Your Predictable Quotes & Sayings

We will learn that computers, amazing as they are, still cannot come close to being as effective as human beings. A computer isn't creative on its own because it is programmed to behave in a predictable way. Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience. Computers simply cannot do that. — Masaru Ibuka

You can concede to an opponent something he hasn't earned. It's one thing to underestimate an opponent. But maybe the worst thing is to overestimate. You always play your strengths. But that doesn't mean you become predictable. — Chuck Knox

The goals you set for yourself and the strategies you choose become your blueprint or plan. Strategies are like recipes: choose the right ingredients, mix them in the correct proportions, and you will always produce the same predictable results: in this case financial success. The success strategies for managing money and building wealth are called Money Strategies. By learning to use money strategies as a part of your day-to-day life, financial frustration and failure will become a thing of the past. — Charles J. Givens

But don't you also find it hard to accept that your [mankind's] attempts to solve your problems fail with predictable regularity? It seems to us [Luxenbenites] you would welcome an overall solution. — Dan Hurwitz

While in the Florida legislature, I strongly opposed the Stand Your Ground law because I believed it would provide defenses to people who had created the scenarios they sought protection from. Or it would leave juries without the proper rules of engagement that ought govern predictable human interactions. — Dan Gelber

I mean, that's life. Life is never predictable. Life is never really manageable. If your mind-set is always, "I'm just surviving", it seems to me that would wind up being the mind-set for the rest of your life. You'd just get stuck in it. — Joanna Gaines

It's the treasure in the empty field; it's worth selling everything to own
your entertainment, your 401(k) or your registered retirement savings plan, your home, your comfort, the sand where you stick your head, your last word, your right answers, your safe and predictable nice little life centered on avoiding heartbreak or inconvenience to your schedule. — Sarah Bessey

Losing a chunk of your memory is a tricky thing, a deep-sea quake triggering shifts and upheavals too far distant from the epicenter to be easily predictable. — Tana French

Embrace opportunities with limited downside, unlimited upside. The best deals are those where your risk of loss is predictable and fixed if things go wrong, while your potential gains are enormous if things go right. Take such deals whenever you can get them if the odds of success are halfway decent. — Steve Pavlina

The media wants overnight successes (so they have someone to tear down). Ignore them. Ignore the early adopter critics that never have enough to play with. Ignore your investors that want proven tactics and predictable instant results. Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul. Because that's how long it's going to take, guys. — Seth Godin

That means if you want to become strong, you become predictable. You keep your word, know and then honor your commitments, mind the details, invest in daily spiritual input, assume rather than avoid responsibility, admit your mistakes, correct your screw-ups, and keep a healthy watch over yourself. — Anonymous

When I look around at this 'normal' life you're so eager to leave, I don't see boring or predictable - I see friends who love you and a family that would make any sacrifice for your happiness. I see the kind of security I've never had and always wanted. I may have given you access to the world I know best, but you and your family have given me a world that doesn't exist on a map. — Tamara Ireland Stone

Consciousness, unprovable by scientific standards, is forever, then, the impossible phantom in the predictable biologic machine, and your every thought a genuine supernatural event. Your every thought is a ghost, dancing. — Alan Moore

When the main characters meet, you're filled with this warm hopeful glow, ya know? And we laugh, sometimes till there's tears, because of all the little embarrassing situations they find themselves in trying to get together. And then there's this romantic confession of love, and your're elated because they're finally together. And they should be. You know this. And even though it was completely predictable, you cry. I cry. — Victoria Van Tiem

You can be mediocre, the way most actors are, and you can still be a top movie star, even if your movies are boring and predictable. All you have to do is know how to sell yourself, let yourself be manufactured. — Mickey Rourke

First of all, let's get one thing straight. Your Italy and our Italia are not the same thing. Italy is a soft drug peddled in predictable packages, such as hills in the sunset, olive groves, lemon trees, white wine, and raven-haired girls. Italia, on the other hand, is a maze. It's alluring, but complicated. It's the kind of place that can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters, or in the course of ten minutes. Italy is the only workshop in the world that can turn out both Botticellis and Berlusconis. — Beppe Severgnini

Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable. — Sam Walton

Be abnormal; being normal is too predictable for your brand. — Bernard Kelvin Clive

Whether you extrapolate from Machiavelli or Castiglione, a kind of unworthy wisdom has stood the test of time in statecraft: you should have principles to make your conduct predictable, but at the same time know that you are limiting your options. It works if you are strong because you can force others to conform; but if you are weak, then having no principles means you have limitless options for action and can adjust through flexibility to acts dictated by others. — Khaled Ahmed

I'm a man. Why would you expect anything else? We're meant to be easy and predictable. You are woman. You possess what we seek. We cannot afford to confuse your minds if we are to attain what we seek. Therefore, we elect to be easy and predictable. — Jack Dancer

There is a predictable theme as to what upsets our matriarchs. Usually, matriarchs are known for their unified support. When it comes to kingdom matters, however, they are willing to drive out Abraham's son. (Ge 21:10) They are willing to reject Isaac's son. (Ge 27:6-13) In other words, they are not afraid to reject royalty ('shepherd-like acquaintances') to further God's kingdom goals. (Re 20:4-6)
pg 26 — Michael Ben Zehabe

Injecting some confusion stabilizes the system. Indeed, confusing people a little bit is beneficial - it is good for you and good for them. For an application of the point in daily life, imagine someone extremely punctual and predictable who comes home at exactly six o'clock every day for fifteen years. You can use his arrival to set your watch. The fellow will cause his family anxiety if he is barely a few minutes late. Someone with a slightly more volatile - hence unpredictable - schedule, with, say, a half-hour variation, won't do so. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

[M]any believe that by being honest and open they are winning people's hearts and showing their good nature.They are greatly deluded. Honesty is actually a blunt instrument, which bloodies more than it cuts. Your honesty is likely to offend people; it is much more prudent to tailor your words, telling people what they want to hear rather than the coarse and ugly truth of what you feel or think. More important, by being unabashedly open you make yourself so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or fear you, and power will not accrue to a person who cannot inspire such emotions. — Robert Greene

When you become too predictable you lose your brand's luster. — Bernard Kelvin Clive

In the grand scheme of things, the stuff that comes with a forewarning isn't really that important. We know when that big exam is, the driving test, a long-awaited holiday. But birth, death and the police knocking at your door tend to be a bit less predictable. — Donna Ford

One way to think of it is in terms of maps and globes. Maps are easy. They're flat and predictable, easy to chart out a course. You can see the whole landscape in a simple, two-dimensional layout. However, as easy as they are, maps are unrealistic. The world isn't flat; it's not color coded and foldable and easily stored in your car's glove box. Life is too complex and beautiful to be captured on a map. It may help you see the big picture, but it does not help you understand the magnitude of the journey. — Jeff Goins

It's a new challenge to see how people can change your look. I like words like transformation, reinvention, and chameleon. Because one word I don't like is predictable. — Naomi Campbell

God," said Benedict Fludd, "your God, that is, strides in and out of my life with no warning. One day he seems impossible - laughable, laughable - and the next, he is imperious." He stopped. He said "It is like the phases of the moon, maybe. Or the seasons of the sphere we live on, rolling in and out of the light, skeleton trees one day, and then snow, and afterwards the bright green veil and after that the full heat and shining. Only it is neither regular nor predictable. And there are - others - who stride in, when he takes himself off. Who seem persuasive. Like Hindoo demons who are gods in their own terms. — A.S. Byatt

Think about it this way: if you are too predictable in any area of your life, you may be paving the way to your own extinction! — T.D. Jakes

