Quotes about surprise
page 9

“A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“Soon I must vote for Oscars and BAFTAs, so I've been having marathon screening sessions. Top of my list so far is ROOM, which is brilliant in every way. The boy actor, Jacob Tremblay, is astounding. But most of all, it's a film that never stoops to the rigged mini-plots so often used to generate viewer excitement: it goes its own way, always surprising, always utterly believable. The writer of both the novel and the screenplay, Emma Donoghue, has produced a perfect work. People seem surprised that a first-time screenwriter can be so good, but the truth is screenwriting's not hard, it's having something strong and real and true to write about that's hard. Emma Donoghue is original and wise: that's rare.”

Emma Donoghue (1969) Irish novelist, playwright, short-story writer and historian

William Nicholson, "Oscar voting" http://www.williamnicholson.com/blog/2016/1/3/oscar-voting-2 (January 3, 2016) About

People, Truth, Way, Boy

“If there is no choice, we will declare war on the millionaires in Israel. The ground is burning to such an extent, that the rich people of the land should not be surprised if certain groups would arrive and just climb on their houses and expel them from their homes, or if their daughters could no longer walk outside. Each one would have to establish a private police force. When the struggles begin, illustrating the fact that we cannot continue in this condition where there are groups that accumulate wealth and get rich in a legendary fashion, while others are left so far behind, no one should fool himself into thinking that his house and yard are out of the game.”

Amir Peretz (1952) Israeli politician

Source: Interview by Orna Kadosh in Maariv, May 12, 2000 http://www.nrg.co.il/online/archive/ART47/692.html http://www.nrg.co.il/online/archive/ART48/171.html

War, People, Fools, Home

“It is surprising what improper and indecent contentions these popular elections occasioned. I have oftener than once known half-a-dozen candidates all trying for a vacant parish, and preaching alternately, to give their electors an opportunity of determining what they liked best. Voice and action, as is remarked in a very humorous pamphlet respecting London lectureships, almost constantly carried it. … Preachers and ministers so elected, continuing still in some degree dependent on the people, continued also chiefly to cultivate those arts by which their favour had first been gained. Their sermons were light, flippant, and ordinary; but their manner of preaching was pleasing and popular.”

Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804) English minister

"Reminiscences of an American Loyalist" (first published serially in "Notes and Queries", 1874-)

People, Art, Light, Dependency

“The concept of 'measurement' becomes so fuzzy on reflection that it is quite surprising to have it appearing in physical theory at the most fundamental level… does not any analysis of measurement require concepts more fundamental than measurement? And should not the fundamental theory be about these more fundamental concepts?”

John S. Bell (1928–1990) Northern Irish physicist

"Quantum Mechanics for Cosmologists" (1981); published in Quantum Gravity (1981) edited by Christopher Isham, Roger Penrose and Dennis William Sciama, p. 611 - 637

Appearance

“India is still foreign to me, it's a familiar foreignness in some way, but it's still surprising. When you see a temple in India, you don't say, oh there's another temple, you say: "My God! How could anyone have had the imagination to do something so amazing!"”

Wendy Doniger (1940) American Indologist

It's never what you expect.
About her comfort level staying in India.
Q&A with Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor and author of The Hindus

God, Way, Imagination

“Well, I'd say, and this is probably a change from what I would have said when I was younger: Have a very healthy respect for the study of economic history, because that's the raw material out of which any of your conjectures or testings will come. And I think the recent period has illustrated that. The governor of the Bank of England seems to have forgotten or not known that there was no bank insurance in England, so when Northern Rock got a run, he was surprised. Well, he shouldn't have been.
But history doesn't tell its own story. You've got to bring to it all the statistical testings that are possible. And we have a lot more information now than we used to.”

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

Conor Clarke, An Interview With Paul Samuelson http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/06/an-interview-with-paul-samuelson-part-two/19627/, Part Two (2009) New millennium

History, Thinking, Study, Change

“So I would not be surprised if the globbing libraries, for example, will do NFD-mangling in order to glob "correctly", so even programs ported from real Unix might end up getting pathnames subtly changed into NFD as part of some hot library-on-library action with UTF hackery inside.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

-- Wed, 23 Jan 2008 -- http://web.archive.org/20080213164251/kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2008/1/23/595619
Attributed

Change, Parting

“Twenty years ago, the business world was taken by surprise when the work pyramid was up-ended. Suddenly customers were on top and a flattened corporate hierarchy made front-line workers responsible for understanding and satisfying the customer’s every whim. Today, we’re poised for the natural sequel to that revolution. It’s time to focus on keeping workers satisfied — or at least engaged in their work.”

Adrian Slywotzky (1951) American economist

Source: Profit Patterns (1999), p. 2.

World, Understanding, Business, Nature

“Paran shook his head, his only surprise the realization that nothing surprised him anymore.”

Steven Erikson book Gardens of the Moon

Source: Gardens of the Moon (1999), Chapter 15 (p. 446)

“I dreamed once that I was going to be hanged; but I was not at all surprised about it. Nobody was. My relations came to see me off, I thought, and to wish me "Good-by!" They all came, and were all very pleasant; but they were not in the least astonished—not one of them. Everybody appeared to regard the coming tragedy as one of the most-naturally-to-be-expected things in the world.”

