Quotes about surprise (1380 quotes, page 14)

“This leads to the conclusion that the Indo-Aryan influence, … was powerful enough from early on to replace local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names. This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus Civilisation where one would have expected the survival of older names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East. At the least, one would expect a palimpsest, as found in New England with the name of the state of Massachussetts next to the Charles river, formerly called the Massachussetts river, and such new adaptations as Stony Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc., next to the adaptations of Indian names such as the Mississippi and the Missouri.”

Michael Witzel (1943) German-American philologist

Early Indian history: Linguistic and textual parametres

“Civilization didn’t like surprises…”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Ramal Extraction (2012), Chapter 26

“He was an extraordinary man – a colorful bird against the background of academic gray. A scholar and erudite, he was witty, malicious, surprising, uncompromising and courageous. His knowledge and talent for lecturing made him a valued popularizer of neuroscience. He could simplify even very complex phenomena, showing their essence and meaning. Non-standard interpretations of the reality that he presented at the lectures were witty, but also deep and attracted fascinated youth. He loved Krakow – he knew everything about it and was a great guide. There is grief and anger in us that he was driven over at the pedestrian crossing by a delivery van.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Małgorzata Kossut, neuroscientist, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and friend of Vetulani. Debate on depression: in memoriam Professor Jerzy Vetulani at the XXIst Science Festival in Warsaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS-1L-NZYXQ (in Polish), 30th September 2017.

Courage , Anger , Knowledge , Bird

“This is tribalism at its worst. Beginning with Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the Jewish value of human dignity and the principle of the equality of all people have formed the democratic foundation of the state. This law is completely incompatible with those values. It is a slap in the face to Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel and provides a legal basis to discriminate based on religion, race, and sex. Legislation that identifies first- and second-class citizens has no place in a democracy. Basic laws should define the fundamental values of the state. If racism, sexism, and religious fundamentalism are to be protected in Israel’s basic laws, it should be no surprise when the country embodies those values. This bill and the government that supported it are a danger to Israel’s future.”

Daniel Sokatch (1968) CEO of the New Israel Fund

About the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, NIF CEO: Israel’s “Nation-State Bill” Is Tribalism At Its Worst; Completely Incompatible with Human Dignity and Equality https://www.nif.org/news-media/press-releases/nif-ceo-israels-nation-state-bill-is-tribalism-at-its-worst-completely-incompatible-with-human-dignity-and-equality/ (10 July 2018), New Israel Fund.

Democracy , Religion , Law , Country

“So, his Slavonic Majesty hires thieves to spy for him. Spying is such a foul business that I am surprised that even a good Angevin thief would stoop to it.”

Michael Kurland book Ten Little Wizards

He turned to Lord Peter with a sudden realization. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply—”
”That’s all right, Your Highness,” Lord Peter said. “It’s a common reaction. Their spies are dirty, filthy scum, not fit to wipe your boots on, while our spies are noble gentlemen doing dangerous work for the love of King and Country. Would that it were so, Your Highness, but I’m afraid that sometimes the desired image is at fault—in both directions.”
Source: Ten Little Wizards (1988), Chapter 4 (p. 33)

Business

“His ascension to the post of Prime Minister was a bit of a surprise, since he was not a frontrunner and was neither from the Congress nor the BJP, predictably the two largest winners. However, since an alliance between them was out of the question, it was left to the Congress to throw its weight behind a number of regional parties and take control. The Janata Dal and Gowda emerged the biggest winners.”

H. D. Deve Gowda (1933) Indian politician

S. Chandrashekar in: Past Prime Ministers: Those who came before:H D Deve Gowda http://news.in.msn.com/elections-2014/past-prime-ministers-those-who-came-before?page=12, MSN News. 26 May 2014

Question

“As an immigrant, I am constantly surprised by how much I hear racism talked about and how little I actually see it.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Even fewer are the incidents in which I have experienced it directly.
Source: Books, What's So Great About America (2003), Ch. 4: The Reparations Fallacy

