Despite Quotations

There is a group of entrepreneurs pushing the envelope, government officials that are making significant changes despite the odds, and visionary writers, academics, and colleagues whose work confirms, amplifies, and stretches my own thinking.

The chance of any species reaching and then surviving on an island as distant as one of the Hawaiian chain is infinitesimal, but despite the extraordinary odds, plants and seeds found their way ashore, carried by the tide or blown by trade winds, inside birds or in their feathers, in the branches of trees and in the jetsam of sunken ships.

But despite historic levels of obstruction, President Obama was able to bring the economy back from the verge of a second Great Depression.

There are reasons to go on living despite what horrors may come in your life. And love informs those reasons.

Despite everything, I have few regrets. I have crammed a lot of living into my time.

There was no actual person who was James Bond, despite all the books.

I used to be very fascinated by Victorian stuff, and my best-known books, the 'Mortal Engines' series, have a sort of retro, Victorian vibe, despite being set in the far future.

New York musicians rarely have the time for idle chat and conversation after a gig. Despite popular assumption of our scintillating after-hours, that illusion is overtaken by the constant hustle to juggle a part-time or full-time job, a myriad of errands, a second or third gig of the day, and perhaps a child or two somewhere.

Everything from airplanes to kitchen blenders and even chopsticks comes with an instruction manual. Children, despite all their complexity, do not.

Despite the increasingly presidential style of political leadership in our country, teamwork is essential.

Despite what they tell you, there are simply no moral absolutes in a complex world.

Despite its many critics, hydraulic fracturing will change the nature of energy production.

I was 21 and had been going out with my boyfriend for two years when I found out I was pregnant - despite being told by doctors that I was sterile. Jamie's father and I hadn't discussed marriage, and to me, it wasn't something to be entered into just to stop gossip.

The inner me was always under attack by authority, by the way my parents wanted me to be brought up, by these English schools I went to. So I've always felt this kind of anti-authoritarian strain in me, pushing to express itself despite the obstacles.

Another thing: despite my youthful appearance, I am quite capable of making decisions.

It's hard to find good teamwork in practice, and I have never thought that we, as a party, were any better at working as a team than the Tories, despite our core values.

October of 2011, Occupy protestors descended upon McPherson Square, and they decided to stay. Despite the clear language of the law, these protestors camped at McPherson Square with the definition of camping being sleeping or preparing to sleep.

Despite the hundreds of non-governmental organizations and the continued outpouring of foreign aid, East Africa remains as a region overwhelmed by extreme poverty.

After costs, only the top 3% of managers produce a return that indicates they have sufficient skill to just cover their costs, which means that going forward, and despite extraordinary past returns, even the top performers are expected to be only as good as a low-cost passive index fund. The other 97% can be expected to do worse.

Hiring's tough. It's not just filtering through hundreds of applications and blocking out big chunks of your day for interviews - those are the simple parts. The difficult thing is the nagging feeling that, despite your best efforts, the perfect candidate will somehow fall through the cracks.

I think Bush has a very selfish, arrogant point of view. I think he is interested in power, I think he believes his truth is the only truth, and that he will do what he wants to do despite the people.

Yes, my fellow citizens, despite what the original Constitution of the United States says about the qualifications for statehood and the guarantee of representation in Congress, by every measure that truly matters in America (bigness, crowdedness, awesomeness, Texasness), Nebraska doesn't deserve its star on the American flag.

When I began working in Yahoo, my family moved with me. Despite our efforts, our kids wanted to study in Los Angeles, and I was forced to see my family and friends only on weekends. In the beginning I even enjoyed it, but knew that at some stage I'd want to go back home.

Despite my involvement in difficult and sometimes controversial questions I have received consistent support from the people of Ashfield. They have recognised that it is necessary to take difficult decisions, that newspapers do not always report fairly or accurately.

