Top 100 Not Likely Quotes
#1. This is as 'alone' as I'm likely to get with you - you're not half so fetching as your daughter.
Janet Morris
#2. God calls each and every star by name. It's not likely He has forgotten yours.
Louie Giglio
#3. If the other persons behavior is not in harmony with my own needs, the more I empathize with them and their needs, the more likely I am to get me own needs met.
Marshall B. Rosenberg
#4. The moon is considered a relatively easy object to land humans on, everything else is much harder by orders of magnitude. It is the reason why we have not been to Mars and will likely never go there successfully with humans.
Steven Magee
#5. A man who cannot control his temper is not very likely to control his passions, and no matter what his pretensions in religion, he moves in daily life very close to the animal plane.
David O. McKay
#6. When you're starting out, you know, you have to do something on a very limited budget. You're not going to be able to have great actors, and you're most likely not going to have a great script.
Peter Jackson
#7. When you strip hope from people, it leaves a void, and that void needs to be filled. And very likely, that void is going to be filled by an ideology ... Hope and faith are so connected. Now, when ideology connects with faith, the ideology becomes an item of faith, not a point of discussion.
Alfonso Cuaron
#8. He knows bad days. Bad days take him completely by surprise. They make him not trust the good days because it's likely something is lurking twenty-four hours away.
Melina Marchetta
#9. Any Wall Street advertising that does not go into the boring details of methodology is most likely to be pushing past performance.
Barry Ritholtz
#10. Men who have worked together to reach the stars are not likely to descend together into the depths of war and desolation.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#11. Moreover, if we could show, on general logical grounds, that the scientific quest is likely to succeed, one could not understand why anything like success has been so rare in the long history of human endeavours to know more about our world.
Karl R. Popper
#12. I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we've attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can't be happy now, we'll likely not be happy when.
Philip Gulley
#13. If your friend's friend's friend (whom you may not have even met) is obese, a smoker or a zealot of some kind then it is a lot more likely that you will be too.
James H. Fowler
#14. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them.
Edwin H. Friedman
#15. Why is it not just as likely that there were as many small general nearly at first as now, and as great a disproportion in the number of their species?
Asa Gray
#16. Devils are depicted with bats' wings and good angels with birds' wings, not because anyone holds that moral deterioration would be likely to turn feathers into membrane, but because most men like birds better than bats.
C.S. Lewis
#17. Mention the name George W. Bush in mixed company, and you're likely to spark a lot of debate and emotion - hot and cold, good and bad. Not a lot of neutral reaction. He was elected in the most controversial contest in American electoral history and governed during one of the most tumultuous decades.
Mark McKinnon
#18. Everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected.
Richard P. Feynman
#19. Those desires that do not bring pain if they are not satisfied are not necessary; and they are easily thrust aside whenever to satisfy them appears difficult or likely to cause injury.
Epicurus
#20. And this should not surprise us. The plunder of black life was drilled into this country in its infancy and reinforced across its history, so that plunder has become an heirloom, an intelligence, a sentience, a default setting to which, likely to the end of our days, we must invariably return.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
#21. Would you ever buy chocolate with DDT? How about Cheerios with arsenic? Not very likely!
Gudjon Bergmann
#22. If you're not working, over time you're much more likely to develop attitudes and orientations and behavior patterns that are associated with casual or infrequent work. And then when you open up opportunities for people, you notice that these attitudes, orientations, habits and styles also change.
William Julius Wilson
#23. A strongly accentuated zoophilism, such as an inordinate love of horses or dogs, throws the emotional nature out of balance; and those who are possessed by it are not likely to care very much for people.
W.E. Woodward
#24. Had the United States not acted in Iraq, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi would likely not have declared his weapons programs, submitted to international inspections and voluntarily dismantled its programs.
Jim Gerlach
#25. A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader.
Vladimir Nabokov
#26. Wise men are not pacifists; they are merely less likely to jump up and retaliate against their antagonizers. They know that needless antagonizers are virtually already insecure enough.
Criss Jami
#27. You think I've been around these fuckers long enough to get comfortable enough to SLEEP ten feet away from them? Not fucking likely. (Axel)
Robert Kirkman
#28. Even if consumer confidence hit rock bottom, that most likely would not be enough, by itself, to cause a depression.
Charles Duhigg
#29. Also, I thought, I can always delay the murder. . . . I can let my mind have this company it craves and I can always kill him later on. But I'm sure you know such reasoning is false, because once we grow to love a person, we are not likely to want that person's death.
Anne Rice
#30. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.
Eric Hoffer
#31. And as for that strangeness in your gut, that comes from you, not the Lord. When you were a child you had worms. As likely as not you have them again.
Flannery O'Connor
#32. On traditional economic theory:
We do not play chess as if we were a grandmaster, invest as if we were Warren Buffett, or cook like an Iron Chef. It is more likely we cook like Warren Buffett, who loves to eat at Dairy Queen.
Richard H. Thaler
#33. It's not good to have fears like this. It only makes it more likely that you'll die that way - a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Suzanne Young
#34. It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathize; so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a portrait of his face.
