Quotes on Odds

Growing up, people will tell you that you have a better chance to become an astronaut than becoming an NBA player. So when you finally get to the NBA, you've beat the odds. So when you put on that jersey, everything else is downhill.

We don't want to tell young girls and boys that the odds are stacked against them from the start. Instead, we could tell them that with passion, conviction, and determination we can build a better future. This future is possible by redesigning our economy to truly reward hard work rather than wealth.

It feels like we have two threads running through our lives: one pulling us into the world to achieve, the other pulling us back to replenish us. These threads can seem at odds, but really, they enforce each other. It's not a trade-off between success and sleep.

I'm not at all interested in the brave who fight against the odds and win. I am interested in those who accept their lot, as that is what many people in the world are doing. They do their best in ghastly conditions.

What kills a person at twenty-five? Leukemia. An accident. But George knows the better odds are that someone who passes at that age dies of unhappiness. Drug overdose. Suicide. Reckless behavior.

There is just this for consolation: an hour here or there, when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined , though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything, for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so.

Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds... is not productive.

Life is a gamble, at terrible odds - if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.

And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.

Abhyasa (practice) is a dedicated, unswerving, constant, and vigilant search into a chosen subject pursued against all odds in the face of repeated failures, for indefinitely long periods of time.

Take a look at me now, cause there's just an empty space. And you coming back to me is against all odds and that's what I've got to face.

Great determination can overcome most odds.

America is an unlikely place - a country built on defiance of the odds; on a belief in the impossible. And I remind you of this because as you set out to live your own stories of success and achievement, it's now your turn to help keep it this way.

Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.

It is better to be at odds with the whole world than, being one, to be at odds with myself.

I think all of us certainly believed the statistics which said that probably 88% chance of mission success and maybe 96% chance of survival. And we were willing to take those odds.

GLOUCESTER: I do not know that Englishman alive With whom my soul is any jot at odds, More than the infant that is born to-night: I thank my God for my humility.

Startup CEOs should not play the odds. When you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it. You just have to find it. It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same.

You need to be uncomfortable and apprehensive: True strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success.

Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.

For a dying man it is not a difficult decision [to agree to become the world's first heart transplant] ... because he knows he is at the end. If a lion chases you to the bank of a river filled with crocodiles, you will leap into the water convinced you have a chance to swim to the other side. But you would not accept such odds if there were no lion.