“And no one would interfere with me because of the loaded gun in my hand. Also, a part of me didn’t give a shit anymore if I was caught or not. I could now see that my objective wasn’t just to kill Moses and all these other teachers who had abused us, but for everyone in all the whole world to know why. This wasn’t going to be a surprise attack. This had to be a cold, premeditated act, completely well planned, just as it had been premeditated and well thought out to torture and beat us Mexican kids, starting in kindergarten, so we’d be a people, a gente, with our heads bowed down to authority forever, thinking we were inferior and worthless. I now realized that this was how you enslaved a people. You didn’t just bring them over in chains from Africa. No, you convinced them that they were inferior, not evolved, subhuman, and then when you took off their shackles, so they could go to work, you’d still have them enslaved and shackled inside of their minds for hundreds of years. And this system of teaching was fine with most Anglo teachers, because in the act of convincing us, los Mexicanos and the Blacks, we were subhuman, they’d also convinced themselves that they were superior!”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

People , Teachers , Thinking , World

“I was told when he died he was listening to Jab Dil Hi Toot Gaya, which I thought was far-fetched, because Saigal never liked his film songs, just his Ghalib compositions. But it was dramatic, so we used it. So imagine my surprise, when after a show in Delhi, a lady came up to me and said she was the niece, Durgesh, seen in that death scene, and her uncle had indeed listened to that song on his deathbed.”

K. L. Saigal (1904–1947) Indian actor

By M Syed Alam in "A tribute to KL Saigal."

Imagination , Death

“Zakir bhai is indeed a phenomenon of our times. It is not surprising that young tabla players are inspired or influenced by him but cloning will only give them a temporary impetus.”

Zakir Hussain (musician) (1951) Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer

Pandit Nayan Ghosh in Who’s interested in a second-hand Zakir Hussain?, 2 November 2013, 12 December 2013, The Hindu http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/whos-interested-in-a-secondhand-zakir-hussain/article5308342.ece,
About Zakir Hussain

Time

“It is the function of the artist to evoke the experience of surprised recognition: to show the viewer what he knows but does not know that he knows. Helnwein is a master of surprised recognition.”

Gottfried Helnwein (1948) Austrian photographer and painter

William S. Burroughs, Helnwein's Work http://www.helnwein.com/texte/selected_authors/artikel_103.html, Lawrence, Kansas, 1990

“He’s good inside, very good, strong physically. The one thing that surprised me the most was his quickness. And his defensive ability. He moves his head a lot, feints a lot. He’s not an easy man to hit.”

Roberto Durán (1951) Panamanian boxer

Carlos Palomino, 16 June 1980, after his defeat by Duran http://coxscorner.tripod.com/duran.html
About Durán

Strong

“He has surprised us all, Maybe he is a bionic man. He recovers very quickly. Maybe he will be on the bench or even start, but we haven’t decided yet. Each injury depends on the person and he is very strong, not just mentally but also physically.”

John Terry (1980) English association football player

Avram Grant, http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2008/0216/sport/grant-hails-terrys-powers-of-recovery-55424.html

Personality , Strong , Dependency

“I am quite surprised, that with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about The Miracle Worker.”

Anne Bancroft (1931–2005) American actress

We're talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world... I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet.
Interview (2003).

“The job of theorists, especially in biology, is to suggest new experiments. A good theory makes not only predictions, but surprising predictions that then turn out to be true.”

Francis Crick (1916–2004) British molecular biologist, biophysicist, neuroscientist; co-discoverer of the structure of DNA

If its predictions appear obvious to experimentalists, why would they need a theory?
What Mad Pursuit (1988)

Making love

“In Poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their centre. I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity — it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance — Its touches of Beauty should never be halfway thereby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural to him — shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the luxury of twilight — but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it — and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to John Taylor (February 27, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)

Tree , Sun , Beauty , Nature

“But now if the gifted soul be not of taciturn nature, be of vivid, impatient, rapidly productive nature, and aspire much to give itself sensible utterance,—I find that, in this case, the field it has in England is narrow to an extreme; is perhaps narrower than ever offered itself, for the like object, in this world before. Parliament, Church, Law: let the young vivid soul turn whither he will for a career, he finds among variable conditions one condition invariable, and extremely surprising, That the proof of excellence is to be done by the tongue. For heroism that will not speak, but only act, there is no account kept.”

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

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

World , Soul , Law , Nature

“Here’s a fact that may not surprise you: the children of the rich perform better in school, on average, than children from middle-class or poor families. Students growing up in richer families have better grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer students; they also have higher rates of participation in extracurricular activities and school leadership positions, higher graduation rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion. Whether you think it deeply unjust, lamentable but inevitable, or obvious and unproblematic, this is hardly news. It is true in most societies and has been true in the United States for at least as long as we have thought to ask the question and had sufficient data to verify the answer.”