We live increasingly in a world of haves and have-nots, of gated communities next to ghettos, of extreme poverty and unbelievable riches. Some enjoy rights that are completely denied to others. Relative inequalities are exploding, and the world's poorest, despite all the advances of globalisation, may even be getting poorer.

Despite all the drawbacks, the Internet provides a wide array of information - and some of it is being watched pretty carefully by the pros.

The typical response from people when I tell them I'm diabetic is, 'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.' You know, I'm not. I'm a better athlete because of diabetes rather than despite it. I'm more aware of my training, my fitness and more aware of nutrition. I'm more proactive about my health.

Despite 'Mod Squad's hit status, I never really made the inner connection that I was contributing.

Basically, radio hasn't changed over the years. Despite all the technical improvements, it still boils down to a man or a woman and a microphone, playing music, sharing stories, talking about issues - communicating with an audience.

Gail didn't want me commenting on the opinion pages. I was hired by the news department and, despite the rabid assertions of the Times' enemies and detractors, the two really have nothing to do with each other.

On the other hand, now that I'm not dependent on fiction for my income, I've been writing more short stories despite the fact that there's no real paying market for short horror other than Cemetery Dance.

The number of attacks on the American and allied forces is at the highest level since the insurgency began despite the increase of America combat operations and the introduction of some 40 new Iraq security forces and battalions.

Let's stop pretending we can arrest our way to safety and security. Despite all the fine work that policemen and women do, we have got to find other solutions to deter crime.

I am very puzzled by the fact that young people are getting infected again. They don't take precautions despite an enormous amount of information. It's like riding a race car at 200 kilometers an hour. Some people like the risk.

Spanish children are too often ill-cared for, but despite the abuses of ignorant motherhood and fatherhood, such vivid, vivacious, bewitching little people as they are!

Despite the situation in Cuba, I had a chance to play on the national team; and compared to other baseball players and other people in Cuba, I had the opportunity to live at a level that was not very high class but in the middle.

Despite being in public life, I value my own privacy immensely and would be as concerned as anyone else if I thought my mobile phone records could be easily available to officials across government.

I love to see heroes who fuel some kind of moral furnace inside them, who are driven to take on the evils of the world, despite the fact that the evils of the world are more powerful than them. And essentially can never be defeated, but they refuse to bow down. And in order to enjoy that aspect of the hero, you've got to put them through hell.

As human beings, we aren't as individual as we'd like to believe we are. And I think that's what makes acting possible. Despite the fact that I have not experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it and to put myself in someone else's shoes, and to take someone else's circumstances personally.

Despite the barrage of information about me that is publicly available, I live a surprisingly private and anonymous life.

Democracy, despite its limitations, is in the end the only way to ensure that policies do not simply benefit the privileged few.

Despite what I do for a living, I am very insecure about my body.

Despite the fact that one in every two men and one in every three women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, no one ever expects it to happen to them. I surely didn't. I was an otherwise healthy 37-year-old when I was diagnosed in 1996 with multiple myeloma, the same rare cancer Tom Brokaw has.

But despite this breathtaking pace, I believe in the capacity of our democracy to meet these challenges.

More than we sleep, play, or make love, we work. Yet despite - or perhaps because of - this dominant daily grind, much of our literature is biased toward other pursuits.

Despite (or because of) a free public school system, millions of teenagers enter the work force without marketable skills. So why would anyone expect them to be well paid?

The first 'Polly and the Pirates' is about a prim and proper girl who gets kidnapped out of her comfy boarding school by a bunch of pirates that think she's the daughter of their long lost queen. In the course of the adventure, she discovers she has a natural penchant for swashbuckling, despite her sheltered childhood.

I would say I was still a Marxist - which is not to be confused with being a Communist. Despite its flaws, Marxism still seems to explain the material world better than anything else.

There has been an awful lot of time and money spent looking at the president over the last four years The American people saw through those investigations. They voted for the president. And despite all of this time and attention, nothing has turned up because the president and the first lady did nothing wrong.