Understand: people judge you by appearances, the image you project through your
actions, words, and style. If you do not take control of this process, then people will see
and define you the way they want to, often to your detriment. You might think that
being consistent with this image will make others respect and trust you, but in fact it is
the opposite - over time you seem predictable and weak. Consistency is an illusion
anyway - each passing day brings changes within you. You must not be afraid to
express these evolutions. The powerful learn early in life that they have the freedom to
mold their image, fitting the needs and moods of the moment. In this way, they keep
others off balance and maintain an air of mystery. You must follow this path and find
great pleasure in reinventing yourself, as if you were the author writing your own
drama — 50 Cent

The journey of the sun and moon is predictable. But yours, is your ultimate ART. — Suzy Kassem

You know she'll probably be at the party tonight? Which is why I'm absolutely not going if we don't get some coke.'
'Egon, why is it that every single time you're obliged to be in the same room with one of your ex-girlfriends you have to make it into a huge emergency? It's incredibly boring.'
'Come on. You know how it is. You catch sight of an old flame and get this breathless
animal prickle like a fox in a room with a hound. And then all night you have to seem carefree and successful and elated, which is a pretence that for some reason you feel no choice but to maintain even though you know they're better qualified than anyone else
in the world to detect immediately that you're really the same hapless cunt as ever.'
'That's adolescent. The fact that you are so neurotic about your past lovers makes it both fortunate and predictable that you have so few of them. It's one of those elegant self-regulating systems that one so often finds in nature. — Ned Beauman

Over the next eight years, almost without noticing, I arrived at a quiet revelation. You could make a home by yourself. You could fill that home with friends and friendly strangers without someone sleeping next to you. You could tend your garden and cook your meals and find predictable pleasure in your own autonomy. — Armistead Maupin

You can put your trust in something that's obvious, that's measurable or predictable - but that's not faith. Nor is believing in something that gives you no pause for doubt, no reason or desire to question. Faith is something more than that. By definition, it cannot have proof as its foundation. — James Islington

To require perfection is to invite paralysis. The pattern is predictable: as you see error in what you have done, you steer your work toward what you imagine you can do perfectly. You cling ever more tightly to what you already know you can do - away from risk and exploration, and possibly further from the work of your heart. You find reasons to procrastinate, since to not work is to not make mistakes. Believing that artwork should be perfect, you gradually become convinced that you cannot make such work. (You are correct.) Sooner or later, since you cannot do what you are trying to do, you quit. And in one of those perverse little ironies of life, only the pattern itself achieves perfection - a perfect death spiral: you misdirect your work; you stall; you quit. — David Bayles

Ricky asks her, "You lost your earrings in the living room?" She shakes her head. "No, I lost them in the bedroom. But the light out here is much better." And there it is. Most leaders prefer to look for answers where the light is better, where they are more comfortable. And the light is certainly better in the measurable, objective, and data-driven world of organizational intelligence (the smart side of the equation) than it is in the messier, more unpredictable world of organizational health. Studying spreadsheets and Gantt charts and financial statements is relatively safe and predictable, which most executives prefer. That's how they've been trained, and that's where they're comfortable. What they usually want to avoid at all costs are subjective conversations that can easily become emotional and awkward. And organizational health is certainly fraught with the potential for subjective and awkward conversations. — Patrick Lencioni

People should never surprise you. Humans have basic animal drives that are going to make people predictable. Don't let them shock you. A person is too easily predicted. Now, Shirley listen closely. There are wolves and there are sheep. Most people are sheep. Even if a person is a sheep, don't turn your back to them. There is a reason that sheep are so easily controlled... — Raven Huffman

That is just one more thing I love about cooking. Recipes are certain. Use good ingredients, follow the directions, be sure your oven temperature is true and monitor your stove properly, and you are assured success. There are not many variables once you understand how cooking works.
Life, on the other hand, is full of variables. Nothing is predictable. Not the weather, not other people, not traffic, not even our own bodies. We are like seaweed, whipped around in the current of an erratic ocean. — Beth Harbison

Postponing happiness until "all your ducks are in order" means never because life is not that clean, fair or predictable. It isn't what happens to you that defines your life, it is what you do with it that does. — Laura C. Schlessinger

