Quotes About Chance

A historical materialist approaches a historical subject only where he encounters it as a monad. In this structure he recognizes the sign of a Messianic cessation of happening, or, put differently, a revolutionary chance in the fight for the oppressed past.

Thus it was that Einstein ended up deciding that quantum mechanics, though it may not be wrong, was at least incomplete. There must be a fuller explanation of how the universe operates, one that would incorporate both relativity theory and quantum mechanics. In doing so, it would not leave things to chance.

There is no real reason—other than either a metaphysical faith or a habit ingrained in the mind—to believe that nature must operate with absolute certainty. It is just as reasonable, though perhaps less satisfying, to believe that some things simply happen by chance. Certainly, there was mounting evidence that on the subatomic level this was the case.

Observe the "strange coincidences" that seem to collaborate with fate and in some way steer you in a new direction.

The chance you had is the life you've got. You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people's lives, ...but you mustn't wish for another life. You mustn't want to be somebody else.

If you grit your teeth and show real determination, you'll always have a chance.

I do know this—this right here is just prelude. Dress rehearsal. The intro. One of these days each one of us is going to get called up and given the chance to join our voices in a song we've never heard, yet one we've known our whole lives.

Don't get axle-wrapped 'bout what you can't control. You'll get your chance. Your job is to make the most of it when you do.

I cannot look at the universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent design, or indeed of design of any kind, in the details.

Unless man have a natural bent in accordance with nature's, he has no chance of understanding nature at all.

Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, "Why me?", then a voice answers "Nothing personal, your name just happened to come up.

To submit to chance is to reveal the self and its obsessions.

The greatest risks are never the ones you can see and measure, but the ones you can't see and therefore can never measure. The ones that seem so far outside the boundary of normal probability that you can't imagine they could happen in your lifetime—even though, of course, they do happen, more often than you care to realize.

Probability doesn't make mistakes; people using probability make mistakes.

I generally give the title-page a fair chance," Roger said. "Once can't always judge books merely by the cover.

A life is about twenty-five thousand days, and a finding occurs about once every twenty-five thousand days. In other news, once in a lifetime.

All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.

There's only so much you can do, but if somebody doesn't give you a chance there is nothing you can do.

You might hear about "taking chances" – the real smartcraft is in "making chances..."

My feeling is, if a dog is that hard up to break free, let it go. It's like a boyfriend who wants to break up. We all know the old adage "If you set someone free, and he never comes back, then he was never yours." I understand the main fear with setting dogs loose is they could get hit by a car, but so could an ex boyfriend. That's just a chance you have to take.

For just this moment, we have the closest thing to an advantage we're likely to get. And if we don't use it, we're gonna lose it." Look at me busting out all the tired old metaphors. Like I'd been saving them all winter just waiting for an opportunity to trot them out.

There's no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What destroys what. What causes what to flourish or die or take another course.

If you take that risk, if you take that chance, if you tell the truest, hardest, deepest story you have within you, you're not going to step into the light and find that you're there alone. That you're going to be surrounded by people who are there with you.

Life may not offer you the same chance twice.