Despite what some would have us believe, success is not built on resentment and fear.

Over the last 10 years a huge amount has been achieved in getting people into work. Measures such as the New Deal, tax credits, the minimum wage and improved childcare have brought about record numbers of people in work, a number that is still rising despite the global economic slowdown.

There must be something in the water in Minnesota because historically, despite its seemingly homogeneous population, the state has produced some of our more radical political thinkers, and its people have put their prejudices aside to vote for them.

Science is not, despite how it is often portrayed, about absolute truths. It is about developing an understanding of the world, making predictions, and then testing these predictions.

Despite all of our technological advances, content creation still requires time, inspiration, and a certain amount of sweat. There aren't any shortcuts. You can't write an algorithm for it. You can't predict it. You can't code it.

Stories are the common ground that allow people to connect, despite all our defences and all our differences.

The other side of it is that, despite all that, people reach out to poetry at the key moments in their lives.

I must thank my good friend Nigel Brennan. His strength of character in the midst of extreme hardship inspired me during the darkest days. Despite our separation, he always managed to find small ways to remind me that there are gentlemen in the world, even when I was surrounded by just the opposite.

Just after graduation in 1966, like many of my contemporaries, I applied for research training at the National Institutes of Health. Perhaps because his wife was a poet, Ira Pastan agreed to take me into his laboratory, despite my lack of scientific credentials.

She seems to be having a pretty good time despite her worrying. That's Lily.

Despite the absurdity and the silliness and the triviality of the entire campaign experience, there is also something, as non-cynical as this sounds, kind of uplifting and strange about watching democracy unfold.

Despite the painful changes we have had to make, we continue to believe in the St. Louis market. And we are hoping to add flights, in a careful way, as the economics of our business improve and the demands of the traveling public in St. Louis become clear.

Women are completely disadvantaged - despite what men will say. It is not a fair fight.

Despite spending trillions of dollars and spilling the blood of thousands of Americans, we remain in servitude to Arab oil.

As a newspaper reporter, I covered and was around a fair number of crime scenes involving juvenile delinquents, and few things bothered me more than listening to their parents. Crying, ranting, proclaiming how great their children were despite being kicked out of school or previous run-ins with the law.

In campaign reporting more than any other kind of press coverage, reporters aren't just covering a story, they're a part of it - influencing outcomes, setting expectations, framing candidates - and despite what they tell themselves, it's impossible to both be a part of the action and report on it objectively.

Despite what you hear about the publishing industry being a fixed game that you can only get in if you know somebody, I'm here in person to tell you it ain't so. If your stuff is really any good, sooner or later some editor will take a chance on you.

In the summer of 2009, in the wake of a crisis in her life, my mother moved from San Diego to San Francisco to live with my 16-year-old daughter and me. My mother was 77. I was 51. Despite a chorus of skepticism from friends - who knew about my upbringing - I was determined to do what I could to help my mother.

I have never written a book about my life, despite being offered purses of gold. I made 'Boxes' because I wanted to make a sincere depiction of a daughter who has lost her father, or the jealousy one can feel towards a daughter who has become more beautiful than you and whose stepfather starts to take her shopping.

I see success as bringing some confidence back to the American people that despite our differences, we can find some ways to move forward.

My life has shifted to different levels financially, in terms of fame as a result of being blessed enough to be able to share my music with the world, and what that has done for me. Despite all of that, I always want people to listen to my music and be able to relate to it as well as to me.

You have tremendous flexibility in defining both the greater good and the greater community. If you don't succeed in this, then you will continue to pull that heavy wagon up the mountain, and despite the fact that you are pulling it, it will somehow run over your own foot.

I loved Internet businesses, having built and sold one. And I loved the financial business, despite the fact that it was almost all a scam.

We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless.