If we don't accept any common beliefs, we can't exist in spacetime. But when we don't believe in age, at least we don't have to die because our numbers change. [ ... ] When you don't believe in birthdays, the idea of aging turns a little foreign to you. You don't fall into trauma over your sixteenth birthday or your thirtieth or the big Five-Oh or the deadly Century. You measure your life by what you learn, not by counting how many calendars you've seen. If you're going to have trauma, better it be the shock of discovering the fundamental principle of the universe that some date predictable as next July. — Richard Bach

As soon as your mind knows that it's on and it's supposed to produce some lines, either it doesn't or it produces things that are very predictable. And that's why I say I'm not interested in writing something that I thought about. I'm interested in discovering where my mind wants to go, or what object it wants to pick up. — Paul Simon

Mrs. Heath wanted to sprinkle their minds with grass seed and watch the blades spike up through the earth, flat and predictable as a golf course. She wanted dependable students, well fed but not necessarily nourished. But he was not in that category. Admittedly, he could not count on his perceptions of letters and words, and he was not always accurate. He misused words most when he liked their sound. A sentence had a kind of music, and the word sounded right. The definitions were never as interesting as the sound they made coming out of your mouth. He rolled their flavors around on his tongue, tasting every nook and cranny, but he could not be trusted to deliver the right answer and she would never give him better than a C, no matter what genius work he produced. The way he saw it, his mind was a big unruly field of wildflowers. One day he would shower the world with blossoms. — Elizabeth Brundage

Far too often, people are woefully predictable. And I know many things. It's a curse. Here's something else I know: You are not doomed to be your parents. You can break the cycle. You can be whoever you want to be. But you will pay a price. You parents and everyone else will punish you if you choose to be you and not them. That's the price of your freedom. The cage is unlocked, but everyone is too scared to walk out because they whack you when you try, and they whack you hard. They want you to be scared, too. They want you to stay in the cage. But once you are a few steps beyond the trapdoor, they can't reach you anymore, so the whacking stops. That's another secret: They're too afraid to follow. They adore their own cages. — Matthew Quick

If you grow up in a home where actions don't lead to predictable consequences, you don't develop strategies to control your impulses. — David Brooks

Sometimes, you can be more than enough for someone, but they choose not to be in your life. Always remember that Satan works hard to keep people miserable by feeding their fears, so they stay in their comfort zone. The truth is some people value what is predictable, more than chemistry. — Shannon L. Alder

Jamie: Please don't pretend like you know me, ok?
Landon: But I do, I do. We've had all the same classes in the same school since kindergarten. Why you're Jamie Sullivan. You sit at lunch table 7. Which isn't exactly the reject table, but is definitely in self exile territory. You have exactly one sweater. You like to look at your feet when you walk. Oh, oh, and yeah, for fun, you like to tutor on weekends and hang out with the cool kids from "Stars and Planets." Now how does that sound?
Jamie: Thoroughly predictable, nothing I haven't heard before.
Landon: You don't care what people think about you?
Jamie: No. — Nicholas Sparks

THE KEY TO A WONDERFUL LIFE

The key to a wonderful life
Is to never stop wandering into wonder.
Because to live a predictable life,
Only fills a person with strife,
And such a person will always be wondering:
'What a limitless life could be lived beyond the lines?'
Such is a question a curious spirit would never sit and ponder.
So always pursue new ventures in your life,
And be willing to open doors to different light;
This is the only way to keep it magical and always filled with wonder.
Days will feel shorter, but your happiness will grow stronger --
Because living a life without curiosity and adventure,
Is a stale life where days only feel longer and
Longer.

