Unpromising Quotes & Sayings
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Top Unpromising Quotes

There is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant or unpromising objectives. — George F. Kennan

Building a team is just the beginning, keeping it together means progress and working together is success. — Henry David Thoreau

Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes ... — Frederick Buechner

Surely women's liberation is a most unpromising panacea. But the movement is working politically, because our sexuality is so confused, our masculinity so uncertain, and our families so beleaguered that no one knows what they are for or how they are sustained. — George Gilder

She had always looked for sparks of competence, like a diamond prospector in an unpromising wasteland. — Ayn Rand

What is becoming more interesting than the myths themselves has been the study of how the myths were constructed from sparse or unpromising facts indeed, sometimes from no facts in a kind of mute conspiracy of longing, very rarely under anybody's conscious control. — Arthur C. Clarke

Christ-as always, the model-never sat back, crossed his arms, and dismissed the annoying, the troublesome, or the unpromising. He never name-called, never judged, never treated a single person with contempt. Christ talked to everybody, he mingled with everybody, he shared his message with everybody, and he also loved everybody. So don't count the cost with anybody either. We don't waste our time with people who don't want what we have to offer. But if they do, one form of martyrdom is to give a listening ear or an understanding smile to all comers. — Heather King

If the egalitarian wishes to realise his ideal, given the unpromising nature of his material, he might consider rendering all persons equally dead, for perhaps only thus could he eradicate any difference. — D. Michael Quinn

I continued with whatever 'qualified climbers' I could con into this rather unpromising venture. — Warren G. Harding

It is the way of weakened minds to see everything through a black cloud. The soul forms its own horizons; your soul is darkened, and consequently the sky of the future appears stormy and unpromising — Alexandre Dumas

A gesture cannot be regarded as the expression of an individual, as his creation (because no individual is capable of creating a fully original gesture, belonging to nobody else), nor can it even be regarded as that person's instrument; on the contrary, it is gestures that use us as their instruments, as their bearers and incarnations — Milan Kundera

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without. — Confucius

Not to grow up properly is to retain our 'caterpillar' quality from childhood (where it is a virtue) into adulthood (where it becomes a vice). In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our caterpillar nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists and quacks. The genius of the human child, mental caterpillar extraordinary, is for soaking up information and ideas, not for criticizing them. If critical faculties later grow it will be in spite of, not because of, the inclinations of childhood. The blotting paper of the child's brain is the unpromising seedbed, the base upon which later the sceptical attitude, like a struggling mustard plant, may possibly grow. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive scepticism of adult science. — Richard Dawkins

A man who cannot win fame in big own age will have a very small chance of winning it from posterity. True, there are some half-dozen exceptions to this truth among millions of myriads that attest it; but what man of common sense would invest any large amount of hope in so unpromising a lottery? — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Some years ago I was at a committee meeting where one of the group suddenly launched upon one of the other members an astounding onslaught of abuse, vilification, and loathing from which only failing breath and imminent seizure caused him to desist. It was in fact my first experience of academic debate. The chairman, visibly shaken by the vehemence of this tirade, offered the right of reply to the person attacked, who then spoke as follows: "Mr Chairman, I did not say what I said with the specific and deliberate intention of reducing my colleague to spluttering apoplexy; that this has in fact happened I can only regard as a bonus."
From that meeting I took away an important recognition - the lurking Bonus Factor In Otherwise Unpromising Situations. — Brian Matthews

to itself, is arid, wind-swept, and unproductive. The land is flat and river-made, and therefore has no minerals whatever and almost no stone. Except for the huge reeds in the marshes, it had no trees for timber. Here, then, was a region with "the hand of God against it," an unpromising land seemingly doomed to poverty and desolation. But the people that inhabited it, the Sumerians, as they came to be known by — Samuel Noah Kramer

It becomes obvious the moment we acknowledge the futility of breeding men for special qualities as we breed cocks for game, greyhounds for speed, or sheep for mutton. What is really important in Man is the part of him that we do not yet understand. Of much of it we are not even conscious, just as we are not normally conscious of keeping up our circulation by our heart pump, though if we reject it we die. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that when we have carried selection as far as we can by rejecting from the list of eligible parents all persons who are uninteresting, unpromising, or blemished without any set-off, we shall have to trust to the guidance of fancy (alias Voice of Nature), both in the breeders and the parents, for that superiority in the unconscious self which will be the true characteristic of the Superman. — George Bernard Shaw