I think of myself as unconventional, I guess. I maybe always had a problem with authority, like a stubbornness about what's expected - despite wanting to get some recognition through performing - but also not always wanting to do the expected thing.

As a parent, it's my responsibility to equip my child to do this - to grieve when grief is necessary and to realize that life is still profoundly beautiful and worth living despite the fact that we inevitably lose one another and that life ends, and we don't know what happens after death.

I think that having a job in journalism, despite all of the changes, is still a fantastic way to be - make a living observing your society and having a chance to use your voice.

For me, breastfeeding was even more painful than giving birth. And despite a lactation consultant, I felt incompetent. I forged on, barely sleeping, always either breastfeeding or pumping and never getting the hang of it.

I love 'Titanic' and the idea that you're kind of rooting for Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to survive despite the fact that you know that they're not going to.

Amazon webhosting dropped Wikileaks as a customer after receiving a complaint from U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, despite the fact that Wikileaks had not been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime.

Despite his NFL pedigree, Clay Matthews had to fight every step of the way to get to the NFL. Once there, he's had a unique appreciation of what it took to succeed.

Despite its flaws, Marxism still seems to explain the material world better than anything else.

Despite recent speculation in the media, and after difficult but sincere consideration, I have decided not to direct 'Catching Fire.' As a writer and a director, I simply don't have the time I need to write and prep the movie I would have wanted to make, because of the fixed and tight production schedule.

Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb towards it.

Despite their lack of visual impact, headline sex-appeal, and their 'out of sight, out of mind' nature, we should all care about aquatic dead zones because we are all connected to their causes and we all feel their impacts.

I think we are faced in medicine with the reality that we have to be willing to talk about our failures and think hard about them, even despite the malpractice system. I mean, there are things that we can do to make that system better.

Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people.

Despite my express wish, I was not left in Chicago, but taken to Paris to live, and I did not see my father for many years. But we never stopped loving each other, and in 1940 he died in my arms in Hollywood, where he had come to be near me at the end.

The Conservatives are a confusing lot. They first denied climate change was a serious issue and then suggested strengthening the nuclear industry as a solution to it. They oppose the European Union, but support joining North American Free Trade Agreement, despite its obvious failure.

What Americans can't face is that one of the reasons that the Russians and the Chinese were so impressed with us during the Cold War was the fact that Nixon and Kissinger went on bombing despite public reaction.

The fact is that racism, despite all the doomsayers, has diminished

In the family, in interpersonal relationships, even in friendship, faith is tremendously important. If you have a partner who you believe is a good person, then it is your duty to have faith in them until the end, despite the fact that they might have done some bad things. And you have to support and believe in your children.

Long before folks fretted the demise of 'quantitative easing,' I fretted its existence. It proved the reverse of its image, an antistimulus, and we've done okay not because of it, but despite it.

I'm aware that the World Cup is probably the greatest spectacle in the world of sport, and that's despite the referees that have been found to have fixed games specifically.

Despite global economic concerns, other nations are continuing to push forward and invest in their space capabilities. A U.S. withdrawal from the industry will only allow others to surge in their own capabilities, potentially impacting our national security and technology competitiveness in the future.

Of all the writers I have read, Vladimir Nabokov has made the biggest impression on me because he, despite living through the 1917 February Revolution, forced exile amidst the anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, the two World Wars and quite a lot of controversy, was an author who never gave up.

Despite this lamentable lack of balance in our education I do not believe that either children or adults in my country are permeated by a widespread hostility to Germany.

I support anyone finding their worth despite being told they can't do something.

In some ways, risk-taking is the ultimate act of self-indulgence, an obscene insult to the preciousness of life. And yet, how can one dismiss something that persists despite every reasonable theory that it shouldn't?

Despite the successes, you remember the failures - rather lovingly.

Despite constant vilifying by the media and congressional threats to take away the tools needed to uncover plots, FBI agents and CIA officers work silently around the clock and risk their own lives to keep us safe.