George Santayana Quotes

If we define a miracle as an effect of which the cause is unknown to us, then we make our ignorance the source of miracles! And the universe itself would be a standing miracle. A miracle might be perhaps defined more exactly as an effect which is not the consequence or effect of any known laws of nature.

‎Faith, if it is ever right about anything, is right by accident

It's just such a great miracle when things do work, and they work for such a wild variety of crazy reasons.

A very small cause which escapes our notice determines a considerable effect that we cannot fail to see, and then we say that the effect is due to chance.

Miracles seldom occur in the lives of those who do not consider them possible.

Sometimes miracles come in pairs.

It's hard to believe in coincidence, but it's even harder to believe in anything else.

You never know why something works or doesn't.

Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.

I have never met a vampire personally, but I don't know what might happen tomorrow.

I think it's an interesting thing to me, because we have this desire for everything to be explained to us. But if you go through your daily actions, very little ends up having a written-down explanation for why things happen, or why people do specific things.

Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.

The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent.

It is such a complex matter we live within, it is impossible to track logic and decision making really, so therefore each choice can actually only be seen as coincidence.

In everything finite there are accidental elements.

Complex, statistically improbable things are by their nature more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable things.

You can't really explain why things happen.

Chance is the fool's name for Fate

Fate occasionally touches us all in ways we don't always understand.

Life was a swarm of accidents waiting in the treetops, descending upon any living thing that passed, ready to eat them alive. You swam in a river of chance and coincidence. You clung to the happiest accidents- the rest you let float by.

Miracles happen on Christmas, Pat. Everybody knows that.

Miracles are God's coups d'etat.

But something, somehow, had made all these paths converge. You couldn't find it on a checklist, or work it into the equation. It just happened.

I think there are strands in all of our lives that can be seen if we step back to recognize them. Coincidence is probably as close as I'll get to having spirituality. I do see patterns in my life sometimes, and I am thrilled by what I see. I don't think I'm going to have any further shot at it after death, and I don't think there's anybody upstairs orchestrating it for me, but I do think it happens. If there are miracles in my life, they are rooted in the fact of coincidence.