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English humorist

Dreams http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/jjdrm10.txt

World, Dreams, Nature, Appearance

“"It is undeniably beautiful, do you not agree?" Jarlaxle asked, looking back at the soaring cathedral, with its tall spires, soaring buttresses, and great, colored windows.
"The mask of a god," Entreri replied sourly.
"The mask or the face?" asked the always-surprising Jarlaxle.
Entreri stared hard at his companion, and back at the towering cathedral. "The mask," he said, "or perhaps the illusion, concocted by those who seek to elevate themselves above all others and have not the skills to do so."
Jarlaxle looked at him curiously.
"A man inferior with the blade or with his thoughts can still so elevate himself," Entreri explained curtly, "if he can impart the belief that some god or other speaks through him. It is the greatest deception in all the world, and one embraced by kings and lords, while minor lying thieves on the streets of Calimport and other cities lose their tongues for so attempting to coax the purses of others."
That struck Jarlaxle as the most poignant and revealing insight he had yet pried from the mouth of the elusive Artemis Entreri, a great clue as to who this man truly was.”

R. A. Salvatore book Servant of the Shard

Servant of the Shard

God, World, Beauty, Color

“Some day birth control will come off prescription, and they'll need those cute little catchy names like the patent medicines have…some day birth control pills will have names like, "Preg-Not"! Doctors prefer "Embry-No"! Here's one for the ladies, "Nary-A-Carry"! Something lofty and poetic: "Nay Family Way"; something earthhy and crude: "Mom Bomb"; something for the youngsters, "Junior Miss"; here's a real man's product, "Inconceivable"! "Mommy-Not", "Fetus Fail", "Kiddie Kill", "Papa Stopper", "Womb Broom", "Humpty Dumpty"… I wouldn't be surprised if they came up with a birth control pill that doesn't work all the time; they'd call it "Baby Maybe!"”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

FM & AM (1972)

Family, Way, Moms, Birth

“The dissimulation of the woven texture can in any case take centuries to undo its web: a web that envelops a web, undoing the web for centuries; reconstituting it too as an organism, indefinitely regenerating its own tissue behind the cutting trace, the decision of each reading. There is always a surprise in store for the anatomy or physiology of any criticism that might think it had m astered the game, surveyed all the threads at once, deluding itself, too, in wanting to look at the text without touching it, without laying a hand on the "object," without risking- which is the only chance of entering into the game, by getting a few fingers caught- the addition of some new thread.”

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) French philosopher (1930-2004)

Plato's Pharmacy
Dissemination (1972)

Game, Thinking, Decision, Chance

“Schumpeter emphasizes a “demand-side” explanation for such clustering of innovation. One might also consider a complemen tary “supply-side” explanation: since innovators are, in many cases, working with the same components, it is not surprising to see simultaneous innovation, with several innovators coming up with essentially the same invention at almost the same time. There are many well-known examples, including the electric light, the airplane, the automobile, and the telephone.”

Hal Varian (1947) American economist

Hal R. Varian, Part I. "Competition and market power", in The Economics of Information Technology: An Introduction (2004) by Hal R.Varian, Joseph Farrell and Carl Shapiro

Light, Time

“A depressing number of people seem to process everything literally. They are to wit as a blind man is to a forest, able to find every tree, but each one coming as a surprise.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

First published in the "Movie Answer Man" column (18 September 2005) http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050918/ANSWERMAN/509180304/1023

People, Tree

“The Norman minstrel Tallefer, before the commencement of the battle at Hastings, cast his lance into the air three times, and caught it by the head in such a surprising manner, that the English thought it was done by the power of enchantment.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. xix
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Minstrels

Time

“The original resolution condemned the Moplas wholesale for the killing of Hindus and burning of Hindu homes and the forcible conversion to Islam. The Hindu members themselves proposed amendments till it was reduced to condemning only certain individuals who had been guilty of the above crimes. But some of the Moslem leaders could not bear this even. Maulana Fakir and other Maulanas, of course, opposed the resolution and there was no wonder. But I was surprised, an out-and-out Nationalist like Maulana Hasrat Mohani opposed the resolution on the ground that the Mopla country no longer remained Dar-ul-Aman but became Dar-ul-Harab and they suspected the Hindus of collusion with the British enemies of the Moplas. Therefore, the Moplas were right in presenting the Quran or sword to the Hindus. And if the Hindus became Mussalmans to save themselves from death, it was a voluntary change of faith and not forcible conversion—Well, even the harmless resolution condemning some of the Moplas was not unanimously passed but had to be accepted by a majority of votes only.”

Swami Shraddhanand (1856–1926) Indian monk and philosopher

Swami Shraddhanand in the Liberator of 26 August 1926. [Shraddanand, Swami, 26 August 1926, The Liberator]

Death, Faith, Home, Change

“The stem cell debate was an introduction to a phenomenon I witnessed throughout my presidency: highly personal criticism. Partisan opponents and commentators questioned my legitimacy, my intelligence, and my sincerity. They mocked my appearance, my accent, and my religious beliefs. I was labeled a Nazi, a war criminal, and Satan himself. That last one came from a foreign leader, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. One lawmaker called me both a loser and a liar. He became majority leader of the U. S. Senate. In some ways, I wasn't surprised. I had endured plenty of rough politics in Texas. I had seen Dad and Bill Clinton derided by their opponents and the media. Abraham Lincoln was compared to a baboon. Even George Washington became so unpopular that political cartoons showed the hero of the American revolution being marched to the guillotine. Yet the death spiral of decency during my time in office, exacerbated by the advent of twenty-four-hour cable news and hyper-partisan political blogs, was deeply disappointing. The toxic atmosphere in American politics discourages good people from running for office.”

