinking , History

“His message is one of hope and peace, and he has inspired millions throughout the world. As an educator, the opportunity to learn has been central and the focus of my life. I have witnessed brilliant teachers and eager students turn classrooms into magical places. Prem Rawat reminds us that magic begins with people, and it’s within each person. That the possibility of peace and the possibility of living a life to the fullest begins with recognizing the value of life itself. That is, in my opinion, the deepest learning and is certainly a curriculum for everyone.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Dr. Eduardo Padron, President of w:Miami Dade College (June 16, 2005)
About, 2000s

Peace , Personality , People , Learning

“This is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men who made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas brought in — a trial and error system. This method was a result of the fact that science was already showing itself to be a successful venture at the end of the eighteenth century. Even then it was clear to socially minded people that the openness of possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown. If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

The Value of Science (1955)

Democracy , Success , People , Problem

“We need to start talking about this. Strangely, the rapid growth in the rich-poor educational gap provides a ray of hope: if the relationship between family income and educational success can change this rapidly, then it is not an immutable, inevitable pattern. What changed once can change again. Policy choices matter more than we have recently been taught to think. So how can we move toward a society in which educational success is not so strongly linked to family background? Maybe we should take a lesson from the rich and invest much more heavily as a society in our children’s educational opportunities from the day they are born. Investments in early-childhood education pay very high societal dividends. That means investing in developing high-quality child care and preschool that is available to poor and middle-class children. It also means recruiting and training a cadre of skilled preschool teachers and child care providers. These are not new ideas, but we have to stop talking about how expensive and difficult they are to implement and just get on with it.”

Sean Reardon American sociologist

No Rich Child Left Behind, 2013

Childhood , Family , Success , Children

“The Republican party is a party of progress and of liberality toward its opponents. It encourages the poor to strive to better their children, to enable them to compete successfully with their more fortunate associates, and, in fine, it secures an entire equality before the law of every citizen, no matter what his race, nationality, or previous condition. It tolerates no privileged class. Every one has the opportunity to make himself all he is capable of.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Ulysses S. Grant, as quoted in Words of Our Hero, Ulysses S. Grant https://books.google.com/books?id=wqJBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=%22the+one+thing+i+never+wanted+to+see+again+was+a+military+parade%22&source=bl&ots=zH525oYpJn&sig=ACfU3U0GLPNgij-FmXIDwgWp_Kg8zDskWg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj4uc7PzKniAhUq1lkKHWhlBfQQ6AEwBXoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20one%20thing%20i%20never%20wanted%20to%20see%20again%20was%20a%20military%20parade%22&f=false, by Jeremiah Chaplin, p. 59
1880s, Speech at Warren, Ohio (1880)

Making love , Law , Children

“People may point to all of this as evidence that we humans are becoming more honest and truthful, but human nature does not change within a few generations. People have become more obvious and forthright not out of some deep moral calling but out of increasing self-absorption and overall laziness. It requires no effort to simply be oneself or to blast one’s message. And the lack of effort simply results in a lack of effect on other people’s psychology. It means that people’s interest in you will be paper thin. Their attention will quickly move on and you will not see the reason for this. Do not swallow the easy moralism of the day, which urges honesty at the expense of desirability. Go in the opposite direction. With so few people out there who understand the art of desirability, it affords you endless opportunities to shine and exploit people’s repressed fantasies.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 5 : Become an Elusive Object of Desire
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Understanding , People , Art , Nature

“Fear is not something to be ashamed of. We cannot condemn fear without simultaneously condemning the fact that we are alive. It is part of being alive. Fear is valuable. Take every opportunity where you feel fear, to step into the feeling of the fear, explore it. Bring awareness to it. And question it fully.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Fear , Feeling , Parting , Question

“Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them. It's not the tools that you have faith in — tools are just tools. They work, or they don't work. It's people you have faith in or not. Yeah, sure, I'm still optimistic I mean, I get pessimistic sometimes but not for long. … The world's clearly a better place. Individuals can now do things that only large groups of people with lots of money could do before. What that means is, we have much more opportunity for people to get to the marketplace — not just the marketplace of commerce but the marketplace of ideas. The marketplace of publications, the marketplace of public policy. You name it. We've given individuals and small groups equally powerful tools to what the largest, most heavily funded organizations in the world have. And that trend is going to continue. You can buy for under $10,000 today a computer that is just as powerful, basically, as one anyone in the world can get their hands on.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

1990s, Rolling Stone interview (1994)

Money , Faith , People , World

“In societies with fewer opportunities for amusement, it was also easier to tell a mere wish from a real desire. If, in order to hear some music, a man has to wait for six months and then walk twenty miles, it is easy to tell whether the words, "I should like to hear some music," mean what they appear to mean, or merely, "At this moment I should like to forget myself."”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

When all he has to do is press a switch, it is more difficult. He may easily come to believe that wishes can come true.
Interlude: West's Disease", p. 245
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Music , Forgetting , Appearance , Waiting

“We've reached a truly remarkable situation: a grotesque mismatch between the American intelligencia and the American electorate. A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe which is held by the vast majority of top American scientists, and probably the majority of the intelligencia generally, is so abhorrent to the American electorate that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public. If I'm right, this means that high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it: the intelligencia, unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Richard Dawkins on militant atheism http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html, (February 2002)

Country , Intelligence , People , Nature

“The legal system can force open doors, and sometimes-even knock down walls, but it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me. The country can't do it. Afro and White, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, our fates are bound together. We can run from each other, but we cannot escape each other. We will only attain freedom if we learn to appreciate what is different, and muster the courage to discover what is fundamentally the same. America's diversity offers so much richness and opportunity. Take a chance, won't you? Knock down the fences, which divide. Tear apart the walls that imprison you. Reach out. Freedom lies just on the other side. We shall have liberty for all.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Speech delivered on September 6, 1990, before the Annual Judicial Conference of the Second Circuit, quoted in Supreme Justice Speeches and Writings Thurgood Marshall. Edited by J. Clay Smith, Jr. (2002).

Courage , Chance , Fate , Freedom

“All that our country has achieved are the accomplishments of our parents – not ours. Our work lies ahead of us – what we have to do has not been done before... People say that Bhutan is a small country. Yes, its true, but our size is our greatest strength... Some say we are a country landlocked between two giant neighbours – yes we all know that being landlocked has its disadvantages but in building a strong economy our geopolitical location is going to be our biggest advantage. Within a few decades India and China are expected to dominate the world economy. So, in the context of opportunities we are definitely not landlocked – I think we have the world at our doorstep!”

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (1980) King of Bhutan

His Majesty speaks on Bhutan’s future, Kuensel Online http://kuenselonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8317, (11 April 2007)

Country , Strong , People , Thinking

“The aliens that sent the protomolecule hadn’t needed to destroy humanity. They’d given humans the opportunity to destroy themselves, and as a species, they’d leaped on it.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 27 (pp. 291-292)

“The rhythm of life here is different from that of Nigeria. I really liked the efficiency and accessibility of things here, the educational opportunities. And I was touched by the beauty and tolerance it has taken to fashion America. But, for instance, the thing about old people staying in "homes" away from home blew my mind. As did how little Americans know or want to know about life elsewhere…”

Uwem Akpan (1971) Nigerian Jesuit priest and writer

On the differences between living in Nigeria and the United States in “Uwem Akpan” https://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/1576/uwem-akpan in Book Browse

Home , Beauty , People , Education

“So it's not the self-realization that the media existence proposes to the life, it's the escape, the opportunity for all those whose laziness, repressing their energy, make them forever dissatisfied of themselves to forget this dissatisfaction.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, La Barbarie, éd. Grasset, 1987, p. 244
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Barbarism (1987)
Original: (fr) Ce n'est donc pas l'autoréalisation que l'existence médiatique propose à la vie, c'est la fuite, l'occasion pour tous ceux que leur paresse, refoulant leur énergie, rend à jamais mécontents d'eux-mêmes d'oublier ce mécontentement.