Sean Reardon American sociologist

No Rich Child Left Behind, 2013

School , Family , Question , Children

“I wasn’t really shocked or anything. Because of what I saw after the incident after the NFC championship game. You’ve got a lot of racial backlash, and a lot of racist comments that were uncalled for – I can never see a time where racism is called for. So it didn’t shock me as much as it would have had I not experienced that personally, had I not seen those things. Because it showed me that America still had some progress to make. On equality, and understanding that it doesn’t matter what color you are, you treat people as people. And whether a good person or a bad person, you don’t judge them off the color of their skin. You can know a person is a good person or a bad person by who they are, not by what they look like. In that situation, it just seems like a lot of people gave him a lot of flack, well deserved, but you know – I feel like a lot more people were surprised then they should have been.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

About Donald Sterling's racist remarks.
The NFL Would Not Have Banned A Donald Sterling For Life (May 7, 2014)

Time , Understanding , Personality , Bad luck

“In general, the best thing to do when you suspect people of trying to distract you from the truth is not to actively confront them in the beginning, but in fact to encourage them to continue by showing interest in what they are saying or doing. You want them to talk more, to reveal more signs of tension and contrivance. At the right moment you must surprise them with a question or remark that is designed to make them uncomfortable, revealing you are onto them. Pay attention to the microexpressions and body language they emit at such moments. If they are really deceiving, they will often have a freeze response as they take this in, and then quickly try to mask the underlying anxiety. This was the favorite strategy of detective Columbo in the television series of the same name—facing criminals who had tried to reverse engineer the evidence to make it look like someone else had done it, Columbo would pretend to be perfectly friendly and harmless but then would suddenly ask an uncomfortable question and then pay extra attention to the face and body.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Truth , Making love , People , Question

“On the surface, the people around you appear so polite and civilized. But beneath the mask, they are all inevitably dealing with frustrations. They have a need to influence people and gain power over circumstances. Feeling blocked in their endeavors, they often try to assert themselves in manipulative ways that catch you by surprise. And then there are those whose need for power and impatience to obtain it are greater than others. They turn particularly aggressive, getting their way by intimidating people, being relentless and willing to do almost anything. You must transform yourself into a superior observer of people’s unsatisfied aggressive desires, paying extra attention to the chronic aggressors and passive aggressors in our midst. You must recognize the signs—the past patterns of behavior, the obsessive need to control everything in their environment—that indicate the dangerous types. They depend on making you emotional—afraid, angry—and unable to think straight. Do not give them this power. When it comes to your own aggressive energy, learn to tame and channel it for productive purposes—standing up for yourself, attacking problems with relentless energy, realizing great ambitions.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 16 : See the Hostility Behind the Friendly Façade
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Dependency , Past , People , Learning

“History’s made of surprises that seem obvious in retrospect.”

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

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 28 (p. 296)

History

“Behind every successful man, there stands a surprised woman.”

Maryon Pearson (1901–1989) Wife of Prime Minister of Canada

Success

“One can and should debate whether the tests in question are appropriate for the purposes at hand, but one shouldn’t be surprised when normal curves behave normally.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Section 2, “Local, Social, and Business Issues” Chapter 11, “Company Charged with Ethnic Bias in Hiring” (p. 61)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Question

“The new political awareness has little to do with parties or ideologies. Its constituents don't come in blocs. Power that is never surrendered by the individual cannot be brokered. Not by revolution or protest but by autonomy, the old slogan becomes a surprising fact: Power to the people. One by one by one.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Seven, Right Power, p. 240

People

“Why just before last Christmas
My baby went away
And I find it real surprising
For myself to hear me say
That everything is cool
Everything's okay”

John Prine (1946–2020) American country singer/songwriter

"Everything is Cool"
Song lyrics, The Missing Years (1991)

Baby , Christmas

“I can see the fire burning
Burning right behind your eyes
I can see the fire burning, baby
Burning right behind your eyes
You must've swallowed a candle
Or some other kind of surprise.”