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

Source: 2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010), p. 121

Death, War, People, Disappointment

“Is this a real blue-collar bar or a simulacrum thereof?”
“Both. It started out as a pure simulacrum, a few years ago, before the economy crashed, when it was hip for twentysomethings to move down here and dress in Carhartts and Utilikilts. But they did such a good job of it that actual blue-collar people began to show up. And then the economy did crash, and the hip people discovered that they were, in actual point of fact, blue collar, and probably always would be. So you’ve got guys here who run lathes. But they have colored Mohawks and college degrees, and they program the lathes in computer languages. I was trying to come up with a name for them. Cerulean-collar workers, maybe.”
“Do a lot of people stop by here on their way to the private jet terminal?”
“You’d be surprised.”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Day 17, Seattle
Reamde (2011), Part II: American Falls

People, Color, Way, Guy

“What the feminists and their ventriloquist puppet husbands are talking about doing with Government-Funded Daycare is raising children as if they were a herd of interchangeable swine. No surprise coming from a gender which has no ethics, no scruples, no sense of right and wrong.”

Dave Sim (1956) Canadian cartoonist, creator of Cerebus

http://www.cerebusfangirl.com/artists/tangent1.php

Children, Sense, Swine

“If there are 500 tigers left in India, I'd be surprised. They are even skinning the tigers in Indian zoos.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

On poaching of tigers in India, as quoted in "Hunting down the hunter: A dying breed" http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/hunting-down-the-hunter-a-dying-breed-473821.html, The Independent (12 April 2006) 2001-2010

“I was surprised by photography, which we all use so massively every day. Suddenly, I saw it in a new way, as a picture that offered me a new view, free of all the conventional criteria I had always associated with art. It had no style, no composition, no judgment. It freed me from personal experience. For the first time, there was nothing to it: it was pure picture. That's why I wanted to have it, to show it - not use it as a means to painting, but use painting as a means to photography.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

Art, Way, Time, Painting

“To my surprise, definite occupation was found for me on my last visit to HQ: to investigate the motives of a clandestine political party operating in this area… Some are regarded as more purposeful and sinister including the one to be investigated, called Forza Italia!, which is suspected of Neo-Fascist leanings. My contacts in Benevento dismiss it with scorn as just another maniac right-wing movement backed by the landlords and the rural Mafia, run in this case by a half-demented latifundista who proclaims himself a reincarnation of Garibaldi.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

Motivation

“A man and a woman who, in their young days, agree to have done with sentimental life thereby renounce the search for adventure, the intoxication of new encounters, and the amazing refreshment produced by falling in love again. Their most vital source of energy is cut off; they are doomed to premature insensibility. Their life, scarcely begun, is finished. Nothing can break the monotony of an existence made up of burdens and duties. No further hope, no surprises, no conquests. Their one love will soon be tainted by the cares of housekeeping and the children's education. They will reach old age without ever having known the joys of youth. Marriage destroys romantic love which alone could justify it.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Marriage

Love, Life, Marriage, Children

“One day I attempted to reach silence directly, with greater resignation, surrendering to the fate that governs any profound struggle. My millions of furious clawings became millions of grains of dust, of sand... A new geo-graphy lit my way, carrying me from surprise to surprise: suggestions of unusual combinations and molecular structures, of atomic phenomena, of the world of galaxies or of images in a microscope. The symbolism of dust — 'to be one with dust, here lies the profound identity, that is, the inner profundity between man and nature' (Tao Te Ching) —, of ashes, of the earth from whence we come and to which we return, of the solidarity born when we realise that the differences among ourselves are like those between one grain of sand and the next..”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

1945 - 1970, A Report on the Wall' 1970

Fate, World, Way, Nature

“I was surprised and fascinated to experience the absolute lack of physical attraction, in terms of physical mass, in z-g.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks Sex in Space (Interview - Femail magazine)

“It really surprises me that some people in this party think we owe Westpac something. Or the ANZ Bank. Or the National.”

Paul Keating (1944) Australian politician, 24th Prime Minister of Australia

Australian Labor Party national conference, July 1984.

People, Thinking

“The door swung smoothly open, surprising her. A girl stood there. Barefoot. Dressed in a trash bag.”

Vanna Bonta book Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel

Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel (1995)

Girl

“One of these is an increasing awareness of the benefits to our economy, particularly in terms of investment and enterprise, both local and from overseas, of not having the inquisitorial type of tax system inevitably associated with a full income tax. Another is that even I, who have always believed in the vigour of our economy under our present tax regime, have been surprised by the growth of revenue generated at our present tax rates.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 29, 1967, page 248.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

“You are a surprise for me./ Every moment./ You are unpredictable in your love./ You cannot be controlled by my love.”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher

Source: Life: Relish It! p. 96. (2001)

Love

“True beauty is always oddly surprising.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Three, Part II “The Edge of the Sea”, Chapter 2 (p. 353)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Beauty

“It isn't surprising that many children consider their parents to be a little dim, and that they sometimes try to update them. The fact that they don't usually try too hard is just as well; a thoroughly updated parent is an unappetizing sight.”

Peg Bracken (1918–2007) American writer

I Didn't Come Here to Argue, "Don't Trust Anybody over Fifteen or Talk To Anybody under Forty," (1969), Fawcett Crest edition, page 93.

Children, Parent

“Every organization structure, even a poor one, can be charted, for a chart merely indicates how departments are tied together along the principal lines of authority. It is therefore somewhat surprising to find top managers occasionally taking pride in the fact that they do not have an organization chart or, if they do have one, feeling that the chart should be kept a secret.”

