Quotes About Opportunity

Schools, the institutions traditionally called upon to correct social inequality, are unsuited to the task; without economic opportunity to follow educational opportunity, the myth of equality can never become real. Far more than a hollow promise of future opportunity for their children, parents need jobs, income, and services. And children whose backgrounds have stunted their sense of the future need to be taught by example that they are good for more than they dared dream.

The time to prepare isn't after you have been given the opportunity. It's long before that opportunity arises. Once the opportunity arrives, it's too late to prepare.

Opportunity could be defined in so many ways. There's one way of defining it, equality of opportunity, which is in fact the equality of capability, but the libertarians got there first and they have - like the Americans getting onto the moon, naming every crater after something like an astronaut - they have got there and named "opportunity" in a way that we cannot get ownership of now.

Opportunity is latent in the very foundation of human society. Opportunity is everywhere about us. But the preparation to seize upon the opportunity, and to make the most of it, is to be made by every one for himself ... he will be self-made or never made.

I am convinced that all this poverty in Mexico and in Latin America, like it's happening in China is the opportunity to grow. It's an opportunity for investment; it's an economic activity and to take out poverty is the best investment any person or a person can do in any place.

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on opportunity's door if you ardently wish to enter.

Vision involves optimism and hope. The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. The pessimist tends to hold back people of vision from pushing ahead.

Sure, you can choose the safety and predictability of the cage, forfeiting the adventure God has destined for you. But you won't be the only one missing out or losing out. When you lack the courage to chase the Wild Goose, the opportunity costs are staggering. Who might not hear about the love of God if you don't seize the opportunity to tell them? Who might be stuck in poverty, stuck in ignorance, stuck in pain if you're not there to help free them? Where might the advance of God's kingdom in the world stall out because you weren't there on the front lines?

The only real security is in having lots of opportunity. But risk is the price to pay for opportunity. And risk is scary.

Whenever there is fear, there is opportunity. When there is great fear, there is great opportunity.

I don't think actors should ever expect to get a role, because the disappointment is too great. You've got to think of things as an opportunity. An audition's an opportunity to have an audience.

I think when you embrace celibacy other elements of the relationship have to come forth. There isn't an opportunity for you to be blinded by your sexual desires there is an opportunity to see things more clearly.

Some say opportunity knocks only once, that is not true. Opportunity knocks all the time, but you have to be ready for it. If the chance comes, you must have the equipment to take advantage of it.

I appreciate it if I make a Chinese film. And if there is an opportunity to make a Hollywood film, I will take it - especially because, as you probably know, in Hollywood, even today, there are not a lot of big roles for Asian performers. So it is a great opportunity. It is possible to make films that people everywhere enjoy. I travel quite a lot. I don't really feel like when I am in China, I am a Chinese person and when I'm here, I'm a foreigner. I don't feel that kind of difference anymore. In the past I did. Not anymore. I feel quite at home everywhere. The whole world is my home.

If you've got the platform and the ability to make a difference, then this goes beyond 'should' and reaches the level of 'must.' You must make a difference or you squander the opportunity. Wasting the opportunity both degrades your own ability to contribute and, more urgently, takes something away from the rest of us.

When I came into boxing, when it was more out of control, no fighters got an opportunity to fight. I came in: everybody got an opportunity to make a living in America.

We have this myth that if you work hard, you can accomplish anything. It's not a very American thing to say, but I don't think that's true. It's true for a lot of people, but you need other things to succeed. You need luck, you need opportunity, and you need the life skills to recognize what an opportunity is.

I think TV is still, out of every medium, the one that really offers simple easy enjoyment. You've got lots of choice, you've got the opportunity to be entertained or informed on your own or you've got the opportunity to enjoy and experience programming together. It really probably is, I still think, the most emotionally engaging and bonding medium that exists.

When the opportunity to choreograph came up, it was nothing more in my head but an opportunity. Then it suddenly became a career very quickly.

I don't feel any vulgar gratitude to you[for helping me]. I almost feel as if You ought to be grateful to ME, for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity. . . I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a benefactor to you, by giving you an opportunity of assisting me.

I had an unbelievable opportunity here to try and follow in similar footsteps [of Michael Jordan], but in a different capacity hopefully. I took that opportunity and I'm excited about it.

Whenever an opportunity comes your way, challenge yourself to first thank God and then quickly follow up with the question, “God, who else is supposed to be blessed by this connection or opportunity?

