Opportunistic Quotes & Sayings

Opportunistic relationships can hardly be kept constant. The acquaintance of honorable people, even at a distance, does not add flowers in times of warmth and does not change its leaves in times of cold: it continues unfading through the four seasons, becomes increasingly stable as it passes through ease and danger. — Sun Tzu

The significance of feminist movement (when it is not co-opted by opportunistic, reactionary forces) is that it offers a new ideological meeting ground for the sexes, a space for criticism, struggle, and transformation. — Bell Hooks

Glass shattered, vampires roared, humans screamed. The noise battered at me, just as the tidal wave of scores of brains at high gear washed over me. When it began to taper off, I looked up into Eric's eyes. Incredibly, he was excited. He smiled at me. "I knew I'd get on top of you somehow," he said.
Are you trying to make me mad so I'll forget how scared I am?"
No, I'm just opportunistic."
I wiggled, trying to get out from under him, and he said, "Oh, do that again. It felt great. — Charlaine Harris

When you combine a media - bent on exploiting tabloid-type stories to boost ratings and circulation by innuendo and titillation - with unhappy or opportunistic individuals who have nothing going for them in their own lives, you get a bitter brew. — Frederick Lenz

You're an opportunistic little slut, that's what you are."
"That's not fair. I had no idea she'd give me your job."
"Oh, you just fucked her husband for the fun of it?"
"Have you seen his ass? — Marshall Thornton

There are always people who are going to be opportunistic when they see situations unfolding the way that they are in New Orleans. — Jeffrey Robinson

The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment-or at least much handicap-to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need. — Michael Parenti

I don't want to send my money to a bunch of Hugo Chavez-loving, Ivy League ideologically educated, politically opportunistic careerist in Washington, D.C. — Sean Hannity

winning or losing an agonist encounter has a dramatic impact on future aggressive behavior. Winners are more likely to initiate attacks against unknown opponents, whereas losers are more circumspect and likely to retreat from unfamiliar conspecifics, adopting an opportunistic strategy, picking and choosing their fights. In the worst case scenario, animals socially subjugated by constant threat and attack from dominant conspecifics develop a submissive phenotype, showing little or no aggressive behavior, essentially eliminating themselves from the gene pool. — Randy J. Nelson

This thing wants to spread, Henry. It wants to get bad enough - " " - to attract a Prince," I finished grimly. "Some opportunistic son of a bitch out to nail a Princess for the sake of a payoff. I hate Princes. The goddamn things are worse than rats. — Seanan McGuire

I don't feel opportunistic ever, in anything. — Ehud Barak

Your memory has always been given to opportunistic revision. — Dave Eggers

You gonna tuck me in?"
She stifled the grin. Opportunistic, determined idiot. "You gonna behave?"
"Define 'behave. — Elizabeth Hunter

We use the metaphor of waves that rise and fall in societies, perhaps forgetting that the actual waves of the ocean are purely opportunistic, small irregularities in water that, snagging a fortunate gust, rise and break like monsters, for no greater cause than their own accidental invention. — Adam Gopnik

His soul was susceptible to god's whimsy, just as his body was susceptible to any opportunistic thing that might hurt it. If he'd known how to pray, Six would have asked God to take his gift away. — Ayana Mathis

The media, I think, wants Kerry to win ... And I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards ... I'm talking about the establishment media, not Fox - but they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and opportunistic and all. There's going to be this glow about them - that's going to be worth maybe 15 points. — Evan Thomas

It's a game of making great pitches at the right time, being opportunistic by getting a run at the right time and playing good defense. — Mike Candrea

Status competition and the opportunistic making and breaking of alliances that marks political strife. For this, we have to go to the males, also in the elephant. For — Frans De Waal

What is now called 'green architecture' is an opportunistic caricature of a much deeper consideration of the issues related to sustainability that architecture has been engaged with for many years. It was one of the first professions that was deeply concerned with these issues and that had an intellectual response to them. — Rem Koolhaas

You're being opportunistic."
"I won't deny it. Why don't you seize the opportunity, as well? I want to kiss you. And you need kissing, desperately. — Tessa Dare