Harold Koontz (1909–1984)

Source: Principles of management, 1968, p. 379

Secret, Feeling

“Inventor of a new mythology and weaver of surprising folklore, Lord Dunsany stands dedicated to a strange world of fantastic beauty... unexcelled in the sorcery of crystalline singing prose, and supreme in the creation of a gorgeous and languorous world of incandescently exotic vision. No amount of mere description can convey more than a fraction of Lord Dunsany's pervasive charm.”

Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist

H. P. Lovecraft, quoted in the Del Rey edition of The Charwoman's Shadow
About

World, Beauty, Singing

“It's a good idea for diplomats to keep their word in small matters. It makes the later complete betrayals more of a surprise.”

John Barnes book Earth Made of Glass

Earth Made of Glass (1998)

Idea, Betrayal

“He has lived to see Sex replaced by Fat as the Ultimate Sin, and at the annual shows of the Ontario Society of Water-colourists pictures of Christ Forgiving the Woman Taken in Adultery have given way to a new theme — Christ Forgiving the Woman Surprised in Laura Secord's.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

Sex, Way, Forgiveness, Water

“For me, it is not so surprising England chose him. In training we all notice him because he is confident and very quick.”

Theo Walcott (1989) English association football player

Gilberto Silva, Brazilian World Cup winning footballer, 2006 ( Source http://football.guardian.co.uk/championsleague200506/story/0,,1775677,00.html) About

Confidence, Training

“In a world where numbers inexorably take over as our means of identification, like flowing lava threatening to suffocate and fosilize all breathing life in its path; in a world where "normality" is defined as keeping your cool; where sex is so available that the only way to preserve any inner center is to have intercourse without committing yourself — in such a schizoid world, which young people experience more directly since they have not had time to build up the defenses which dull the senses of their elders, it is not surprising that will and love have become increasingly problematic and even, as some people believe, impossible of achievement.”

Rollo May book Love and Will

Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 1 : Introduction : Our Schizoid World, p. 32

Love, Life, People, World

“She blinked, twice, obviously surprised. Ummm, she said, keeping her eyes on me. I don't know.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Dreamland (2000)

“I had horses, arms, men, wealth. Are you surprised I am sorry to lose them? If you want to rule the world, does it follow that everyone else welcomes enslavement?”
Habui equos viros, arma opes: quid mirum si haec invitus amisi? Nam si vos omnibus imperitare vultis, sequitur ut omnes servitutem accipiant?

Caratacus (15–54) British chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe

Tacitus Annales, Bk. XII, ch. 37; translation from The Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. Michael Grant, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1956] 1971) p. 267.

Men, World, Horse, Wealth

“They talked quietly, lying on their backs and letting the words float up to the ceiling as though they were talking to themselves. By reason of their calmness they could tell each other everything without shame, without its sounding like a confession. Nor were they surprised at what they found out about each other.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 191

Lying

“I paused, watching the swallows; for they seemed to me the symbol, in their swift, sure curvetting, all daring and balance and surprise, of the delicate poise and motion of Art, that visits no two men alike, in a world where no two things of all the things there be, are quite the same.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright

Vague Thoughts On Art (1911)

Men, World, Art

“I was very, very surprised. I never thought I would be that loved or respected.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

CNN interview (2004)

Love

“When I attempted, a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends or as the landscape loses the celestial light. What we feel then has been well described by Keats as “the journey homeward to habitual self.” You know what I mean. For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can: “Nobody marks us.” A scientist may reply that since most of the things we call beautiful are inanimate, it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us. That, of course, is true. It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable something of which they become for a moment the messengers. And part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us but rather something we have overheard. By bitterness I mean pain, not resentment. We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The Weight of Glory (1949)

God, Pain, Secret, World

“Reading O'Rahilly's life of Father William Doyle. I'm surprised this book hasn't left a deeper mark, for it contains - often in parallel terms - the whole teaching of the Little Way which created such a stir in the case of Thérèse. But it seems people prefer to accept such things from a lovely young girl complete with smile, roses and veil. One can't help wondering whether Thérèse would have met with the same enormous response had she been hopelessly ugly - a hunchback with a squint, or old…”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Diaries 1955-57

Love, Life, People, Books

“Carter gestured for silence. But the silence had already fallen. Archie, walking toward the platform for a close view of the proceedings, sucked in his breath, as if he were sipping this sweetest of all events. But he exhaled in surprise and stopped in his tracks as he saw Obie walk on the platform carrying the black box in his hands. Obie smiled maliciously when he caught Archie standing there in surprise, his mouth wide open in astonishment. No one had ever surprised the great Archie that way, and Obie's moment of triumph was a thing of beauty.”

Robert Cormier book The Chocolate War

Source: The Chocolate War (1974), p. 243

Smile, Beauty, Way, Silence

“It is surprising that so great a mathematician as Dr. Smith could have entertained for a moment, an idea that the vibrations constituting different sounds should be able to cross each other in all directions, without affecting the same individual particles of air by their joint forces: undoubtedly they cross, without disturbing each other's progress; but this can be no otherwise effected than by each particle's partaking of both motions. If this assertion stood in need of any proof, it might be amply furnished by the phenomena of beats, and of the grave harmonics observed…”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

"Outlines of Experiments and Inquiries Respecting Sound and Light" (1800)

Idea

“We have had here within these few days some serious scenes, at which I am not surprised, because I foresaw not only a struggle between the two corps, which the constitution had organized, viz. the executive (so called) and the legislative. But I was convinced that the latter would get the better. Such is the natural, and indeed the necessary order of things. It is nevertheless a painful reflection, that one of the finest countries in the world should be so cruelly torn to pieces. The storrn which lately raged is a little subsided, but the winds must soon arise again, and perhaps from the same, perhaps from another quarter. But that is of but little consequence, since in every case we must expect a little rage and devastation. A man, attached to his fellow men, must see with the same distress the woes they suffer, whether arising from an army or from a mob, and whether those by whom they are inflicted speak French or German.”

