Xxxiii Number Quotes

There are a significant number of learned men and women who hold that any successful effort to make ideas lively, intelligible and interesting is a manifestation of deficient scholarship. This is the fortress behind which the minimally coherent regularly find refuge. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

Anyone who's onstage is going to attract a certain number of misguided people. But I was never very interested in groupies. Instead of thinking about the sex, I'd always think about the clap and the crabs those people have. ~ George Carlin

Well, monsieur, I am suffering at this moment something strange, and that is the satisfaction of despair. There is in certain souls - and I have just discovered that mine is of the number - a real satisfaction in the assurance that all is lost, and the time is come to yield. ~ Alexandre Dumas

There are an untold number of cultural similarities that have never been fully explored because of the difficulty of communication; in a future revolutionary setting, seemingly random connections between distant populations or people will entail knowledge transfer, outsourcing certain types of duties and amplifying the movement's message in a new and unexpected way. ~ Eric Schmidt

One cold winter's day a number of porcupines huddled together quite closely in order, through their mutual warmth, to prevent themselves from being frozen. But they soon felt the effects of their quills on one another, which made them again move apart. Now, when the need for warmth once again brought them together, the drawback of the quills was repeated so they were tossed between two evils, until they discovered the proper distance from which they could best tolerate one another. Thus the needs for society, which springs from the emptiness and monotony of men's lives, drives them together but their many unpleasant and repulsive qualities once more drive them apart. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

When I get back to my dorm room, there it is, staring at me from above my bed. The Vladimir Putin calendar. Ha! I guess Katerina got a copy of it for me after my drunken rant at the secret supper club about how I had to ironically have one.
This is a girl after my own heart.
You have to see this calendar.
July: Vladimir Putin fly-fishing topless. March: Vladimir Putin smelling a flower. November: Vladimir Putin holding a puppy. I'm not kidding. Holding a puppy!
I laugh to myself. Katerina sure has my number. Maybe she will be my BFF even after I go back to the States. ~ Andrea Portes

Journalism is the art of collecting varying kinds of information (commonly called news) which a few people possess and of transmitting it to a much larger number of people who are supposed to desire to share it. ~ Henry R. Luce

250 qubits, it is possible to represent roughly 1075 combinations, which is greater than the number of atoms in the universe. If it were possible to achieve the appropriate superposition with 250 particles, then a quantum computer could perform 1075 simultaneous computations, ~ Simon Singh

Life is not a continuous process, there's some sort of finite number of achievements that defines your life. ~ Bill Gates

But if it be true, as every prospect assures us, that the human race shall not again relapse into its ancient barbarity; if every thing ought to assure us against that pusillanimous and corrupt system which condemns man to eternal oscillations between truth and falsehood, liberty and servitude, we must, at the same time, perceive that the light of information is spread over a small part only of our globe; and the number of those who possess real instruction, seems to vanish in the comparison with the mass of men consigned over to ignorance and prejudice. We behold vast countries groaning under slavery, and presenting nations in one place, degraded by the vices of civilization, so corrupt as to impede the progress of man; and in others, still vegetating in the infancy of its early age. We perceive that the exertions of these last ages have done much for the progress of the human mind, but little for the perfection of the human species; much for the glory of man, somewhat for his liberty, but scarcely any thing yet for his happiness. In a few directions, our eyes are struck with a dazzling light; but thick darkness still covers an immense horison. ~ Nicolas De Condorcet

This is the part where I should fall asunder, consumed with shock, rage, indignation, terror, horror and any number of other emotions. But I'm as cool as a cucumber. It's hard to admit to myself that I'm not overly surprised. Because, deep down, I've always known I was different, that something wasn't quite right. ~ Siobhan Davis

While a number of people have pointed out the various costs and drawbacks of sentience, few if any have taken the next step and wondered out loud if the whole damn thing isn't more trouble than it's worth. Of course it is, people assume; otherwise natural selection would have weeded it out long ago. And they're probably right. I hope they are. "Blindsight" is a thought experiment, a game of "Just suppose" and "What if". Nothing more.
On the other hand, the dodos and the Steller sea cows could have used exactly the same argument to prove their own superioirity, a thousand years ago: "if we're so unfit, why haven't we gone extinct?" Why? Because natural selection takes time, and luck plays a role. The biggest boys on the block at any given time aren't necessarily the fittest, or the most efficient, and the game isn't over. The game is never over; there's no finish line this side of heat death. And so, neither can there be any winners. There are only those who haven't yet lost. ~ Peter Watts

It's hard to put it in perspective right now. I'm starting to feel a little emotional about what's going to happen Friday night. Getting your number put in the rafters is always something that as a kid ... you dream of seeing happen to you. ~ Scottie Pippen

I'm working on a number of different things. I'm working on a couple of TV things and I'm working on a couple of film things too, and they're all very early stages. One of them I'm writing myself, one of them I'm writing with somebody else, and one of them I'm supervising a writer, and they're all sort of coming up at the same time and it'll be interesting to see which one kind of reveals itself first and jumps ahead. ~ Neil Burger

If you compare the number of children who are diagnosed as autistic64 to the frequency with which the term autism has been used in American newspapers,65 you'll find that there is an almost perfect one-to-one correspondence (figure 7-4), with both having increased markedly in recent years. ~ Nate Silver