Poetry by Suzy Kassem — Suzy Kassem

You and I should do whatever we can to keep our youthful joy alive. If your life is too predictable, don't go postal. Take a ridiculous ride back to whatever it was that gave you joy as a child. Jump on a trampoline. Saddle up a pony. Give adulthood a rest. — Nick Vujicic

At the quantum level our universe can be seen as an indeterminate place, predictable in a statistical way only when you employ large enough numbers. Between that universe and a relatively predictable one where the passage of a single planet can be timed to a picosecond, other forces come into play. For the in-between universe where we find our daily lives, that which you believe is a dominant force. Your beliefs order the unfolding of daily events. If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order. — Frank Herbert

Obviously no one has ever cautioned you against pricking the vanity of proud men or wild animals; neither is completely predictable."
"And which of those categories do you fit into?"
"I'll leave the choice solely to your discretion," he mused and bowed solicitously. — Marsha Canham

Be willing to step outside your comfort zone once in a while; take the risks in life that seem worth taking. The ride might not be as predictable if you'd just planted your feet and stayed put, but it will be a heck of a lot more interesting. — Edward Whitacre Jr.

At one time or another, we all stand at the crossroads and at the fork in the road.We can go back where it's comfortable, predictable and easy. Or we can go forward. If you go back, my friend, you will miss the ride of your life! — Donna Schultz

When you look in the mirror, it's usually to fix your hair or put on makeup. To examine your body searching for problem areas. We look at ourselves to see the flaw, not beauty. And we look at predictable times, in the morning, after using the bathroom, before bed. We hardly ever see ourselves when we aren't prepared for inspection. But only when you're unprepared can you see your true self, your true beauty. — Valerie Frankel

The only trouble at first was that one small, cold-sober part of her mind floated free of the rest of her; it was able to observe how solemn a man could be at times like this, how earnest in his hairy nakedness, and how predictable. You had only to offer up your breasts and there was his hungering mouth on one and then the other of them, drawing the nipples out hard; you had only to open your legs and there was his hand at work on you, tirelessly burrowing. Then you got his mouth again, and then you got the whole of him, boyishly proud of his first penetration, lunging and thrusting and ready to love you forever, if only to prove that he could. — Richard Yates

If I had to offer up a one sentence definition of addiction, I'd call it a form of mourning for the irrecoverable glories of the first time ... addiction can show us what is deeply suspect about nostalgia. That drive to return to the past isn't an innocent one. It's about stopping your passage to the future, it's a symptom of fear of death, and the love of predictable experience.
And the love of predictable experience, not the drug itself, is the major damage done to users. — Ann Marlowe

Whether you are attending someone else's or holding your own dinner party, your main objective should be to lead guests away from the usual road of predictable behaviour and tedious conversation, and towards a shared voyage of epicurean delight.
In much the same way as caged animals in zoos are kept mentally healthy by being set mealtime tasks by their keepers, dinner guests will find their repast far more satisfying if it is presented as a challenge and an opportunity for self-expression. For example, instead of the dry old formula of a plate flanked by serried ranks of knives, forks and spoons, today's modern host should show a little more ingenuity when selecting eating utensils. The novelty of using a Black & Decker two-speed drill to sheer flakes of the roast beef or a 15-inch spanner to negotiate the foie gras, will firmly place your party in the minds of your guests as a night to remember. — Gustav Temple And Vic Darkwood

It's so obvious that you're gonna ask a good looking dude to be with you for the rest of your holiday while you only know his name for like 2 hours, 32 minutes, 12 seconds."
"Trisha! Being mean is my job! June, you're so predictable, like, it's not a shock for us if you're gonna ask a good looking dude to be with you for the rest of your holiday while you only know his name for like 2 hours, 33 minutes, 2 seconds. — Rea Lidde

Trying to order your world so that its predictable and safe is counterproducti ve to growth. — Mike Berry

The only thing predictable about you is that you consistently appear when you suppose I least expect it. Perhaps that will be your undoing; for now I shall expect to see you every time I turn around. — Colleen Gleason

He turned on his heel and began down the hall, then called back, "And we'll need to chat about your running off campus and into the arms of shifters without so much as a telephone call."
Sometimes, he was so predictable. — Chloe Neill