Gouverneur Morris (1752–1816) American politician

1790s, First Letter to Thomas Pinckney (1792)

Men, Pain, World, Nature

“I'm surprised at the extent of the bigotry. But it really plays out when companies or schools take a side and prohibit the other platform at all. We Mac users should be good even when the other side is bad. We should do what we can to accept the other platforms. All the best people in life seem to like LINUX.”

Steve Wozniak (1950) American inventor, computer engineer and programmer

"Letters-General Questions Answered" p. 1 http://www.woz.org/letters/general/01.html Woz.org files

Life, People, School

“I married a woman who loves to camp and I am what you would call indoorsy. I'm surprised we can still get people to camp. "Hey, wanna burn a couple of vacation days sleeping on the ground outside?" "Uh, No!" "What if I told you you get to crap standing up in the woods?" "I still wouldn't wanna go." "You'll wake up freezing covered in a rash."”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

"… All right, I'll go."
King Baby

Love, People, Sleep

“If you've ever bought drugs before, you understand that for some bizarre reason you have to feign this relationship with your dealer. It's like you're not really going to him to buy drugs. You're going for a social visit. Drugs are the surprise that just happens when you get there. "Oh, hash? I didn't know!" And he's talkin' to you and you're tryin' to be interested, you know, "Oh yeah? No, really…I love Foghat. No, seriously." And inside you're like, "Just fuckin' give it! I hate you. Your house smells like cat pee!"”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

Why do all drug dealers' houses smell like cat pee?
From Her Tours and CDs, The Notorious C.H.O. Tour

Love, Hate, Cats, Understanding

“When I got back to Ornans, I spent a few days hunting. I quite like the subject of violent exercise... It makes the most surprising painting you can imagine. There are thirty life-size figures in it. It is the moral and physical history of my studio”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote from a letter of Courbet to Bruyas, (December 1854); as cited in 'Courbet Speaks', 'Courbet-dossier', Musée-dOrsay http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/courbet-dossier/courbet-speaks.html 1840s - 1850s

Life, Exercises, Imagination, History

“We should not be surprised that life, having subjugated the bulk of inert matter on Earth, would go on to subjugate technology, and bring it also under its reign of constant evolution.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

Life

“Only utopian liberals could be surprised that the Nazis were art connoisseurs.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 29

Art

“Cordelia: You honor us, Fool. Did you hear rumors of small animals to hurt or were you hoping to accidentally surprise me in my bath again?
Pocket: I was lost, Milady.
Cordelia: A dozen times?”

Christopher Moore book Fool

Fool (2009)

Hope, Fools, Time, Animals

“The biggest alien invasion picture of the summer of 1996 is Independence Day. But it's not the first. The Arrival, with a significantly lower budget than Fox's July 3 release, has that distinction, and, while this particular film doesn't boast any radical or surprising ideas, it combines numerous familiar plot elements into a suspenseful, entertaining whole. Best of all, perhaps, is the realization that some thought went into writer/director David Twohy's script. This is not a dumb movie; in fact, with its heavy reliance upon real science, it's startlingly credible.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/movies/a/arrival.html of The Arrival (1996). Three star reviews

Idea, Science, Summer

“The things I've seen in life will make you choke by surprise / like an aborted fetus in a jar that opened its eyes”

Immortal Technique (1978) American rapper and activist

Internally Bleeding
Albums, Revolutionary Vol. 2 (2003)

Life

“I hope there will be no more surprises.”

Lixion Avila (1950) American meteorologist

On Hurricane Kyle in 2002 http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2002/dis/al122002.discus.089.html

Hope

“I have been surprised, excited and pleasantly shocked by these comics that are extensions of the songs that I have loved and therefore welcome these amazing stories of pictures and words because they are uncompromisingly inspiring. It shows you thought is a powerful, formidable essence and can have a breathtaking domino effect.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

On Comic Book Tattoo, http://www.toriamos.com/main_comic.asp

Love

“Believe me, I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close-Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience. Because the film made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.”

Abbas Kiarostami (1940–2016) Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/apr/28/hayfilmfestival2005.guardianhayfestival

Feeling

“Let's get this straight: he didn't really cry but his chin would begin to wobble all over the place and tears would fill his eyes and he'd have to hold himself rigid to make it all stop. But he couldn't always make it stop. Then the fight with Bobo Kelton happened and changed everything. That was when he vowed not to cry anymore. Not during the fight but afterward. And it wasn't even a fight but one sweet and beautiful blow that sent Bobo to the floor. The surprise and shock on Bobo's fight had been terrific to see.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 23

Beauty, Tear, Change, Fight

“Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Discipline and Punish (1977) as translated by Alan Sheridan, p. 228
Discipline and Punish (1977)