I am troubled by the lack of common sense regarding carbon dioxide emissions. Our greatest greenhouse gas is water. Atmospheric spectroscopy reveals why water has a 95 percent and CO2 a 3.6 percent contribution to the 'greenhouse effect.' Carbon dioxide emissions worldwide each year total 3.2 billion tons. That equals about 0.0168 percent of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration of about 19 trillion tons. This results in a 0.00064 percent increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number. ~ Michael Myers

At the moment of death we will not be judged according to the number of good deeds we have done or by the diplomas we have received in our lifetime. We will be judged according to the love we have put into our work. ~ Mother Teresa

There are over 7,000 different types of proteins in typical eukaryotic cells; the total number depends on the cell class and function. ~ Ada Yonath

To be able to achieve the laudable goals (of preventing and treating HIV/AIDS), especially for us in sub-Saharan Africa, there is the need for us to invest in improving our weak health systems. The inadequate number of healthcare facilities in many of our countries are major issues of concern. ~ John Dramani Mahama

All my life I have been the sort of person in whom people confide. And all my life I have been flattered by this role - grateful for the frisson of importance that comes with receiving important information. In recent years, however, I have noticed that my gratification is becoming diluted by a certain weary indignation. They tell me because they regard me as safe. All of them, they make their disclosures to me in the same spirit that they might tell a castrato or a priest - with a sense that I am so outside the loop, so remote from the doings of the great world, as to be defused of any possible threat. The number of secrets I receive is in inverse proportion to the number of secrets anyone expects me to have of my own. And this is the real source of my dismay. Being told secrets is not - never has been - a sign that I belong or that I matter. It is quite the opposite: confirmation of my irrelevance. ~ Zoe Heller

Aside from a few master teachers that we have had over the years, this has been a completely local talent development. But people have started to come now from Chicago, we have a number of students from Chicago and different places of the country and even in the world. ~ Katherine Dunham

People automatically estimate a mom's IQ at around her children's ages, maybe dividing by the number of kids, rounding up to the nearest pajama size. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

After you reach the number impossible, there's no point in counting. ~ Rick Riordan

Between 1995 and 2005, the prison population grew by 30 percent, meaning an additional half million criminals were behind bars, rather than lurking in dark alleys with switchblades. You can well imagine liberals' surprise when the crime rate went down as more criminals were put in prison. The New York Times was reduced to running querulous articles with headlines like Number in Prison Grows Despite Crime Reduction and As Crime Rate Drops, the Prison Rate Rises and the Debate Rages. ~ Ann Coulter

I wouldn't do that if I were you
Oh yeah, why not
Because know a dozen ways to kill a man. i'm thinking number 5. ~ Jane Graves

The main purpose of Social Security is to redistribute wealth, to make an increasingly large number of Americans dependent on government for their basic needs in their retirement years. ~ Neal Boortz

Sure I have a cell-phone, so I don't have to remember everyone's number anymore, but that really wasn't a core part of my brain. ~ Ken Jennings

There are about 250,000 different species of fossil plants and animals known . In spite of this large quantity of information, it is but a tiny fraction of the diversity that [according to the theory] actually lived in the past. There are well over a million species living today and . [it is] possible to predict how many species ought to be in our fossil record. That number is at least 100 times the number we have found. ~ David M. Raup

A Catholic culture does not mean or imply universality. A nation or a whole civilization is of the Catholic culture not when it is entirely composed of strong believers minutely practicing their religion, nor even whit it boasts a majority of such, but when it presents a determining number of units-family institutions, individuals, inspired by and tenacious of the Catholic spirit. ~ Hilaire Belloc

Once you set out to copy another painter you can never be more than number two. ~ Sergei Bongart

Most men are scantily nourished on a modicum of happiness and a number of empty thoughts which life lays on their plates. They are kept in the road of life through stern necessity by elemental duties which they cannot avoid. ~ Albert Schweitzer

The number of poor, and poorly prepared, students who succeed in college and beyond undercuts the simplistic notion that economic or educational disadvantage is an excuse for failure, violent behavior, or indulgence in drugs. ~ Roland Merullo

You gotta look out for number one, but don't step in number two! ~ Rodney Dangerfield

A large machine was brought into an office. The beast put his mark on it, and his voice came out of it. There was also a "big brother" machine that could see into homes and businesses. Only a single machine of this type existed, and it belonged to the beast. The part of the machine that was located in the homes of the people was invisible to the naked eye, but it could and did report to the beast every move the people made. I watched as the beast turned his throne around and faced toward me. On his forehead was the number 666. ~ Mary K. Baxter

I love going out every day and training and being part of the team, and having friendships built up over a number of years. It's those aspects of sport that I feel are really important. ~ Brian O'Driscoll

He didn't think he had a problem. Because he didn't become mean or violent, he thought he didn't have a problem. Because it was usually only beer, it couldn't possibly be a problem. But it was a problem, because he'd gradually become the kind of man she couldn't have imagined marrying. She couldn't count the number of times that she'd cried about it. ~ Nicholas Sparks

I notice that the number of cosmetic-surgery operations has risen by 34 per cent in the past year. Once we subtract Jordan, Jodie Marsh and Michael Jackson from those figures, we can see that demand overall may have stabilised. ~ Michael Gove