John Prine (1946–2020) American country singer/songwriter

"Daddy’s Little Pumpkin" (Prine, Pat McLaughlin)
Song lyrics, The Missing Years (1991)

Baby

“What is the greatest surprise you have found about life?”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

a university student asked me several years ago.
"Its brevity" I replied without hesitation. … Time moves so quickly, and no matter who we are or what we have done, the time will come when our lives will be over. As Jesus said, "As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work" (John 9:4). … Life is short, and every day is a gift from God.

Just As I Am : The Autobiography of Billy Graham (1997), co-written with Cliff Barrows

Life

“They’re your children. The more you try to force them to be like you, the more they’re going to flare off in different directions like wild fireworks, the more they’re going to surprise and disappoint you.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Introduction to Part 8 (pp. 485-486)
House of Suns (2008)

Disappointment , Children

“I suppose my determination to be a soldier stems from that date. I mean the real thing, not the parades and the uniforms and the glamour, but the logistics, the offensive advantage, the speed and surprise—the power. A better-prepared, stronger, tougher, faster, meaner son-of-a-bitch than any who came through that door.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 3 (pp. 43-44)

Bitch , Speed

“One night you discover to your great surprise that you have not spent all your money that day, he said. Next morning you wake up early and go out and buy yourself a hat – and when you have got the hat you realize that you now have even more money in your pocket. You invite a friend, two or three of them perhaps, to come with you to a restaurant, and you eat your fill of all the best food and wines available there. When you simply can’t force down another bite and you leave the restaurant, you discover that you’ve made yet another haul while you were sitting inside. You become flurried and go and buy a house with a garden to try to rid yourself of this trash, but no sooner have you paid for the house cash down than you notice that your money has multiplied through the purchase. Now you are seized with a kind of frenzy that Björn of Brekkukot would never understand, far less your grandmother. You set off travelling round and round the world, pouring out money with both hands to other demented vagrants wherever you go, and you don’t even dare to open your letters because you know that they will all say the same thing: your deposits at I don’t know how many banks all over the world are still growing with ever increasing speed.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

Money , Housing , Night , Understanding

“It is surprising how long it takes to do a simple addition when your life depends on the answer.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Breaking Strain

Breaking Strain, p. 172
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Life , Dependency

“Homosexuals do not understand themselves and thus it is not surprising that heterosexuals do not understand them ether.”

Harry Hay (1912–2002) American gay rights activist

Social Directions of the Homosexual (1951)

Understanding

“When'er with soft serenity she smiled,
Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise,
How sweetly mutable, how brightly wild,
The liquid lustre darted from her eyes?”

William Mason (poet) (1724–1797) poet

Source: On the Death of a Lady (1760), The poems of William Mason, vol. 1, 1822, p. 86 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101032743732&view=1up&seq=94

Smile

“Somehow, acting brings out parts of your personality that maybe you didn’t know were there, or the character brings out some little part of you that has been dormant for your whole life, you know? And then when you get the chance to play these characters, some-times things come out of you that are quite surprising and that you don’t even know are inside of you. It’s an amazing thing to experience that.”

Liv Tyler (1977) American actress, producer and former model

Chance , Time , Personality , Life

“I am what I am. I am Christ and Antichrist, God and Satan, Heaven and Hiroshima, Arcadia and Auschwitz.” Smiling devilishly, Sarkos lumbered up to Lovett. “Get it, fat boy? God is a duality. Dr. Jehovah and Mr. Hyde.” He lobbed the bottle cap into his mouth and chewed. “Allow me to tell you a bedtime story. It’s called ‘The Day the Gas Chambers Malfunctioned at Auschwitz.’ On second thought, why bother? You know the plot—the title gives it away—I’m surprised Braverman and Kelvin left it out of their overblown epic. Can you imagine how it feels to be a seven-year-old Jewish child, standing in line with hundreds of other Jewish children, waiting your turn to be thrown alive onto an open fire?”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Swallowing the bottle cap, Sarkos swerved toward Martin. “Don’t you see? It’s the only solution that can possibly work. No other theory comes close. Of course God has a dark side. Not just dark—evil. Radically, radically evil.”
Source: Blameless in Abaddon (1996), Chapter 15 (p. 390; spoken by the Devil, named Jonathan Sarkos in the book)

God , Imagination , Waiting , Smile

“I am so surprised by New York City. I thought New York must be ugly and unpleasant, you know, I saw all those movies about New York….But New York is beautiful and the people here are really nice.”