School

“As a right-winger and UKIP member, I believe in immigration. That sentence might sound slightly surprising coming from the General Secretary of a Party which is perceived by the media as anti-immigration. So let me explain. I reject uncontrolled immigration. I reject immigration beyond the ability of our country’s infrastructure to cope. Recently, I’ve been listening to the Bruce Springsteen song ‘American Land’. It starts off well enough, talking about people relocating to America as it grew and helping to build the country. That’s the kind of immigration that I believe in. Those who believe that they can have a better life (in this case in the UK), who come over and are determined to see themselves as part of British culture and will put their heart and soul into improving this country for all of us. I’m talking about the kind of person who is proud to come to the United Kingdom and shows that pride at every opportunity. Such people are a real asset to the country. That’s why I’m so angry at the ‘left-wing’ in British politics, which has consistently pursued an effective open-door immigration policy. Uncontrolled mass immigration doesn’t provide any of those benefits, but instead creates huge cultural problems for us. Worse still, it creates resentment. In Sheffield, I see workers losing their jobs to immigrant workers. All that does is create resentment and fuels the kind of racism that we’ve painstakingly worked to get rid of from our nation.”

Jonathan Arnott (1981) British politician

I believe….in immigration? http://www.jonathanarnott.co.uk/2013/06/i-believe-in-immigration/ (June 23, 2013)

Life, People, Soul, Problem

“Since it seems to be the nature of man that he wants to go to hell as quickly as possible, it is not surprising that effective base rhetoricians can greatly accelerate this process for millions. … Many individuals try to drive men into slavery, as if they were cattle, but only a few succeed. These we hail as “great historical figures.” I submit that we cannot judge the noble rhetorician by this standard. Since he urges men to be better than they are, the noble rhetorician cannot possibly succeed in changing those who prefer to remain as they are or become evil. Indeed, because his task is to bring men to themselves, not to him, the noble rhetorician ought not to be judged by his manifest effect on others at all. Rather, he ought to be judged by the clarity and steadfastness with which he proclaims his counsel. Should not a single person heed his advice, the noble rhetorician would still have to be judged successful in proportion as he succeeds in perfecting his own language. … In the final analysis, what Karl Kraus sought was to purify himself by purifying his own language. He achieved his goal. He dies a semantic saint in a semantically satanic society.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: Anti-Freud (1990), pp. 56-57.

Men, Hell, Nature, Evil

“Brother Leon arrived late for the performance. His late entrance was not a surprise. Everybody knew that Leon hated the student skits and sketches. Too often there had been hilarious takeoffs on the faculty and, a few years ago, a devastating burlesque of Brother Leon by a student named Henry Boudreau. Boudreau had minced across the stage, speaking in a prissy voice, wielding an oversized baseball bat the way Leon used his teacher's pointer, as a weapon. The performance had become a legend at Trinity. But funny thing about Boudreau: He had flunked out at the end of the year.”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 246-247

Hate, Way, Teachers

“As a graduate student at Yale, I studied the whole of Christian theology but focused my attention on the Darwinian controversies. I wanted to get to the root of the conflict between Darwinian evolution and Christian doctrine. In the course of my research I learned (to my surprise) that biblical chronology played almost no role in the 19th- century controversies, since most theologians had already accepted geological evidence for the age of the earth and re-interpreted the days in Genesis as long periods of time. Instead, the central issue was design. God created the cosmos with a plan in mind. This affirmation is among the most basic in all of Christianity (and other theistic religions as well, including Unificationism). And that plan included human beings as the final outcome of the creative process: we are created in the image of God.”

Jonathan Wells (1942) American intelligent design advocate

Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Wells/DARWIN.htm

God, Age, Religion, Study

“What scientists are attached to is journeys into the unknown and discovering things that are completely unexpected and baffling and surprising.”

Brian Cox (physicist) (1968) English physicist and former musician

BBC Radio4 "Big Bang Week" Interview, Sept 2008

“It is not my aim to surprise or shock you – but the simplest way I can summarize is to say that there are now in the world machines that think, that learn and that create. Moreover, their ability to do these things is going to increase rapidly until – in a visible future – the range of problems they can handle will be coextensive with the range to which the human mind has been applied.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Newell & Simon (1958), quoted in AI, by Daniel Crevier
1940s-1950s

World, Way, Problem, Thinking

“A certain ounce of arrogance is not essential in carrying forward an idea. In talking about the device with others, surprising now number of people who either were quite negative and had reasons to suggest it would not function as described or claimed that it would be of little interest and no better than some already existing device.”

Willard Boyle (1924–2011) Canadian physicist and inventor

Willard S. Boyle and George Elwood Smith describing The Inception of Charge-Coupled Devices, edited by [Frederick Su, Technology of our times: people and innovation in optics and optoelectronics, SPIE Press, 1990, 0819404721, 91]

People, Idea

“I find it quite difficult to watch the film once it is done, because in your head or imagination it is totally different. In the beginning it is quite hard, and I don't mean hard as in a negative or a positive. It is difficult to see the film being edited and see the real images for the first time coming out of your head and onto the screen. Sometimes you are surprised that he left something in and he took something out. The director is the creator; he's the captain of the ship when it comes to the creative journey of the film, along of course with the producer. So when you start out acting you have to find a way to understand and to deal with that. But as I say I don't mean it as a negative or a positive.”

Marwan Kenzari (1983) Dutch Tunesian actor

Fight Cub: Marwan Kenzari and Nasrdin Dchar Talk Wolf http://thequietus.com/articles/16646-wolf-kenzari-dchar-interview (November 8th, 2014)

Way, Imagination, Understanding, Time

“I was so surprised at being born that I didn't speak for a year and a half.”

