Improba Quotes & Sayings

She said no one had more than one perspective, not even in his so-called hard sciences. We're always, in everything we do in this world, she said, limited by subjectivity. But our perspective can have an enormous wingspan, if we give it the freedom to unfurl. Look at Malinowski, she said. Look at Boas. They defined their cultures as they saw them, as they understood the natives' point of view. The key is, she said, to disengage yourself from all your ideas about what is "natural." 'Even if I manage that, the next person who comes here will tell a different story about the Kiona.' 'No doubt.' 'Then what is the point?' I said. 'This is no different from the laboratory. What's the point of anyone's search for answers? The truth you find will always be replaced by someone else's. Someday even Darwin will look like a quaint Ptolemy who saw what he could see but no more. — Lily King

Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the absolute. — Flannery O'Connor

I don't know what I'm proudest of. The fact that my kids still talk to me. — Alan Arkin

There is so much about the process of writing that is mysterious to me, but this one thing I've found to be true: writing begets writing. — Dorianne Laux

Some people have a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same time. Not me I cant ever get the gum out of the wrapper! — Bill Myers

Vitanda est improba siren desidia. (One must avoid that wicked temptress, Laziness.) — Horace

More than all those people who starved by famine, it was the thought of my mother not remembering what she looked like as a little girl that saddened me. — Viet Thanh Nguyen

Here is how you know someone has had a good idea: Other people freely admit to their friends that said idea has changed their lives. Most people today will grant that fire and the wheel are the big two. After that, any attempts to rank the greatest ideas of all time are going to draw lots of argument. You'll have zealots pimping this god or that on the one hand, scientists pimping Darwin on the other, and then practical people pointing at written language and saying, look, fellas, the reason those ideas have gone viral is because someone figured out how to write them down. — Kevin Hearne

Donkeys ... I've decided that donkeys are universally cute. Really cute. So cute that donkeys defy any arguments of preferences being relative. When you pet their noses, they blink their eyes and bashfully look away as if embarrassed. And when donkeys hee-haw, they have their mouths and lips curled up as if they are smiling. Boyfriend and girlfriend donkeys rest their heads on each other's rumpt and fan each other's faces with their tails. And kid donkeys, the size of an average dog, trot around with big smiles on their faces and floppy, dangly, long donkey ears. Too cute. — Johnny Rico

We are part of the world creation, and we ourselves create nothing. Our knowledge allows us to make use of all the forces already in existence, our art to interpret emotions already felt. One big war, an epidemic, and we collapse into ignorance and darkness, fit sons of chimpanzees. — Arshile Gorky

At the Council of Nicea in 325, all the Churches agreed that Easter, the Christian Passover, should be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon (14 Nisan) after the vernal equinox. Because of different methods of calculating the 14th day of the month of Nisan, the date of Easter in the Western and Eastern Churches is not always the same. For this reason, the Churches are currently seeking an agreement in order once again to celebrate the day of the Lord's Resurrection on a common date." The earliest date that Easter can fall on is March 22. That hasn't happened since 1818, and won't happen again until 2285. The latest possible date for Easter is April 25. — Gus Lloyd

You know what's a great way of tricking people into thinking you're a genius? Write a show about geniuses! — Lin-Manuel Miranda

Being isolated and alone and hurt day after day changes a person, Aden. It turns a child into . . . into a thing that isn't quite human and not quite animal. Like any trapped creature, that child will gnaw off its own limb to escape - but if that child is a Gradient 9.8 combat-grade telepath named Zaira Neve, it'll first ask if it can gnaw off its attackers' limbs instead. — Nalini Singh

I would that you were either less beautiful, or less corrupt. Such perfect beauty does not suit such imperfect morals.
[Lat., Aut formosa fores minus, aut minus improba vellem.
Non facit ad mores tam bona forma malos.] — Ovid

Me only have one ambition, y'know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together - black, white, Chinese, everyone - that's all. — Bob Marley