Rina Mor (1956) Israeli lawyer and former Miss Universe

"Miss Universe Captivates New York" (1976)

Beauty , People

“When we are young, we take a certain pleasure in our infirmities. They seem so new, so rich! With age, they no longer surprise us, we know them too well. Now, without anything unexpected in them, they do not deserve to be endured.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Pleasure , Age

“The aims and ideals of the Soviet revolution inspired the patriotic enthusiasm of millions of people in the 1930s, during World War II, and in the postwar reconstruction period. This explains the Soviet Union's great leap forward, the achievement of a high level of industrial capacity in a very short time, the transformation of the Soviet Union into a major power in terms of science and culture. The historic victory in the Great Patriotic War against Nazism, which was a surprise not only for Hitler but also for the Western democracies is also explained by what we have said above. All this is true. But the historical truth is also that the regime and the system abused the faith of the people in these high ideals, turning them to its own advantage. Rule by the people, equality, justice, and the promise of a happy future — all these ideas were utilized for the sake of maintaining and strengthening totalitarianism.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, On My Country and the World (1999)

Democracy , Faith , Justice , Time

“To radicalize the question of phenomenology is not only to aim for a pure phenomenality but to seek out the mode according to which it originally becomes a phenomenon -- the substance, the stuff, the phenomenological matter of which it is made, its phenomenologically pure materiality. That is the task of material phenomenology. Prior to this being-toward-the-outside in which everything is properly speaking placed outside of itself and in which every reality is a priori emptied and dispossessed of itself and thus becomes its contrary, an irreality, and prior to the abandonment and undoing that is called death and that would be unable to exist on its own, material phenomenology is devoted to the discovery of the reign of a phenomenality that is constructed in such a surprising way that the thought that always thinks about the world never thinks about it. To the internal structure of this originary manifestation, there belongs no Outside, no Separation, no Ek-stasis. Its phenomenological substance is not visibility. None of the categories that have been used by philosophy since the Greeks at any rate, are appropriate for it.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Source: Michel Henry, Material Phenomenology, Fordham University Press, 2008, p. 2
Source: Books on Phenomenology and Life, Material Phenomenology (1990)

Question , Thinking , Way , Reality

“This Administration has been looking hard at exactly what civil defense can and cannot do. It cannot be obtained cheaply. It cannot give an assurance of blast protection that will be proof against surprise attack or guaranteed against obsolescence or destruction. And it cannot deter a nuclear attack. We will deter an enemy from making a nuclear attack only if our retaliatory power is so strong and so invulnerable that he knows he would be destroyed by our response. If we have that strength, civil defense is not needed to deter an attack. If we should ever lack it, civil defense would not be an adequate substitute. But this deterrent concept assumes rational calculations by rational men. And the history of this planet, and particularly the history of the 20th century, is sufficient to remind us of the possibilities of an irrational attack, a miscalculation, an accidental war, for a war of escalation in which the stakes by each side gradually increase to the point of maximum danger which cannot be either foreseen or deterred. It is on this basis that civil defense can be readily justifiable--as insurance for the civilian population in case of an enemy miscalculation. It is insurance we trust will never be needed--but insurance which we could never forgive ourselves for foregoing in the event of catastrophe. Once the validity of this concept is recognized, there is no point in delaying the initiation of a nation-wide long-range program of identifying present fallout shelter capacity and providing shelter in new and existing structures. Such a program would protect millions of people against the hazards of radioactive fallout in the event of large-scale nuclear attack. Effective performance of the entire program not only requires new legislative authority and more funds, but also sound organizational arrangements.”

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

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

Forgiveness , History , Strong , War

“Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number. The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds, if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that the weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

As quoted in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1884 - 1888) edited by Robert Underwood Clarence C. Buel, Vol. II, p. 297
Q him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow…]]

Time , Victory , Fight , Making love

“If you think about things that happen, as being computations... a computation in the sense that it has definite rules... You follow them many steps and you get some result. ...If you look at all these different computations that can happen, whether... in the natural world... in our brains... in our mathematics, whatever else, the big question is how do these computations compare. ...Are there dumb ...and smart computations, or are they somehow all equivalent? ...[T]he thing that I ...was ...surprised to realize from ...experiments ...in the early 90s, and now we have tons more evidence for ...[is] this ...principle of computational equivalence, which basically says that when one of these computations ...doesn't seem like it's doing something obviously simple, then it has reached this ...equivalent layer of computational sophistication of everything. So what does that mean? ...You might say that ...I'm studying this tiny little program ...and my brain is surely much smarter ...I'm going to be able to systematically outrun [it] because I have a more sophisticated computation ...but ...the principle ...says ...that doesn't work. Our brains are doing computations that are exactly equivalent to the kinds of computations that are being done in all these other sorts of systems. ...It means that we can't systematically outrun these systems. These systems are computationally irreducible in the sense that there's no ...shortcut ...that jumps to the answer.”