There are many different ways to be poor in the world but increasingly there seems to be one single way to be rich. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I know at that moment what he's given me and it isn't a chair. It's an invitation, a welcome, the knowledge that I am accepted here. He hasn't given me a place to sit. He's given me a place to belong. — Katja Millay

There are subjects for which I have more than ordinary affection because they are associated in my mind with kindly and understanding men or
women
sculptors who left even upon such impliant clay as mine the delicate chiseling of refined genius, who gave unwittingly something of their final character to most unpromising material. — Loren Eiseley

Hard work is first and foremost hard, and whether or not it's ultimately rewarding is very rarely the thing you're thinking of at the moment. — Ann Patchett

I sang my princess fast asleep,
'Cause she was my dream come true,
Oh Annmarie, believe me, I loved you.
But now those lonely lullabies,
Just dampen my tired eyes,
Because I can't forget you.
Because I can't forget you. — Owl City

When Ronald Reagan's career in show business came to an end, he was hired to impersonate, first, a California governor and then an American president who would reduce taxes for his employers, the Southern and Western New Rich, much of whose money came from the defence industries. There is nothing unusual about this arrangement. All recent presidents have had their price-tags. — Gore Vidal

Water and stones. Those are the unpromising ingredients of two very different endeavors ... painting, because artists' pigments are made from fluids ... mixed together with powdered stones to give color ... and the other is alchemy, the stone the ultimate goal. — James Elkins

In the movies first impressions are everything. Or, to put it less drastically, in the movies there are no later impressions without a first impression, because you will have stopped watching. Sometimes a critic persuades you to give an unpromising-looking movie a chance, but the movie had better convey the impression pretty quickly that the critic might be right. — Clive James

The site looks unpromising from a distance, blending in with the surrounding sepia-toned hills, but I'm learning that looks can be deceiving. — Lynn Austin

Large cocktail parties are an infamous technique for ridding yourself of social obligations to people you usually don't know well or like much, which is such an unpromising beginning that I've rarely known one that recovered and turned into a great party. — Barbara Walters

America's public schools have served their purpose. Free and compulsory education was good for a somewhat unpromising young nation. — P. J. O'Rourke

The new always looks so puny-so unpromising-next to the reality of the massive, ongoing business. — Peter Drucker

The sunk-cost fallacy keeps people for too long in poor jobs, unhappy marriages, and unpromising research projects. — Daniel Kahneman

Books are like seeds. They can lie dormant for centuries and then flower in the most unpromising soil. — Carl Sagan

The very best of all Merwin: I have been reading William since 1952, and always with joy. — Harold Bloom

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well. — Maya Angelou

Pitney's first management meeting of the new year typically consisted of about fifteen minutes discussing the previous year (almost always superb results) and two hours talking about the "scary squiggly things" that might impede future results.28 Pitney Bowes sales meetings were quite different from the "aren't we great" rah-rah sales conferences typical at most companies: The entire management team would lay itself open to searing questions and challenges from salespeople who dealt directly with customers.29 — James C. Collins

The positive emotions that arise in ... unpromising circumstances demonstrate that social ties and meaningful work are deeply desired, readily improvised, and intensely rewarding. The very structure of our economy and society prevent these goals from being achieved. — Rebecca Solnit

I have seen great beauty of spirit in some who were great sufferers. I have seen men, for the most part, grow better not worse with advancing years, and I have seen the last illness produce treasures of fortitude and meekness from most unpromising subjects. — C.S. Lewis

God has often given His people favor in the sight of heathen masters (as Joseph and Daniel), and has magnified the sufficiency of His grace by preserving their souls in the midst of the most unpromising environments. His saints are found in very unlikely places. — Arthur W. Pink

Even in the pettiest, most unpromising material, she had discovered, you could find real treasures. — Neil Gaiman