Lewis Thomas Quotes

Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.

Lewis Thomas

• Small
• Luck

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Quotes to Explore

• I was so proud when I was commissioned into the Army.

  

  Tammy Duckworth
  • Proud
  • Army
  • Commissioned

• Appearance is something absolute, but reality is not that way - everything is interdependent, not absolute. So that view is very helpful to maintain a peace of mind because the main destroyer of a peaceful mind is anger.

  

  Dalai Lama
  • Mind
  • Reality
  • Peace

• I wasn't thinking of a sequel when I finished 'Life Class.' What changed my mind was the perception that the characters had a lot of life left in them, a lot of unresolved conflicts, and also I became interested in the Tonks pastel portraits of facially disfigured soldiers and in the whole area of facial reconstruction.

  

  Pat Barker
  • Life
  • Thinking
  • Mind

• There comes a time when money doesn't matter.

  

  Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
  • Time
  • Money
  • Matter

• Every so often when I'm writing, a character might actually be a distinct person in my head - often not an actor or a face, literally a person who just seems to exist in my imagination. Then the challenge is finding somebody who is close enough to that to make me feel like I've ended up where I wanted to be.

  

  Callie Khouri
  • Up
  • Writing
  • Character

• It used to hurt me that people thought I didn't have the technique and the temperament to play Test cricket.

  

  Gautam Gambhir
  • People
  • Hurt
  • Thought

• The soul is part of the body. The mind is part of the body. When folks do physical violence to black people, to black bodies in this country, the soul as we construe it is damaged, too - the mind is damaged, too.

  

  Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • People
  • Country
  • Mind

• The film 'Tapped' illustrates quite clearly how we've been getting 'soaked' for years by the bottled water industry.

  

  Ed Begley, Jr.
  • Water
  • Film
  • Years

• Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career.

  

  Orison Swett Marden
  • Career
  • You
  • Analyzing

• You're either with me or you're not. And if you're not, you're out.

  

  Eddie Perez
  • You
  • Me
  • Either

• I didn't want to spend the next thirty years writing about bad things happening in the same small town - not least of all because people would begin to wonder why anyone still lives there!

  

  Karin Slaughter
  • People
  • Writing
  • Why

• And I had a lot to play, which is what you want as an actor.

  

  Ted Shackelford
  • Want
  • You
  • Play

• I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it.

  

  Samuel Goldwyn
  • Morning
  • Like
  • Idea

• A journalist covering politics, most of us are aware of the necessity to try to be sure we're unbiased in our reporting. That's one of the fundamentals of good journalism.

  

  Walter Cronkite
  • Good
  • Politics
  • Journalism

• To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

  

  Samuel Butler
  • True
  • Happy
  • Pain

• I was a boy with one dream and one dream only: I wanted - no, strike that, I was desperate for - a room of my own. You see, in those days I shared a room with my little brother, Jesse, and it wasn't pretty. He was the Oscar to my Felix: messy, careless, and just a little bit sticky - exactly the way a kindergartner is supposed to be.

  

  Nate Berkus
  • Pretty
  • Dream
  • Boy

• I've never been against women. That anti-feminist rap is bogus. I think men should be nice to women, buy them diamonds.

  

  Sam Kinison
  • Men
  • Women
  • Nice

• I wanted to make it a really strong point to not watch 'Battlestar Galactica' before starting 'Caprica' because I was afraid it was going to give me a lot of pressure and preconceived notions of what it was going to be like.

  

  Magda Apanowicz
  • Strong
  • Afraid
  • Pressure

• Teenagers have more intense reading experiences because they've had fewer of them. It's like the first time you fall in love. You have a connection to that first person you fell in love with because it was so intense and unprecedented.

  

  John Green
  • Time
  • Reading
  • Fall

• Baltimore was like a small town when I got there - the Colts, the Orioles, guys like Frank Robinson, we all knew and respected each other. Everyone would cross paths at one point at Lenny Moore's Sportsman's Lounge, trading stories and having some fun.

  

  Earl Monroe
  • Fun
  • Small
  • Paths

• Give your employees a shot at showing the company a new way, and provide the room for them to chalk up a few small victories. Once they've proved that their idea can work on a limited basis, they can begin to scale it up.

  

  Jason Fried
  • Up
  • Work
  • Small

• My mother was very involved with Cesar Chavez's work on behalf of the migrant farm workers in California.

  

  Caitlin Flanagan
  • Work
  • Mother
  • California

• With Akismet, there was an interesting dilemma. Is it for the good of the world Akismet being secret and being more effective against spammers, versus it being open and less effective?

  

  Matt Mullenweg
  • World
  • Good
  • Interesting

• Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.

  

  Lewis Thomas
  • Small
  • Luck