Robert Louis Stevenson
#35. Do not forecast where the temptation will come; it is the least likely thing that is the peril. In the aftermath of a great spiritual transaction the "retired sphere of the leasts" begins to tell; it is not dominant, but remember it is there, and if you are not warned, it will trip you up.
Oswald Chambers
#36. The smaller the sample size, the more likely that it is unrepresentative of the wider population..."people can be taught the correct rule, perhaps even with little difficulty. The point remains that people do not follow the correct rule, when left to their own devices.
Michael Lewis
#37. Going from PayPal, I thought: 'Well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?' Not from the perspective, 'What's the best way to make money?'
Elon Musk
#38. The genocide will not necessarily take the form of war, or death camps. Most likely it will take the form of ecocide, in which landscapes are devastated and the populations that live there slowly starve or turn upon each other savagely because there isn't enough food or water to go around.
Arundhati Roy
#40. Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.
C.S. Lewis
#41. I don't like a man to be too efficient. He's likely to be not human enough.
Felix Frankfurter
#42. Most men remember obligations, but are not often likely to be grateful; the proud are made sour by the remembrance and the vain silent.
William Gilmore Simms
#43. Because religious institutions are not afraid to talk about love as a goal, they are likely to be more effective at providing community services.
Michael Lerner
#44. Verily, a man should not cling to those who have passed, for he will likely neglect service to the living.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
#45. I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
Robert Frost
#46. Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.
George Orwell
#47. The tendency of advanced capitalism has been to enlarge the middle class and not to wipe it out, as it once seemed likely to do.
George Orwell
#48. Some people are weak in their faith and testimonies but are not even aware of how precarious their situation is. Many of them likely would be offended at the suggestion.
Joseph B. Wirthlin
#49. I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found. I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials.
Howard Dean
#50. Most commercial products that contain organic molecules possess at least one carbon-carbon double bond, or if one is not present, it is likely that an olefin was used in its preparation. This being the case, the potential applications of olefin metathesis are endless.
Robert H. Grubbs
#51. The problem is that our ideas are sticky: once we produce a theory, we are not likely to change our minds ...
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
#52. Great leaders do not see people for who they are, but who than can become. Further, the great leader compels those that follow them to become that man or woman of the future, likely exceeding the expectations of both.
Chris Alexander
#53. Ebola is a nasty disease to get. It's scary. But as a weapon, it is probably not likely. Ebola is a difficult malady to weaponize and deliver efficiently.
Tom Clancy
#54. The reason the United States is not so likely to invade Iran is precisely because of the lessons learned from Iraq. And conversely, the Iranian push towards nuclear capability is calculated to deter invasions like the kind deposing Saddam Husain.
Steven Pinker
#55. When outcomes are uncertain, most of us spend a great deal of energy ruminating, worrying, and second-guessing ourselves. Not only is this a waste of time, but it makes us less likely to succeed
Melanie Greenberg
#56. Google is where we go for answers. People used to go elsewhere or, more likely, stagger along not knowing.
James Gleick
#57. Truth of a modest sort I can promise you, and also sincerity. That complete, praiseworthy sincerity which, while it delivers one into the hands of one's enemies, is as likely as not to embroil one with one's friends.
Joseph Conrad
#58. At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear any thing to change them.
Jane Austen
#59. If I had a story idea that I felt would work best in three volumes I might write a trilogy eventually. I'd very likely write it all at once, though, so I could work on it as a whole and not broken into individual volumes.
Erin Morgenstern
#60. If you are that person, you are more likely to believe that God cured you, this invisible force, creator of the universe, cured you, than that you had three idiotic doctors diagnose you ... I taught physics to pre-med students who became doctors. Not all of them are smart, I assure you.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
#61. Change is not only likely, it's inevitable.
Barbara Sher
#62. If a theory purports to explain everything, then it is likely not explaining much at all.
Massimo Pigliucci
#63. [Examiners] spend their lives in discovering which pages of a text-book a man ought to read and which will not be likely to 'pay'.
Peter Tait
#64. Progressing to where you can play a big role in football is nothing you can achieve in just two years. It will at least take five, six, well more likely seven years. A once-in-a-life-time success does not help you, constant quality is what you have to go for.
Berti Vogts
#65. Likely as not, the child you can do the least with will do the most to make you proud.
Mignon McLaughlin
#66. They do believe that if we do not wage this war against terror in places like Baghdad and Kabul, we are more likely to have it waged in Baltimore and Kansas.
Ed Gillespie
#67. The silencing of the Haitian Revolution is only a chapter within a narrative of global domination. It is part of the history of the West and it is likely to persist, even in attenuated form, as long as the history of the West is not retold in ways that bring forward the perspective of the world.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot
#68. Womanists is what black feminists used to call themselves. Very much so. They were not the same thing. And also the relationship with men. Historically, black women have always sheltered their men because they were out there, and they were the ones that were most likely to be killed.
Toni Morrison
#69. Death waits for us all. Nothing's forever. Life's about making the best of what you find along the way. A man who's not content with what he's got, well, more than likely he won't be content with what he hasn't.
Joe Abercrombie
#70. Unless social sciences can be as creative as natural science, our new tools are not likely to be of much use to us.