Gracie Allen (1902–1964) American actress and comedienne

As quoted in Gracie : A Love Story (1988) by George Burns, p. 17

“Don't be surprised if I behave like a savage. I am a savage.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.usfca.edu/~southerr/boxing/fury.html
On himself

“If we teach our kids in public schools that they are merely animals, then they will act like animals. We should not be surprised. If we teach kids in school that they are a creation of God, that God is their creator, and will some day be their judge, we can expect their behavior to be different because of their basic philosophy.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

God, School, Behavior, Animals

“… I had some suggestions [about fencing]. I thought that you could encourage surprise attacks. I thought that would be very good. I kind of liked the idea of arming one guy with a conventional sword but giving the other a pikestaff. My favourite was the idea of blindfolding one of the competitors or blindfolding them both and spinning them around a bit so they were a little bit unstable and then just pushing them towards each other. It would make each match go on a bit longer.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Interview with Stanford's Newsletter (June 2001)

Guy, Idea

“By definition a bore is predictable. if you think you know in advance what a man is apt to say or do, you are not apt to be disagreeably surprised by him.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 5

Thinking

“Now of course, the idealistic slogans are still needed for the media, for a lot of scholarship, for the schools, and so on. But, where the serious people are, the problem is that we have to maintain this disparity, and obviously it's gotta be maintained by force. So none of the idealistic slogans at home. So when you're setting up death squads in El Salvador under the Alliance for Progress, you're not hampered by these idealistic slogans. That's for the masses, for us. Well, given this kind of thinking, it's not too surprising that President Kennedy should say, with regard to El Salvador after supporting a military coup there, that "Governments of the civil-military type of El Salvador are the most effective in containing communist penetration in Latin America." This at the time when he organized the basic framework for the death squads that have been torturing and murdering ever since, and which we attribute to some kind of extreme right-wingers who somehow we can't get under control.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Reflecting on George Kennan's Memo PPS23.
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s, Talk at University of California, Berkeley, 1984

Death, People, School, Home

“I'd be surprised if Ronald Reagan doesn't run again. To us it's a second term. To him it's a double feature.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Lou Cannon (January 17, 1983) "Is the Presidency Really So Fragile That Leaks Can Destroy It?", The Washington Post, p. A3.

“John Cage said that music is the moral evaluation of sound. We might generalize his remark: when we speak of art, we make a moral evaluation of the relative worth of the various contributions to a work. It is no surprise that many of the participants differ with more conventional evaluations and rank their own contributions as more important than that of the artist as conventionally defined.”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Art Worlds (1982)

Art, Music

“We are entitled to be disappointed, but not to be surprised, by the persistence of governmental intervention in economic life. A school of thought attributes great influence to public opinion in the movements toward or away from laissez-faire. Among the many members of this school one may mention Albert Venn Dicey, John Maynard Keynes, and Milton Friedman.”

George Stigler (1911–1991) American economist

"The Effect of Government on Economic Efficiency." 1988

Life, School, Disappointment

“The amazing number of species; their curious forms, so infinitely varied, and yet so nearly and gradually approximating through an endless series of transitions from one species to another; the diversity of structure observable in those parts which afford generic characters, added to the wonderful changes in form which they undergo, with their surprising economy - are circumstances which contribute to render them objects of most curious speculation to the philosopher. And although the study of every class of animals is most indisputably attended with peculiar advantages, yet we shall venture to affirm, that is from a knowledge of the characters, metamorphoses, and various modes of life, this little animals are destined to pursue, that [the natural philosopher] will obtain a more intimate acquaintance with the great laws of nature, and veneration for the Great Creator of all, that can be derived from the contemplation of any other class in nature.”

William Elford Leach (1790–1836) English zoologist and marine biologist

As quoted in Entomology https://archive.org/stream/CUbiodiversity1121039#page/646/mode/2up/search/creator (1816), Volume 8 of the first American edition of Sir David Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, p. 646.

Life, Law, Nature, Knowledge

“Some of us may offer a surprise
Recently have you looked in our eyes
Maybe we're your conscience in disguise”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

Children of the 80's (1980)

“Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise.”
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum. grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur hora.

Horace book Epistles

Book I, epistle iv, line 13–14
Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)

Thinking

“There is always a nasty surprise in store for the imperial mind. It is typical of the imperial point of view that it is ignorant of, or blind to, the other. The imperial mind keeps missing the point. It fails to appreciate, for all its benevolence, why it might come under attack, why it might, for instance, be worth a nation's while to rise up against it. The imperial mind has to be shocked out of its daydreams.”

James Fenton (1949) poet

"Goodbye to All That?" (p. 72)
The Strength of Poetry: Oxford Lectures (2001)

“Anyone who has read my book BJP vis-à-vis Hindu Resurgence (1997) will be surprised to see me described as an “advocate of the Sangh Parivar”. I suppose that in a world of partisan scholarship, where the party-line is scrupulously followed by activists and camp-followers alike, any attempt to remain objective must come across as counter-partisan, meaning partisan activism for the opposite side…. Hindutva is a fairly crude ideology, borrowing heavily from European nationalisms with their emphasis on homogeneity. Under the conditions of British colonialism, it was inevitable that some such form of Hindu nationalism would arise, but I believe better alternatives have seen the light, more attuned to the genius of Hindu civilization.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, The Problem with Secularism (2007)

Books, World, Light, Reading

“The homosexual culture as we have said is at war with God, and there are no negotiations possible in this world. That modernists and atheists would be in the enemy camp should not surprise us. But we know how far gone it is when periodical like Christianity Today carry articles stating that ‘the individual homosexual would appear to be more sinned against than sinning. because his condition is either genetic or environmental in nature, and therefore not his fault.’ Thus we should not be surprised at what is happening today.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Homosexuality (n. d.)