Connections between people were temporary. Selfish. Opportunistic. Designed to perpetuate the species. "Love"
romantic love, anyway
was a fantasy people indulged in because otherwise, life was just too boring to tolerate. — Wendy Wunder

There are a lot of dark sides to success, but the light side of it is the ability to be opportunistic, and to be able to do things. — Anita Roddick

In all the focus on political instability in the region, less examined is that many countries have adopted restrictive internet access and privacy laws. This includes business-friendly Dubai and lean-forward tech center Jordan. Often described as necessary steps in areas like press-and-publications law in order to protect libel concerns, these restrictions are usually vaguely worded and subject to wide and opportunistic interpretation. On the ground, entrepreneurs and investors alike view these as moves that risk chilling business development in their promising ecosystems. Jordan's — Christopher M. Schroeder

In their recently aborted struggle to inject Genesis literalism into science classrooms, fundamentalist groups followed their usual opportunistic strategy of arguing two contradictory sides of a question when a supposed rhetorical advantage could be extracted from each ... — Stephen Jay Gould

Your message is stupid. Iraq is not afraid of you or anyone else when it has a right to claim. What you warned about is not on Iraq's agenda. Iraq is vital and powerful. It is not an opportunistic country. Your administration has not learned from the past. — Mohammed Aldouri

In some settings, however, rampant opportunistic behavior severely limits what can be done jointly without major investments in monitoring and sanctioning arrangements. — Elinor Ostrom

More grounded, more humble, more selfless makes us more opportunistic. — Mike Tomlin

Virtually every politician portrayed in film or on television over the last decade has been venal, corrupt, opportunistic, cynical, if not worse. Whether these dramatized images are accurate or exagerated matters little. The corporatist system wins either way: directly through corruption and indirectly through the damage done to the citizen's respect for the representative system.
(III - From Corporatism to Democracy) — John Ralston Saul

I believe we need a more opportunistic and democratic approach to lunar exploration, now that we're shifting from U.S. government-sponsored space exploration to private expeditions. — Naveen Jain

I started out as an opportunistic renegade. By now, I've lasted long enough to become sort of an American Original Respectable Renegade. — Wolfman Jack

Life is a system of half-truths and lies, Opportunistic, convenient evasion. — Langston Hughes

Cats, as any rational person knows, are solitary, opportunistic, ambush predators, much like spiders, but with fewer legs and a better fan club. — Jonathan L. Howard

Admit it, Ella. It's not so bad being a carnivore."
I reached for a chunk of bread and dabbed it in soft yellow butter. "I'm not a carnivore, I'm an opportunistic omnivore. — Lisa Kleypas

You just have to be opportunistic, and try to figure out what creates value.. where the bottom is, what creates incremental value, and in what combinations. — John C. Malone

Realize that ultimate success comes from opportunistic,bold moves which by definition, cannot be planned. — F. Ross Johnson

Too often, complaint is not about principled objection on moral grounds, but opportunistic objection on grounds of self-interest. To rectify this, we need to work on mastering the art of complaint. — Julian Baggini

It was of course Jefferson's gift at one time or another to put with eloquence the "right" answer to every moral question. In practice, however, he seldom deviated from an opportunistic course, calculated to bring him power. — Gore Vidal

Whether we accept it or not, this will likely be the century that determines what the optimal human population is for our planet. It will come about in one of two ways:
Either we decide to manage our own numbers, to avoid a collision of every line on civilization's graph - or nature will do it for us, in the form of famines, thirst, climate chaos, crashing ecosystems, opportunistic disease, and wars over dwindling resources that finally cut us down to size. — Alan Weisman

I think many of the companies that have tried to create social worlds have failed because they approached it strictly from an opportunistic perspective. — Craig Sherman

I sail through life with great trust in my heart. Whoever stains and breaks that trust will be in a cold water best left behind.
I felt the cold breeze of monetary means through the low ethics of money driven minds.
I securely docked in a shore I call home without the cloaks of dead winter I saw on people who have used me. — Angelica Hopes

The Republican abuse of the term feminism in the past decade or so is an astonishing lesson in the politically opportunistic use of language. — Nina Power