Edgar Douglas Adrian
#71. Keep your eye fixed not so much on what they [people] ought in reason to do, as on what they are likely to do based on their disposition and habits.
Francesco Guicciardini
#72. I go to church too, y'all. And I've heard it, too. And I want to say to all of our faith leaders out there that I understand that probably in my Baptist church in Maryland, it is not likely that there will be performed - in my church - gay marriages.
Donna Edwards
#73. The pain of losing is diverting. So is the thrill of winning. Winning, however, is lonelier, as those you've won money from are not likely to commiserate with you. Winning takes getting used to.
David Mamet
#74. Lennon was not very fond of me. Lennon didn't like to be around somebody else who was likely to be the center of attention and didn't like being on deck with somebody who was intellectually as hot as he was.
Peter Fonda
#75. Arthritic toothless people who love orgasms are more likely to reproduce than are limber, toothy people who do not.
Daniel M. Gilbert
#76. We expect to keep our writing sessions going until late spring, then to play some new material in a few secret club dates. The record will likely take a long time and may not surface until 1999!
Adrian Belew
#77. In the end the question is: Who is to be master, man or his machines? As long as the control over technology rests primarily on economic calculation, the victor is not likely to be man.
Robert Heilbroner
#78. We know broadly from research is that religiosity does not correlate with sympathy for terrorism. It's actually quite the opposite. The more religious someone is, the more often they go to the mosque, the more likely they are to actually reject attacks on civilians.
Chuck Todd
#79. Reading was not just an escape or a Band-Aid; it was a deep form of feeling seen and recognized, and being able to see and recognize other kindred spirits. My dad was a writer, too, which also likely had something to do with that.
Garth Risk Hallberg
#80. It seemed to them dreadfully dangerous to put it into words like that, for lately the things they didn't want to happen were the things that happened and the logic of this was that if you pretended not to want what you really wanted dreadfully you would be more likely to get it.
Elizabeth Goudge
#81. Neurophysiologists will not likely find what they are looking for, for that which they are looking for is that which is looking.
Keith Floyd
#82. Interest and proficiency in almost any one activity-swimming, boating, fishing, skiing, skating-breed interest in many more. Once someone discovers the delight of mastering one skill, however slightly, he is likely to try out not just one more, but a whole ensemble.
Margaret Mead
#83. We are in such a habit of evaluating God and His work in us by what we feel that it is very likely that on some occasions we will be discouraged because we do not feel any special blessing. Above everything, when you wait on God, you must do so in the spirit of hope.
Andrew Murray
#84. Ignoring your intuition telling you this person is not for you will likely lead to more time wasted and more disappointments along the way.
Stephan Labossiere
#85. I believe my high school book said I was most likely to become a candlestick maker. Guessing I didn't exactly exude confidence but just goes to show you that your path is yours to choose and make the best of and not for someone else to tell you what you can or cannot be.
Arlene Dickinson
#86. History is a continuum, which means that expecting radical changes to occur as we shift from one year to the next is more likely to leave you wanting than not.
Anonymous
#87. they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's.
Charles Dickens
#88. No perfect solution is, not merely in practice, but in principle, possible in human affairs, and any determined attempt to produce it is likely to lead to suffering, disillusionment and failure.
Isaiah Berlin
#89. Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.
Robert A. Heinlein
#90. Me? Robin Goodfellow, a family man? He, not likely, ice-boy. I mean, think of what that would do to my reputation." Glamour shimmered around him, and he gave us a wink. "Later, lovebirds. Gimme a heads up when the kid arrives. 'Uncle Puck' will be waiting.
Julie Kagawa
#91. It was not very likely, of course, but then all kinds of things are possible, after all.
Imre Kertesz
#92. Not to show them what is likely to excite their desires is the way to keep their minds from disorder.
Lao-Tzu
#93. Borromeo also organized partial quarantines, especially for women, whom he regarded not only as more likely to occasion sin but as the primary carriers of plague (because, he said, they talked so much and constantly visited each other's houses).
Andrew Graham-Dixon
#94. People who claw their way to the top are not likely to find very much wrong with the system that enabled them to rise.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
#95. Any new French female acquaintance would most likely have held herself aloof, eyeing you suspiciously until she had assessed your character and whether or not you posed a threat.
Catherine Sanderson
#96. A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.
Nicholas Meyer
#97. The concern in polling is to present the issue in the way it is likely to emerge in a campaign so the candidate has reasonably accurate information about how the public feels about the issue. The difficulty is that it is often not clear how an issue will emerge.
Jeffrey M. Stonecash
#98. Most of the conversations we are ever likely to have with people are the things we do not and cannot say
Srividya Srinivasan
#99. I think people in Europe are generally pessimistic about the future. They have low expectations; they're not working hard to change things. When you're a slacker with a pessimistic view of the future, you're likely to meet those expectations.
Peter Thiel
#100. Some men may be genetically inclined to have and hold a single partner, while some may not. In the near future, young women who stay current with the scientific literature may demand genetic tests of their boyfriends to assess how likely they are to make faithful husbands.
David Eagleman