Wee, wee, wee, wee, all the way home," Hazlit quoted the nursery rhyme. Portmaine paused before sipping his own drink. "Did Maggie Windham strike you on the head?" "No. She hired me, and it took me half my walk home to figure out what she's truly about." "She wants to have her way with your tender young flesh," Portmaine suggested. "You're overdue to get your wick dipped, you know." "Your concern is touching, Archer." "You always get short-tempered when you've neglected your romping. Maybe you should go a round or two with Lady Norcross." "Maybe I should find a partner who can think beyond his next swiving." "I like swiving." Portmaine pushed off the desk and refilled his drink, then came to rest on the sofa a couple of feet from Hazlit. "It's normal to like swiving. Lady Norcross apparently understands this. You used to understand this. I certainly understand it. More brandy?" "You're outpacing me," Hazlit said, smiling slightly at Portmaine's predictable simplicity. "And — Grace Burrowes

Does identity matter anyway? I have my doubts. We are what we do, not what we think. Only the interactions count (there is no problem with free will here; that's not incompatible with believing your actions define you). And what is free will anyway? Chance. The random factor. If one is not ultimately predictable, then of course that's all it can be. — Iain M. Banks

Bob, I am grateful for your
Three letter name.
It's another reminder of home
Of a world predictable
Of a life I had. — Wilfred Waters

You are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions. — Noam Chomsky

And your life,' Katie said to Christy, 'is turning into a rather predictable romance. Girl meets boy. Boy is a dork for four years. Girl blossoms into a gorgeous woman. Boy finds his brain. Girl turns into starry-eyed mush head. — Robin Jones Gunn

It'd have been so nice if my life had been a well-controlled experiment. You know; start off with your basic ingredients, add education, experiences, events, stirring with a glass rod, when appropriate retarding the reaction with a block of ice. Predictable consequences, intended results, and something worth having at the end. Hasn't quite worked out like that. As for the result, the product, we'll have to wait and see. I may yet surprise myself. — K.J. Parker

There is beauty in space, and it is orderly. There is no weather, and there is regularity. It is predictable. Just look at our little Explorer; you can set your clock by it-literally; it is more accurate than your clock. Everything in space obeys the laws of physics. If you know these laws, and obey them, space will treat you kindly. — Wernher Von Braun

Well," the voice said, seemingly oblivious, "one thing that does happen when you live a long time is that you start to realise the essential futility of so much that we do, especially when you see the same patterns of behaviour repeated by succeeding generations and across different species. You see the same dreams, the same hopes, the same ambitions and aspirations, reiterated, and the same actions, the same courses and tactics and strategies, regurgitated, to the same predictable and often lamentable effects, and you start to think, So? Does it really matter? Why really are you bothering with all this? Are these not just further doomed, asinine ways of attempting to fill your vacuous, pointless existence, wedged slivered as it is between the boundless infinitudes of dark oblivion book-ending its utter triviality?" "Uh-huh, — Iain M. Banks

He had a particular facination with the I Ching, that art of tossing three coins three times and divining a pattern out of heads and tails. Pete would begin with questions:
What determined the pattern? Was it random? Was it a higher power? Was is mathematical? Wasn't poker based on mathematical probability and not just luck? Did that mean randomness was actually mathematical? And if the I Ching was governed by mathematics, hey, wouldn't that mean the I Ching was actually predictable, a prescribed answer? And if it was prescribed, did that mean that your life followed the I Ching, like some sort of equation? Or did the I Ching simply capture correctly what had already been determined as the next series of events in your life? — Amy Tan

You have to be careful so you don't make your character dull and predictable. Sometimes you have to bend the script a little ... The bad guys are mostly the same on the paper ... A bad guy wouldn't think of himself as bad. — Michael Wincott

Grieving is not a race, nor is it a predictable experience - it is as unique as each and every one of us. Therefore by creating your own path you will find your own way through. — Corrie Sirota

When you live by the demands and supply of life, your life becomes easily predictable. — Sunday Adelaja