Self-confidence , Life , Making love , Forgetting

“If there is a God we must look for him in the Universe. If he is not there, he is not worth looking for. I am being looked upon in various quarters as an atheist, but I am not. The growing discoveries in the science of astronomy and physics seem to be further and further revelations of God. Mahatmaji, religions cannot unite. Science offers the best opportunity for a complete fellowship. All men of Science are brothers.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

In conversation with Mahatma Gandhi and Gilbert Rahm in 1945, from [Jayaraman, A, https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/21675106, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman: A Memoir, 1989, Indian Academy of Sciences, 81-85336-24-5, Bengaluru, 143, 21675106]

God , Religion , Universe , Science

“Calvin: Somewhere in Communist Russia, I'll bet there's a little boy who has never known anything but censorship and oppression. But maybe he's heard of America, and he dreams of living in this land of freedom and opportunity! Someday, I'd like to meet that little boy…and tell him the awful TRUTH ABOUT THIS PLACE!!
Calvin's Dad: Calvin, be quiet and eat the stupid Lima beans.”

Bill Watterson Calvin and Hobbes

p70
Calvin & Hobbes

Freedom , Dreams , Boy , Truth

“Undocumented aliens unfortunately are not protected by the law and they are tremendously subjected to exploitation. The result is that they would be willing to work for a wage that no person who is welcome in our shores would, would take. I think the answer to that problem is in Congress' lap. People who have been hardworking, tax paying, those people ought to be given an opportunity to be on a track that leads towards citizenship and if that happened, then they wouldn't be prey to the employers who say "we want you because we know that you work for a salary we could not lawfully pay anyone else."”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

"Interview with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg", The Takeaway (16 September 2013) https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-09-16/transcript-interview-supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg
2010s

Law , Personality , People , Problem

“COVID-19 is taking so much from us. But it’s also giving us something special – the opportunity to come together as one humanity – to work together, to learn together, to grow together.”

Tedros Adhanom (1965) Director-General of the World Health Organization, former Minister in Ethiopia

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 20 March 2020 https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---20-march-2020, World Health Organization.

Learning

“One way or another, today's debts will not be paid.... As long as savings mainly by the 1% takes the form of debt claims on the rest of society, they will grow exponentially to hold the 99% in deepening debt.... If debts to creditors are paid by forced privatization, the public domain and infrastructure will be turned into rent-extraction tollbooth opportunities and economies will be impoverished by rentier austerity.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

pp 418-419
Dr. Michael Hudson, KILLING THE HOST: HOW FINANCIAL PARASITES AND DEBT BONDAGE DESTROY THE GLOBAL ECONOMY, Islet 2015

Way

“For many millions of Christians, Easter is a time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Others may celebrate the arrival of spring and the promise of new life. Whatever one’s beliefs, after several weeks of mandatory “stay at home” orders and the complete shutdown of the US economy over the coronavirus, this self-destructive hysteria must end and we must reclaim the freedom and liberty that has provided us so much opportunity as Americans. To do that we should first understand that much of the hysteria is being generated by a mainstream media that has long prioritized sensationalism over investigating and reporting the truth. Government bureaucrats are also exaggerating the threat of this virus and appear to be enjoying the power and control that fearful people are willingly handing over to them. One “coronavirus” bureaucrat even told us that we can no longer go to the grocery store! So we should just starve? It is certainly possible to believe that this virus can be dangerous while at the same time pointing out that radical steps are being taken in our society – stay-at-home orders, introduction of de facto martial law, etc.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

with very little knowledge of just how deadly is this disease.
2020, End the Shutdown; It’s Time for Resurrection!