Stephen Wolfram (1959) British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, writer and businessman

Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe (Sep 15, 2020)

Study , Question , Nature , World

“Antifa is a phantom movement by design. It is leaderless and structured to be functional through small, independent organizations, known as affinity groups, and individuals. Only the ideology needs to be propagated for lone wolves or groups to be inspired. Part of that ideology involves extensive training on ‘digital security,’ that is, using encrypted tools, apps, and web browsers to completely evade detection by authorities and others. It is no surprise that scant evidence materialized in the early days of the investigation into accused rioters. Antifa are trained to hide their political affiliations.”

Andy Ngo (1986) American conservative journalist and social‐media personality

Source: Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy (2021), p. 18

Training , Parting

“Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer,
I was taken by a photograph of you.
There were one or two I know
That you would have liked a little more,
But they didn't show your spirit quite as true.
You were turning round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise,
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes.”

Jackson Browne (1948) American singer-songwriter

"Fountain of Sorrow"
("Fountain of Sorrow" on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaoHbNNK58k
Late for the Sky (1974)

Laughter

“I promised myself in life that I would not stop myself from being surprised and you never know what’s going to surprise you. Some things that seem dull turn out to be the most interesting things so I just open doors and say let’s do it!”

Daniel Kash (1959) Canadian actor

Daniel Kash Interview https://entertainment-focus.com/2013/06/17/daniel-kash-interview/ (June 17, 2013)

Life

“People are usually surprised to discover that I hate the phrase "constitutional rights."”

Michael Badnarik (1954) American software engineer

I hate the phrase because it is terribly misleading. Most of the people who say it or hear it have the impression that the Constitution "grants" them their rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strictly speaking it is the Bill of Rights that enumerates our rights, but none of our founding documents bestow anything on you at all [...] The government can burn the Constitution and shred the Bill of Rights, but those actions wouldn't have the slightest effect on the rights you've always had.
Source: Good to be King (2004)

Hate , People

“Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Time , Change

“You might be surprised to find this out, but sweets were a big problem for me when I was younger. It didn't matter what it was, I couldn't walk past it without buying it. Now I've cut sweets out. It actually took me several years to get to this point. Now I don't really like sweets anymore.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

"Lewandowski exclusive, pt II: 'We're stronger now'" https://www.bundesliga.com/en/news/Bundesliga/noblmd09-fc-bayern-muenchen-robert-lewandowski-exclusive-interview.jsp (2016)

Past , Problem

“Filmmaking is an organic process from start to finish, so there should be many surprises along the way. You never know what film you really have until it is delivered.”

Wong Kar-wai (1958) Hong Kong screenwriter, film producer and film director

"5 Questions for Wong Kar Wai" in Notebook Feature (19 March 2021) https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/5-questions-for-wong-kar-wai

Way

“One thing great journalists and artists have in common is a desire to be surprised, to find yourself with way more than you bargained for when you began an inquiry with little more than a sense of intuition.”

An-My Lê (1960) American photographer

Interview with the Art Newspaper (August 13, 2020)

Way , Sense

“Landscape, at its best, is not a narrow category. It is a source of surprise. It allows for the sudden assertion of a place, like an unexpected time signature within a melody.”

An-My Lê (1960) American photographer

Interview with the Art Newspaper (August 13, 2020)

Time

“It is a source of constant surprise to me that almost all professionals take pictures only on the orders of the clients and almost never to invent and experiment.”

Paolo Monti (1908–1982) Italian photographer

"Due parole sulla mia fotografia", 1981; quoted in "Monti, Paolo" https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/paolo-monti_(Dizionario-Biografico)/, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani.
Original: (it) Per me è motivo di continua sorpresa il fatto che quasi tutti i professionisti fotografano solo su ordine dei committenti e quasi mai per inventare e sperimentare.

