These unlikely quotes will motivate you. Unlikely, not likely: improbable an unlikely outcome or likely to fail: unpromising.
Below you will find a collection of inspiring, happy, and encouraging unlikely quotes, unlikely sayings, and unlikely proverbs.
Best Unlikely Quotes
- “The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.” ~ Roald Dahl
- “Courage is found in unlikely places.” ~ J. R. R. Tolkien
- “Success is the next best thing to happiness, and if you can’t be happy as a success, it’s very unlikely that you would find a deeper, truer happiness in failure.” ~ Michael Korda
- “Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.” ~ P. J. O’Rourke
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“Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you.” ~ Roald Dahl
- “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” ~ Roald Dahl
- “Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion.” ~ Scott Adams
- “It is extremely unlikely that anyone coming out of school with a technical degree will go into one area and stay there. Today’s students have to look forward to the excitement of probably having three or four careers.” ~ Gordon Moore
- “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” ~ Roald Dahl
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“A scientist is an unlikely character to put at the center of a movie.” ~ Bill Condon
- “To separate children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” ~ Earl Warren
- “But then there are magical, beautiful things in the world, and there’s incredible acts of kindness and bravery and in the most unlikely places, and it gives you hope.” ~ Dave Matthews
- “Figure skating is an unlikely Olympic event but its good television. It’s sort of a combination of gymnastics and ballet. A little sexy too which doesn’t hurt.” ~ Andy Rooney
- “Things that appear unlikely, impossible, or paradoxical from one point of view often make perfectly good sense from another.” ~ Hugh Nibley
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“The idea that you will make the right decision every time is very unlikely.” ~ Dan Ariely
- “Have you thought about His (God) handling of the gospel? God needs to get a message out to the human race, without which they will perish…foreve r. What’s the plan? First, He starts with the most unlikely group ever: a couple of prostitutes, a few fishermen with no better than a second-grade education, a tax collector. Then, he passes the ball to us. Unbelievable.” ~ John Eldredge
- “When someone is in your heart, they’re never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times.” ~ Mitch Albom
- “Be brave. Be open-minded. Be kind. Be forgiving. Be generous. Be optimistic. Be grateful for the many unexpected lessons you will learn. Find the joy inside the hardship. It’s there. I assure you. And, too, be open to inspiration from unlikely sources.” ~ Dana Reeve
- “People of dua are optimistic by definition. They know that dua and thoughts like ‘unlikely’ or ‘impossible’ don’t coexist.” ~ Nouman Ali Khan
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“Highly unlikely but not impossible.” ~ Suzanne Collins
- “Oil policy, policy toward the United States, policy toward Iran, Bahrain, Yemen, very unlikely, I think, to see significant change. These policies were the policies that had a wide family consensus. The question I think would be if the king becomes sick, whether you have weak Saudi leadership in the Arab world and the Middle East rather than strong Saudi leadership, but I think the fundamental policies will continue, the ones we’re familiar with under King Abdullah.” ~ Elliott Abrams
- “All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don’t regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.” ~ H. P. Lovecraft
- “Sarah, honey, I hardly think kidnappers are going to take the time to buy a memento of their stay. I could be wrong, but it seems rather unlikely.” ~ Christine Feehan
- “To read” actually comes from the Latin reri “to calculate, to think” which is not only the progenitor of “read” but of “reason” as well, both of which hail from the Greek arariskein “to fit.” Aside from giving us “reason,” arariskein also gives us an unlikely sibling, Latin arma meaning “weapons.” It seems that “to fit” the world or to make sense of it requires either reason or arms.” ~ Mark Z. Danielewski
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“You’re the queen, and it’s the queen’s house, and whatever Brigan may accomplish, he’s highly unlikely ever to be queen.” ~ Kristin Cashore
- “Meliorn?” said Clary. “I’ve met you, haven’t I? You used to go out with Isabelle Lightwood.” Meliorn was almost expressionless, but Clary could have sworn he looked ever so slightly uncomfortable. Luke shook his head. “Clary, Meliorn is a knight of the Seelie Court. It’s very unlikely that he – “ “He was totally dating Isabelle,” Simon said, “and she dumped him too. At least she said she was going to. Tough break, man.” ~ Cassandra Clare
- “Lawyers were notorious for finding cases in the most unlikely places, especially ones with huge potential damagers awards.” ~ Jodi Picoult