Life , Home , Time , Understanding

“We must seize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity offered by the end of free movement.”

Priti Patel (1972) British politician

Written in an article in the Mail on Sunday. Quoted in the Evening Standard and the Socialist Worker. New Home Secretary Priti Patel reveals plans for tougher borders with or without Breixt deal https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/new-home-secretary-priti-patel-reveals-plans-for-tougher-borders-a4199731.html (28 July 2019) and New Tory government will be even more hostile to black people https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/48711/New+Tory+government+will+be+even+more+hostile+to+black+people (30 July 2019)
2019

“Understanding is the key to turning anything from a threat into an opportunity.”

Stephen Baxter book Ring

Source: Ring (1994), Chapter 17 (p. 736)

Understanding

“The Satan is using this opportunity as it has always done to lead us astray from our religious duties in the name of precautions, treatment and protection. Whenever a calamity strikes, Satan makes the victims of calamity commit such acts which destroy their rewards and add to their woes. This is the time to populate the mosques and to invite the ummah towards repentance. As I have already said, this is the time to make our supplications effective. This is not the time to pay heed to false remedial measures….”

Muhammad Saad Kandhlawi (1965)

Speaking about the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

Muhammad Saad Kandhlawi the emir of Tablighi Jamaat, March 22, 2020. MEMRI, April 6, 2020 https://www.memri.org/reports/tablighi-jamaat-emir-maulana-mohammad-saad-opposes-social-distancing-during-coronavirus https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/04/tablighi-jamaat-emir-satan-is-using-this-opportunity-to-lead-us-astray-this-is-the-time-to-populate-the-mosques. Published by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute). Transcription and Translation from Urdu by New Age Islam Edit Desk https://newageislam.com/the-war-within-islam/tablighi-jamaat-spread-more-than-covid-19-virus;-its-head-maulana-saad-kandhalvi-propagated-un-islamic-obscurantism-and-exclusion,-as-has-been-tablighi-practice-since-1926/d/121488

Falseness , Making love , Time

“Dear Brother-in-Law - Sister. We are ailing again rather well through the winter, always busy and working. It is a pity that the opportunity for [making] new studies has not yet come, it is always a nice variation. Now it is every time again sea and pinks, etc. [subjects in his paintings].”

Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831–1915) painter from the Northern Netherlands

For Paris I am very busy - To Vienna a painting will be send.. .A second large painting has gone to Brussels - A [xxxx?] will offer drawings of us [drawings of him and his wife] and , at this moment they are crossing the Great Water, with destination to New York where they will be exhibited - we hope with success - Two beautiful paintings has enriched our collection again, one of Dupre and one of Rousseau. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)

(original Dutch: citaat van Hendrik Willem Mesdag, in het Nederlands:) Waarde Zwager – Zuster. Wij sukkelen ook weder de winter goed door, altijd bezig en werkende. Jammer dat de gelegenheid tot nieuw studien [maken] nog niet is gekomen het is altijd een aardige afwisseling. Nu is het altijd zee en pinken enz. [de onderwerpen in zijn schilderijen] - Voor Parijs ben ik druk bezig - Naar Weenen gaat een schilderij.. .Naar Brussel is een tweede groote schilderij gegaan – Een [xxxx?] zal teekeninge van ons [van hem en vrouw Sientje] bieden, zijn op dit oogenblik op den wijden Oeveren met bestemming naar New York waar ze geexposeerd zullen worden – naar wij hopen met succes – Een paar prachtige schilderijen een van Dupre en een van nl:Théodore RousseauRousseau onze collectie weder verrijkt

In a letter from The Hague, 15 Feb 1882 to Brother-in-law and Sister (Hindrik van Houten and Alida Cornelia Christina van Houten ten Bruggencate) from the original text in Dutch R.K.D. Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/707073
after 1880

Painting , Study , Law , Time

Quotes about opportunity page 19

Quotes about opportunity
page 19