John Polkinghorne Quotes

Chance doesn't mean meaningless randomness, but historical contingency. This happens rather than that, and that's the way that novelty, new things, come about.

John Polkinghorne

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Quotes to Explore

• All dictators, the rich and famous, to the lowest security guard who holds a gun, easily forget that power is transitory.

  

  F. Sionil Jose
  • Power
  • Famous
  • Gun

• He rejects the New World Order established at the Cold War's end by the United States. Putin puts Russia first.

  

  Pat Buchanan
  • World
  • War
  • End

• I had actually gone to a church-related college, but I went on a football scholarship, not because of any interest in the church.

  

  R. C. Sproul
  • College
  • Church
  • Football

• There are something like 300 anti-genocide chapters on college campuses around the country. It's bigger than the anti-apartheid movement. There are something like 500 high school chapters devoted to stopping the genocide in Darfur. Evangelicals have joined it. Jewish groups have joined it.

  

  Samantha Power
  • Country
  • School
  • High

• I veer away from trying to understand why I act. I just know I need to do it.

  

  Ralph Fiennes
  • Trying
  • Why
  • Know

• The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

  

  Edsger Dijkstra
  • Interesting
  • Question
  • Computers

• I've been loving music all my life.

  

  Randy Savage
  • Life
  • Music
  • My Life

• Societies should be judged by how they treat the weakest among them.

  

  Maajid Nawaz
  • Treat
  • Judged
  • Weakest

• And so, I will be probably, since I am not involved in all the activity, I will have some spare time to devote to document all this busy part of the flight.

  

  Umberto Guidoni
  • Time
  • Involved
  • Activity

• The thing that always attracted me to New York was the sense of being in a place where a lot of people had a lot of stories not unlike mine. Everybody comes from somewhere else. Everyone's got a Polish grandmother, some kind of metamorphosis in their family circumstances. That's a very big thing - the experience of not living where you started.

  

  Salman Rushdie
  • People
  • Family
  • Experience

• If Paris is a city of lights, Sydney is the city of fireworks.

  

  Baz Luhrmann
  • City
  • Paris
  • Fireworks

• I can say with absolute certainty that I will run for one of two offices: my state Senate seat or for the governor. I'm still trying to decide, but I do think people are ready for a change from the partisan, very fractured leadership we have in Texas.

  

  Wendy Davis
  • People
  • Trying
  • Change

• To defend our country we need to gather intelligence on the enemy, but when the intelligence lies to Congress, how are we to trust them? The phone records of law abiding citizens are none of their damn business.

  

  Rand Paul
  • Country
  • Business
  • Law

• The biggest obstacle to wealth is fear. People are afraid to think big, but if you think small, you'll only achieve small things.

  

  T. Harv Eker
  • People
  • Fear
  • Small

• When you're doing a film that has so many effects, you do a lot of it on green screen, and you can't see what that world is.

  

  Eddie Redmayne
  • World
  • Doing
  • Green

• All, all for immortality,Love like the light silently wrapping all.

  

  Walt Whitman
  • Light

• You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.

  

  Barack Obama
  • History
  • Moments

• There's no simple formula here. But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time.

  

  Barack Obama
  • Time
  • Simple
  • Balance

• I don't even want to have things associated with my name on the internet - it's very dangerous.

  

  Karl Lagerfeld
  • Want
  • Internet
  • Dangerous

• There is as much greatness of mind in the owning of a good turn as in the doing of it; and we must no more force a requital out of season than be wanting in it.

  

  Seneca the Younger
  • Mind
  • Force
  • Greatness

• I'm an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals.

  

  Steve Jobs
  • Humans
  • Noble
  • Optimist

• The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South,’ he said. ‘Where legal remedies are not at hand, redress is sought in the streets in demonstrations, parades and protests, which create tensions and threaten violence—and threaten lives.

  

  C. Vann Woodward
  • Frustration
  • South
  • Remedies

• My approach to the job can be summed up pretty simply - I never viewed politics as my career. Important, yes, worthy of intense commitment, of course - but it was not my whole life. … I saw politics as a way to make a contribution and satisfy my penchant for public policy, but not as something I couldn't live without.

  

  Angus King
  • Life
  • Up
  • Important

• Chance doesn't mean meaningless randomness, but historical contingency. This happens rather than that, and that's the way that novelty, new things, come about.

  

  John Polkinghorne