- “I’ve written poems about gifts. Life is inspirational; sometimes it comes from the most unlikely places.” ~ Ama Ata Aidoo
- “My eyes are bright, my hair has come loose from its ribbon, and Stella’s scarf is waving around my neck. But that’s not what I see when I look at the picture. I see three unlikely friends holding hands. And Ryan, Kenny, and Melanie are standing behind us, rapt. And in the sky above us, I see a miracle.” ~ Wendy Mass , Unlikely quotes friendship
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“Unlikely things are often true . . .” ~ Sheridan Hay
- “No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems unlikely that anyone will do so for many years.” ~ G. H. Hardy
- “The compulsion to do the opposite of what you are told does not lend itself to many occupations outside the entertainment industry. Within the industry, it is unlikely that you will be very successful without it.” ~ Greg Fitzsimmons
- “Will Herman Cain become the first black President that I acknowledge? I call him a dark horse because he’s an unlikely candidate who surged forward, and not because he’s a horse.” ~ Stephen Colbert
- “As long as the peace-makers are armed with assault rifles, it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever have peace.” ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman
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“For Obama to save himself, he should be thinking about the example of an unlikely Republican predecessor: Richard Nixon.” ~ John Podhoretz
- “We should always keep an open mind about any new phenomenon in nature. To merely say that’s impossible, therefore it doesn’t exist, is to commit a serious error. A much better approach would be to say That’s quite unlikely, but show me the evidence you have that says that it may be so. It would be the height of arrogance to think that man knows everything possible about the Universe or the Earth. There are many things yet to be discovered, and that is why we have scientific research (or any kind of research). That should be the rationalist’s approach to parapsychology and the occult.” ~ Gordon Stein
- “In reality the world is made of thousands of groups of about five hundred people, all of whom will spend their lives bumping into each other, trying to avoid each other, and discovering each other in the same unlikely teashop in Vancouver. There is an unavoidability to this process. It’s not even coincidence. It’s just the way the world works, with no regard for individuals or propriety.” ~ Neil Gaiman
- “Mark Twain was so good with crowds that he became, in competition with singers and dancers and actors and acrobats, one of the most popular performers of his time. It is so unusual, and so psychologically unlikely, too, for a great writer to be a great performer, too.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut
- “It’s very unlikely that a writer is going to make a living by writing. So then the question is: how do you balance work, life, and writing? If you find out, please tell me.” ~ Kelly Link
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“You can never be absolutely certain that anything doesn’t exist. But you can show that it’s unlikely.” ~ Richard Dawkins
- “It is unlikely that someone could proclaim “truths” that are counter to physical laws for very long (for example, that it is healthy for children to run around in bathing suits in winter and in fur coats in summer) without appearing ridiculous. But it is perfectly normal to speak of the necessity of striking and humiliating children and robbing them of their autonomy, at the same time using such high-sounding words as chastising, upbringing, and guiding onto the right path.” ~ Alice Miller
- “Ah. My story. Are you certain you wish to hear it? It is long, unlikely, and remarkably unedifying — shameful, even, to come from a minister’s lips. Blasphemous, too, properly regarded.” ~ Peter S. Beagle
- “The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle’s formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were now transposed to the sphere of work, while tasks lacking in any financial reward were drained of all significance and left to the haphazard attentions of decadent dilettantes. It now seemed as impossible that one could be happy and unproductive as it had once seemed unlikely that one could work and be human.” ~ Alain de Botton
- “Convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial, and not an inquisitorial, system – a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured, and may not, by coercion, prove its charges against an accused out of his own mouth.” ~ Felix Frankfurter
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“Where religion is trivialized, one is unlikely to find persecution.” ~ Charles Krauthammer
- “You know why men make more money than women? Because, in the unlikely event that we’re both on the Titanic and it starts to sink, for some reason, you get to leave with the kids and I have