God, War, World, Nature

“What I look for in a friend is someone who's different from me. The more different the person is, the more I'll learn from him. The more he'll come up with surprising takes on ideas and things and situations.”

Samuel R. Delany book The Mad Man

Source: The Mad Man (1994), p. 239

Idea, Learning, Personality

“I did, and still do, think that New Classical Economics has quite a bit in common with the Austrians (so did Robert Lucas, and I am surprised to find that I did not refer to this in the early 1980s, so I was either careless or did not know about it until a bit later).”

David Laidler (1938) Canadian economist

"The 1974 Hayek–Myrdal Nobel Prize", in Hayek: A Collaborative Biography: Part 1 Influences from Mises to Bartley edited by Robert Leeson (2013)

Thinking

“It is no surprise that attempts such as those of CODASYL and ANSI to develop data structure language (DDL) and data manipulation language (DML) in separate communities have yielded many misunderstandings and incompatibilities.”

E. F. Codd (1923–2003) computer scientist

Relational Database: A Practical Foundation for Productivity (1982)

Communication

“In another place in Kashmeer was a temple built by Raja Bulnat, the destruction of which was attended with a remarkable incident. After it had been levelled, and the people were employed in digging the foundation, a copper-plate was discovered, on which was the following inscription : —
“ Raja Bulnat, having built this temple, was
“ desirous of ascertaining from his astrologers
“ how long it would last, and was informed by
“ them, that after eleven hundred years, a king
“ named Sikundur would destroy it, as well as the
“ other temples in Kaslimeer.”
The King was surprised, though vexed, that the Hindoo prophet should have predicted the truth, and declared, if they had placed the plate against the wall, he would have preserved the temple to belie the prophet. Having broken all the images in Kashmeer, he acquired the title of the Iconoclast, “Destroyer of Idols.””

Sikandar Butshikan

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. III p.268-69

People, Truth

“Don't be surprised if I demur, for, be advised
My passport's green.
No glass of ours was ever raised
To toast The Queen.”

Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer

An Open Letter (1983), p. 9.
Objecting to his inclusion in The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry.
Other Quotes

“Someday we’ll realize, perhaps much to our surprise, the keys to free a smile have been with us all the while: look for good, and spread that good around.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"Piles of Smiles"
A Picnic of Poems in Allah's Green Garden (2011)

Smile

“He is a cool cat. I was surprised when he had a heart problem…People think my film with Mani, ‘Nayakan’, is my best work. To an extent it's true. But I'd like to think my best is yet to come.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

About Mani Ratnam, his son-in-law
Aamir's choice of films makes Kamal Haasan happy

People, Cats, Problem, Thinking

“Roecker seems to have been as inspired by Todd Haynes's legendary underground film "Superstar" -- in which he told Karen Carpenter's life story with surprising tenderness using Barbie dolls and a bootlegged soundtrack -- as by the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen and the "Frosty the Snowman" cartoon.”

John Roecker (1966) American film director

Ann Hornaday — quoted in The Washington Post, The Washington Post Company, One Forgettable 'Freak' Show, January 27, 2006, Ann, Hornaday http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012600739.html, About

Life, Animals

“From a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia
Rode a boy with a six-gun in his hand
And his daring life of crime made him a legend in his time
East and west of the Rio Grande.
Well, he started with a bank in Colorado
In the pocket of his vest a Colt he hid.
And his age and his size took the teller by surprise,
And the word spread of Billy the Kid.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

The Ballad of Billy the Kid.
Song lyrics, Piano Man (1973)

Life, Age, Boy, Time

“It might come as a surprise to many, but the truth is that Islam today no longer has a living and evolving theology. In fact, with few exceptions, Islam’s last genuine theologians belong to the early part of the 19th century. Go to any mosque anywhere, whether it is in New York or Mecca, and you are more likely to hear a political sermon rather than a theological reflection. In the highly politicized version of Islam promoted by Da’esh, al Qaeda, the Khomeinists in Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Boko Haram in Nigeria, God plays a cameo role at best. Deprived of its theological moorings, today’s Islam is a wayward vessel under the captaincy of ambitious adventurers leading it into sectarian feuds, wars and terrorism. Many, especially Muslims in Europe and North America, use it as a shibboleth defining identity and even ethnicity. A glance at Islam’s history in the past 200 years highlights the rapid fading of theologians. Today, Western scholars speak of Wahhabism as if that meant a theological school. In truth, Muhammad Abdul-Wahhabi was a political figure. His supposedly theological writings consist of nine pages denouncing worship at shrines of saints. Nineteenth-century “reformers” such as Jamaleddin Assadabadi and Rashid Rada were also more interested in politics than theology. The late Ayatollah Khomeini, sometimes regarded as a theologian, was in fact a politician wearing clerical costume. His grandson has collected more than 100,000 pages of his writings and speeches and poetry. Of these, only 11 pages, commenting on the first and shortest verse of the Koran, could be regarded as dabbling in theology, albeit not with great success.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"The mad dream of a dead empire that unites Islamic rebels" http://nypost.com/2014/06/14/the-mad-dream-of-a-dead-empire-that-unites-islamic-rebels/, New York Post (June 14, 2014). New York Post

God, War, Truth, School