“We grow old in people’s eyes / or when, opening a wardrobe, / the mirror takes us by surprise. / We grow old, half-plunged / in our rivers / seeing portraits reflected / when images flow among a thousand folds; / we grow old in twisted reflections of cutlery / and glasses.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

From The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, p. 41

People

“It's not surprising that we are all craving for the diplomas, degrees and masters. I strongly believe that journey began with your birth certificate. Which is safely kept inside the house, where it belongs!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Housing , Birth

“You can imagine or pretend to know your partner, but you will still be surprised at the end of the day.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Imagination

“Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where things are more surprising. There's an element of surprise, and especially in science, there is often laughter that goes along with the “Aha.””

Alan Kay (1940) computer scientist

Art also has this element. Our job is to remind us that there are more contexts than the one that we're in — the one that we think is reality.
ACM Queue A Conversation with Alan Kay Vol. 2, No. 9 - Dec/Jan 2004-2005 http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523
2000s, A Conversation with Alan Kay, 2004–05

Science , Laughter

“I didn't expect such a big award, it's a surprise. It makes me feel proud to be an actress, receiving this prestigious award.”

Kim Hye-ja (1941) South Korean actress

On receiving an award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her performance in the movie Mother in "Korean Actress Kim Hye-ja Wins Best Actress from LAFCA'" in Arirang (16 January 2011) http://www.arirang.com/News/News_View.asp?nseq=111519&sys_lang=Kor

Feeling

“Disillusionment, pain, unpleasant surprise, all were part of growing up.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Marianne Trilogy, Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods (1988), Chapter 1 (p. 6)

Parting , Pain

“The most beautiful gift of nature is a pleasant morning whenever I see this beautiful sight of nature I fall in love with nature. A pleasant morning brings with it different colors of nature. Just like the green trees and plants that make my eyes feel relaxed, the blue color of the sky signifies ambition, the yellow color of the sun lights the lamp of hope in me, the red and pink colors of flowers fill me with love, these I am surprised to see all the colours. The scent of the wet soil in the morning along with the cool breeze fills me with freshness. When i hear the sweet chirping of birds, my heart starts humming.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Flowers , Nature , Bird , Love

“My philosophy has been to take things day by day. When I talk about this philosophy it makes people perhaps a little surprised.”

Bhumibol Adulyadej (1927–2016) King of Thailand

Source: "King Bhumibol's Reign" in The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/21/magazine/king-bhumibol-s-reign.html (21 May 1989)

People

“Surprise becomes effective when we suddenly face the enemy at one point with far more troops than he expected. This type of numerical superiority is quite distinct from numerical superiority in general: it is the most powerful medium in the art of war.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

Source: On War (1832), Book 6, Chapter 1.

War , Art

“In a world of fake news, fake history, fake law, fake diplomacy, it is no surprise to encounter fake democracy along the way.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

2021

Democracy , History , Law , Way

“The wonderful part of acting of acting is you don't know what your playmate is going to be offering as that obstacle, and that's the surprising part, that's the magical part, so it's like a game of tennis, you don't know what's going to be thrown at you, you've got to be on you toes.”

Joy Tanner (1966) American actress

Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joy_Tanner

Game , Parting

“I honestly have no idea why I was chosen, I’m surprised by it. I’m excited to see where this takes me.”

Noa Tsurushima (2001) Japanese actress

Idea

“I was out in the middle of Niger. And somebody just comes busting into our meeting, said, 'Nobel Peace Prize! Nobel Peace Prize!' And I'm like, "Well, yeah, wow, who won it?' And they're like, 'We did!' That was the greatest surprise in my life. And wow, wow, wow!”

David Beasley (1957) 113th Governor of South Carolina

Source: As quoted in Kate Hudson on being a World Food Programme ambassador, CBS News, (22 November 2020)

Peace , Life

“Sometimes I surprise myself with my own face.”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

Source: Quote from his comedy lecture "Schicksalsjahre eines Nerds" https://www.rabenhoftheater.com/archiv-saison-2014-2015/schicksalsjahre-eines-nerds/ (2014)

“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting ... Read it a hundred times; it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Source: 1930s, The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)

Time , Reading , Sense

“For once his years of teaching experience stood him in good stead; he was an old hand at sounding knowledgeable while dodging surprise questions from smart-breeched scholars.”

