Sunday, October 4, 2020 – Caught By Surprise
The most important American addition to the World Experience was the simple surprising fact of America. We have helped prepare mankind for all its later surprises. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin
Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us. ~ Boris Pasternak
Life is full of surprises, but never when you need one. ~ Bill Watterson
Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him. ~ Charles De Gaulle
Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy if possible. ~ Stonewall Jackson
Whoever can surprise well must conquer. ~ John Paul Jones
Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment – that which they cannot anticipate. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Ignorance makes for weakness and fear; knowledge gives strength and confidence. Nothing surprises an intellect that knows all things with a sense of discrimination. ~ Magdeleine Sable, Maximes et pensées diverses, 1678
There can never be surprises in logic. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein
Go and surprise the whole country by doing something right. ~ Mark Twain
There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare. ~ Mary Renault
Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought. ~ Dwight Morrow
People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned. ~ James Baldwin
There are two kinds of taste, the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition. ~ William James
When a torrent sweeps a man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a theory. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. ~ Thomas Hardy
There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing. ~ Josh Billings
People never know what they want, though everyone says they do. If they did, nobody would ever be surprised. ~ J. J. Abrams
People are surprised to find out that an awful lot of people think that they’re idiots. ~ Eric Schmidt
One of the surprising things in this world is the respect a worthless man has for himself. ~ E. W. Howe
Are you going to answer my questions, or do I have to whack you with a stick until delicious candy surprises fall out? ~ Molly Harper, Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs
The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good. ~ Luc de Clapiers
Hopelessness has surprised me with patience. ~ Margaret J. Wheatley
At the moment of death I hope to be surprised. ~ Ivan Illich
The future is bound to surprise us, but we don’t have to be dumbfounded. ~ Kenneth Boulding
One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the unexpected should have been expected. ~ Norman Ralph Augustine
Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often. ~ Mae West
I try not to be surprised. Surprise is the public face of a mind that has been closed. ~ Bernard Beckett
I don’t know how to defend myself. Surprised innocence cannot imagine being under suspicion. ~ Pierre Corneille
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience? ~ George Bernard Shaw
Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. ~ Jane Austen
I am often surprised by the cleverness, and now and again by the stupidity of my dog; and I have similar experiences with mankind. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise. ~ Alice Walker
When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were. ~ John F. Kennedy
Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sometimes the mind, for reasons we don’t necessarily understand, just decides to go to the store for a quart of milk. ~ Andrew Schneider
Beauty ought to look a little surprised: it is the emotion that best suits her face. The beauty who does not look surprised, who accepts her position as her due -f she reminds us too much of a prima donna. ~ E. M. Forster
You’d be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap! ~ Dolly Parton
Charm is a product of the unexpected. ~ Jose Marti
We are constantly being surprised that people did things well before we were born. ~ Robert Benchley
Behind every successful man is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. ~ Albert Camus
The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition. ~ W. H. Auden
There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men. ~ John Locke
A Scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens. ~ Sir Robert Baden-Powell
I doubt whether the world holds for any one a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice-cream. ~ Heywood Broun
What a surprise to find you could shift the contents of your head like rearranging furniture in a room. ~ Lisa Alther
Statistically, the probability of any of us being here is so small that you’d think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in contented dazzlement of surprise. ~ Lewis Thomas
Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. ~ Samuel Johnson
The man who said, “Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed,” put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth “Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised.” The man who expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see, and greener grass, and a more startling sun. Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall possess the cities and the mountains; blessed is the meek, for he shall inhereit the earth. Until we realize that things might not be we cannot realize that things are. ~ G. K. Chesterton
Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion. ~ Florence Nightingale
Just Above Sunset 