to stay – that’s why I get the dollar more an hour.” ~ Bill Burr - “Women believe — or at least often pretend to believe — that all our tenderness for them springs from desire; that we love them when we have not for a time enjoyed them, and dismiss them when we are sated, or to express it more precisely, exhausted. There is no truth in this idea, though it may be made to appear true. When we are rigid with desire, we are apt to pretend a great tenderness in the hope of satisfying that desire; but at no other time are we in fact so liable to treat women brutally, and so unlikely to feel any deep emotion but one.” ~ Gene Wolfe , Unlikely quotes love
- “The whole secret to our success is being able to con ourselves into believing that we’re going to change the world because statistically, we are unlikely to do it.” ~ Tom Peters
- “Both in Britain and America, huge publicity has been given to stem cells, particularly embryonic stem cells, and the potential they offer. Of course, the study of stem cells is one of the most exciting areas in biology, but I think it is unlikely that embryonic stem cells are likely to be useful in healthcare for a long time.” ~ Robert Winston
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“Indeed, without emotion, it seems unlikely we can even have morality.” ~ Julian Baggini
- “And what could be a hotter ticket than the improbable triumph of ‘The Book of Mormon,’ the musical-comedy moon shot of the season? Its creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, of Comedy Central’s ‘South Park,’ are the most unlikely Rodgers and Hammerstein team ever to bowl a thundering strike.” ~ James Wolcott
- “The recent market run-up that appreciated run-of-the-mill shares also chanced to send up those token gold holdings. Pure luck, undeserved, and unlikely to reoccur. Good questions outrank easy answers.” ~ Paul Samuelson
- “It is not unlikely, too, that the rejection of God is a kind of punishment: we may well believe that those who knew the Gods and neglected them in one life may in another life be deprived of the knowledge of them altogether. Also, those who have worshipped their own kings as gods have deserved as their punishment to lose all knowledge of God.” ~ Sallust
- “My homeland of Belarus is an unlikely place for an Internet revolution. The country, controlled by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, was once described by Condoleezza Rice as ‘the last outpost of tyranny in Europe.'” ~ Evgeny Morozov
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“I sometimes find reality far more fantastical and unlikely than what I could just make up.” ~ J. Michael Straczynski
- “But most critically, sweet, never try to change the narrative structure of someone else’s story, though you will certainly be tempted to, as you watch those poor souls in school, in life, heading unwittingly down dangerous tangents, fatal digressions from which they will unlikely be able to emerge. Resist the temptation. Spend your energies on your story. Reworking it. Making it better.” ~ Marisha Pessl
- “She might even be your lovely schoolteacher who is reading these words to you at this very moment. Look carefully at that teacher. Perhaps she is smiling at the absurdity of such a suggestion. Don’t let that put you off. It could be part of cleverness. I am not, of course, telling you for one second that your teacher actually is a witch. All I am saying is that she might be one. It is most unlikely. But–here comes the big “but”–not impossible.” ~ Roald Dahl
- “I still think, despite everything, that the US is very unlikely to attack Iran. It could be a huge catastrophe; nobody knows what the consequences would be. I imagine that only an administration that’s really desperate would resort to that.” ~ Noam Chomsky
- “Free open-source software, by its nature, is unlikely to feature secret back doors that lead directly to Langley, Va.” ~ Evgeny Morozov
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“Because I’m short and slim, I can identify with somebody who’s an unlikely fit for something and desperately wants to be part of it.” ~ Daniel Radcliffe
- “If all you’re trying to do is essentially the same thing as your rivals, then it’s unlikely that you’ll be very successful.” ~ Michael Porter
- “Like every writer, I’m drawn by unlikely juxtapositions, precisely-dated and once-only collisions between people from different worlds.” ~ Hilary Mantel
- “I think it’s extremely unlikely that the European Union will fracture with nations dropping off the edge.” ~ John Major
- “If you’re a person with resources who is LGBT, you may have some problems with that – but, frankly, you’ll probably have an apartment. If you’re poor, if you’re transgender, if you’re a person of color, if you’re HIV positive and you’re homeless, the ability to act on desire, the ability to be safely somewhere to make love with anybody that you want to make love with is unlikely.” ~ Amber Hollibaugh
- “My wife, Amanda, is terribly good at warping reality. She is like a bowling ball on a rubber sheet, and you find yourself living in her universe, doing things that are completely unexpected or unimaginable for you, but you blink and you’re up on a stage singing, or wearing a peculiar wig, or writing a book filled with feelings and emotion, or doing something equally as unlikely.” ~ Neil Gaiman