Margaret Ball (1515–1584) Lady Mayoress of Dublic and Catholic martyr

Source: Lost in Translation (1995), Chapter 8 (p. 150)

Question , Knowledge

“People predict by making up stories.
People predict very little and explain everything.
People live under uncertainty whether they like it or not.
People believe they can tell the future if they work hard enough.
People accept any explanation as long as it fits the facts.
The handwriting was on the wall. It was just the ink that was invisible.
People often work hard to obtain information they already have and avoid new knowledge.
Man is a deterministic device thrown into a probabilistic Universe. In this match, surprises are expected.
Everything that has already happened must have been inevitable.
A part of good science is to see what everyone else can see but think what no one else has ever said.
The difference between being very smart and very foolish is often very small.
So many problems occur when people fail to be obedient when they are supposed to be obedient, and fail to be creative when they are supposed to be creative
The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.
It is sometimes easier to make the world a better place than to prove you have made the world a better place.”

Amos Tversky (1937–1996) Israeli psychologist

Source: Notes made by Tversky for a scientific paper, c.1972. Michael Lewis. "The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World". Penguin, 2016 (ISBN 9780141983035).

Knowledge , Problem , Thinking , People

“I went to a garden party
to reminisce with my old friends
A chance to share old memories
and play our songs again
When I got to the garden party
they all knew my name
no one recognized me
I didn't look the same
But it's all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see ya can't please everyone
So ya got to please yourself
People came from miles around
Everyone was there
Yoko brought her walrus
There was magic in the air
N' over in the corner
much to my surprise
Mr Hughes hid in Dylan's shoes
wearing his disguise
But it's all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, ya can't please everyone
So ya got to please yourself . . .”

Ricky Nelson (1940–1985) American musician (1940-1985)

- On Wikipedia: Garden Party (song)
- Play on YouTube: 'Garden Party' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JK0Z6IdLF4
Songs

People , Learning , Shoe , Memory

“It is surprising how refreshing this feels. Being judged by what you do, and not what you are.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Obelisk Gate

Source: The Obelisk Gate (2016), Chapter 8 “you've been warned” (p. 127)

Feeling

“We have issued all our warnings both publicly and through bilateral channels. They [Sweden and Finland] know about it, they will have nothing to be surprised about, they were informed about everything, what will it lead to.”

Maria Zakharova (1975) Russian diplomat and journalist

Said about Russian reactions in case Finland and Sweden join NATO, quoted in "Russia warns Sweden, Finland about consequences of joining NATO" https://www.firstpost.com/world/russia-warns-sweden-finland-about-consequences-of-joining-nato-10577321.html, Firstpost, 20 April 2022

“Let it never surprise true Christians if they are slandered and misrepresented in this world. They must not expect to fare better than their Lord.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Mark XIV: 53–65, p. 329
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. Mark (1857)

World

“It is incredible, but not surprising, that the Democrats would try to remove God from committee proceedings in one of their first acts in the majority. They really have become the party of Karl Marx.”

Elizabeth Cheney (1966) American lawyer

As quoted in "House democrats to strike 'so help me God' from oath", Breitbart News (29 January 2019)

God

“Do not be surprised if we still find tyranny in this modern era. That is when the ruler is plunged into an effort to perpetuate his power by all means, including through deception, stunting, suppression, restraint, detention and repression.”

Titon Rahmawan

Effort

“If you don't learn how to understand the world, then don't be surprised if it fails to understand you.”

Titon Rahmawan

World , Understanding , Learning

“Everyone knows that nothing is more precious than time. But what is really surprising is that there are still many people who waste it.”

Titon Rahmawan

Time , People

“The artist who never has any doubt about the success of his work of art, will never create anything surprising.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: L'artista che non ha mai alcun dubbio sul successo della sua opera d'arte, non creerà mai nulla di sorprendente.
Source: prevale.net

Success , Art

“The person of your life will surprise you everyday, will have the most beautiful smile in the world and, above all, will make you feel simply alive, always.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La persona della vostra vita vi sorprenderà ogni giorno, avrà il sorriso più bello del mondo e, soprattutto, vi farà sentire semplicemente vivi, sempre.
Source: prevale.net

Smile , Beauty , Personality , World

Quotes about surprise page 14

Quotes about surprise
page 14