There are no heroes, Tian Haoli. Grand Secretary Shi was both courageous and cowardly, capable and foolish. Wang Xiuchu was both an opportunistic survivor and a man of greatness of spirit. I'm mostly selfish and vain, but sometimes even I surprise myself. We're all just ordinary men - well, I'm an ordinary demon - faced with extraordinary choices. In those moments, sometimes heroic ideals demand that we become their avatars. — Ken Liu

Keep moving. Create routines (but sometimes break them). Be opportunistic. Be a mensch. Believe in something. Lighten up. Cultivate a sense of progress. Don't do it if you don't love it. Begin now. — Bruce Grierson

At Travelers, we were much more opportunistic. It was very successful, but it wasn't an integrated financial services company. We had a property casualty company, a life company, a brokerage company. We were a financial conglomerate. It wasn't a unified, coordinated strategy of any sort. When it merged with Citi, that became a big issue; Citi, at that time, wasn't yet a fully integrated, coordinated company. — Jamie Dimon

Loyalty is dead, the experts proclaim, and the statistics seem to bear them out. On average, U.S. corporations now lose half their customers in five years, half their employees in four, and half their investors in less than one. We seem to face a future in which the only business relationships will be opportunistic transactions between virtual strangers. — Fred Reichheld

Caring is open-hearted, keeping us available to transmit love to a stranger through simple eye contact and without condition. This is not the opportunistic sizing-up of sexual cruising; instead, it's the felt recognition of the divinity and humanity in another individual. — Alexandra Katehakis

Viruses have no morality, no sense of good and evil, the deserving or the undeserving ... AIDS is not the swift sword with which the Lord punishes the evil practitioners of male homosexuality and intravenous drug use. It is simply an opportunistic virus that does what it has to do to stay alive. — Chris Crutcher

Something just ain't right about thanking the Lord for sending you an opportunistic pretty boy who carried a string of condoms and single use packets of lube in his pocket. Still, I did it. — James Buchanan

I see myself as, first and above all, a teacher of history; next, a writer of European history; next, a commentator on European affairs; next, a public intellectual voice within the American left; and only then an occasional, opportunistic participant in the pained American discussion of the Jewish matter. — Tony Judt

A society with too few independent thinkers is vulnerable to control by disturbed and opportunistic leaders. A society which wants to create and maintain a free and democratic social system must create responsible independence of thought among its young. — John Dewey

I think with each generation comes more opportunity. At least that's the way that I see it. I grew up in a generation that watched the birth of the internet. We all have. But I feel like I look around at the generation younger than me and it's a very opportunistic mantra. — Justin Timberlake

Pop managers are fixed in the dramatic stock character repertoire too, ever since the first British pop film musical, Wolf Mankowitz's 'Expresso Bongo' of 1959, with Cliff Richard as Bongo Herbert and Laurence Harvey as his manager. The key components were cast as X parts gay, X parts Jewish and triple X opportunistic. — Peter York

His track record of pragmatism, depth and candor all speak to a person who would find the Tea Party simplistic, opportunistic and misguided. Reagan was surrounded by some very smart people who gave him very sound advice. They were not wondering where certain countries are on the map. — Eugene Jarecki

I'm not interested in using my father's death as some touch point for why I've become an actor - it's grossly opportunistic. — Cate Blanchett

Like the street his gallery was on, Fortin had an attractive front, hiding quite a foul interior. He was opportunistic. He fed on the talent of others. Got rich on the talent of others. While most of the artists themselves barely scraped by, and took all the risks. — Louise Penny

While writing 'Cold Mountain,' I held maps of two geographies, two worlds, in my mind as I wrote. One was an early map of North Carolina. Overlaying it, though, was an imagined map of the landscape Jack travels in the southern Appalachian folktales. He's much the same Jack who climbs the beanstalk, vulnerable and clever and opportunistic. — Charles Frazier

Corporations are in love with the idea of the strategic plan. They need to pay to figure out where they are going. Yet there is no evidence that strategic planning works - we even seem to have evidence against it. A management scholar, William Starbuck, has published a few papers debunking the effectiveness of planning - it makes the corporation option-blind, as it gets locked into a non-opportunistic course of action. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A sports journalist doesn't have to be sporty any more than a political journalist has to be an opportunistic liar. — Philippe Geluck