Human enhancement is now being driven by military imperatives, at least in the US, because civilian society is more conservative in its approach. It’s a missed opportunity for a society-wide push to understand and reduce our need to power the brain down for hours every day. Every hour we sleep is an hour we are not working, finding mates, or teaching our children; if sleep does not have a vital adaptive function to pay for its staggering opportunity cost, it could be ‘the greatest mistake the evolutionary process ever made’.

There’s nothing in the world worse than having an opportunity that you’re not prepared for. Good luck usually follows the collision of opportunity and preparation - it’s a result of that collision. You’ve got to be prepared. So, make your mistakes now and make them quickly. If you’ve made the mistakes, you know what to expect the next time. That’s how you become valuable.

The symbol in Chinese for crisis is made up of two ideographs: one means danger, the other means opportunity. This symbol is a reminder that we can choose to turn a crisis into an opportunity or into a negative experience.

Any opportunity to be helpful is an opportunity to earn money.

Growing up in India, I knew all I needed to change the world was one good opportunity, and I prepared myself for it. When that opportunity came - in the form of the chance to earn an engineering degree - I was ready.

It seems a bit unfair to my relatives to be murdered in order to provide an opportunity for free will for Germans, but even putting that aside, how does free will account for cancer? Is it an opportunity of free will for tumors?

Sadly, [Pablo Escobar] ended up throwing away the one opportunity he had. I naively thought, as a son and as many other Colombians, that he would take this opportunity to make amends with the country.

Finding a single investment that will return 20% per year for 40 years tends to happen only in dreamland. In the real world, you uncover an opportunity, and then you compare other opportunities with that. And you only invest in the most attractive opportunities. That's your opportunity cost. That's what you learn in freshman economics. The game hasn't changed at all. That's why Modern Portfolio Theory is so asinine.

What so many actors are chasing after is an opportunity to evolve and dive into roles that present unique challenges and give you an opportunity to dig your teeth into something unknown, and therefore risky and exciting.

We have thousands of opportunities every day to be grateful: for having good weather, to have slept well last night, to be able to get up, to be healthy, to have enough to eat. ... There's opportunity upon opportunity to be grateful; that's what life is.

Some cynical people may see that the only reason I'm doing something more mainstream is part of a strategy to become more successful but I just see it as a bonus. It just happened... that's the way it is and there's an opportunity there and we're going to take advantage of it. I'd rather if I'm going to be working as hard as I've been working for the last two years - non-stop, solid, no personal life, no break - then I want what I've been working on to be as successful as possible. And I will take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way.

Fairness is not the end result, it's the opportunity. And everybody in America today has the opportunity to get ahead.

The Israel legendary foreign minister, Abba Eban, used to say that the Palestinians had never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

To young men who are looking for an opportunity and who complain there is no opening for them, permit me to say this: 'Go where the poor and the under-privileged are. They will be glad to hear you. When you have learned to bless them, others will be calling for your services. Don't wait for opportunity to come walking up to you. Go to meet it.'

And innovation and entrepreneurship is the opportunity and best opportunity we have to grow the economy.

I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon - if I can. I seek opportunity - not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed... It is my heritage...to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done.

If we attempt to preserve the consumer economy indefinitely, ecological forces will dismantle it savagely. If we proceed to dismantle it gradually ourselves, we will have the opportunity of replacing it with a low consumption economy that can endure.

The more complex and overwhelming the threat to a protagonist, the better the opportunity for the author to create a compelling conflict and a dramatic resolution.

In Britain, like most of the developed world, stem-cell research is regarded as a great opportunity. America will be left behind if it doesn't change policy.

View the problem as an opportunity to grow.

Besides numerous science courses, I had the opportunity to study philosophy, the history of architecture, economics, and Russian history in courses taught by extraordinarily knowledgeable professors.

Certainly other things we can do, we gotta promote after-school employment, give kids an opportunity, raising the minimum wage was part of that, we can't expect that young people are going to feel they can make a living out there for such low wages.

You might have a warrior spirit in there somewhere, and it's just waiting for the opportunity to come out. If you do, you might be a candidate for the pathway to enlightenment.

There is a voice inside of my head that is trying to convince me that I'm not good enough and that I don't deserve to be here in Hollywood. So courage is required. The courage to decide that I have a voice and need to do what I love. To believe that this opportunity is not wasted on me. To own the fact that I am worthy.

Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity; not stifle it.

As an American, we have a right to vote and to our freedom of speech, and to voice our political views, and so I actually take conversations on the other side of the aisle not necessarily as a challenge but as an opportunity to continue the conversation, which is I think what we all value most about America.