A Rare Occurrence Quotes

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Bullying builds character like nuclear waste creates superheroes. It's a rare occurrence and often does much more damage than endowment.
Zack W. Van
Awkward interests me, he said. At least when you are feeling awkward you are always thinking. When you are feeling fabulous, for example, rare occurrence that it may be, you stop thinking altogether. Which gets you into all kinds of trouble. Hence, you are for the better off feeling awkward. Just the sound of it on your tongue. Like chewing on screws.
Elizabeth Brundage (The Doctor's Wife)
People change us. It is a rare, if not an impossible occurrence, that we come out of relationships unscathed. In our dealings with people we take something with us and we leave something behind. Some people are haunted more than others, either by the sweet perfume of another or the stink of regret.
Donna Lynn Hope
And now from the vantage of his years a terrible swoon comes down on him; Cynthia, for a moment, descends all the way through him. This is not a rare occurrence. He will never lose the feeling of the love that they had together, or the nausea of its absence. Hate is not the answer to love; death is its answer.
Kevin Barry (Night Boat to Tangier)
It is not a rare occurrence among intimate friends that their friendship is strengthened when one has displeased the other but has afterwards humbled himself and asked pardon.
Alfonso María de Liguori (How to Converse With God)
People underestimate the stars and the connectedness they bring between spirit and matter. More often than not, when lost, we seek solitude in staring into the darkness hoping something speaks back to us, usually through a feeling, a thought or a rare occurrence of a shooting star.
Nikki Rowe
A greater awareness in architects and planners of their real value to society could, at the present, result in that rare occurrence, namely, the improvement of the quality of life as a result of architectural endeavour.
Cedric Price (Cedric Price - The Square Book (Architectural Monographs (Paper)))
For the thinker, as for the artist, what counts in life is not the number of rare and exciting adventures he encounters, but the inner depth in that life, by which something great may be made out of even the paltriest and most banal of occurrences.
William Barrett (Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy)
for a moment, descends all the way through him. This is not a rare occurrence. He will never lose the feeling of the love that they had together, or the nausea of its absence.
Kevin Barry (Night Boat to Tangier)
This practice of arranging the marriage of a dead person was uncommon, usually held in order to placate a spirit. A deceased concubine who had produced a son might be officially married to elevate her status to a wife. Or two lovers who died tragically might be united after death. That much I knew. But to marry the living to the dead was a rare and, indeed, dreadful occurrence.
Yangsze Choo (The Ghost Bride)
Don’t blame me for this one. I’m innocent.” I swear I felt a drop of snow as Hell suffered a sudden temperature drop at my stretching of the truth. Innocent wasn’t a word I could use often, unless unjustly accused. Again, a rare occurrence.
Eve Langlais (Vacation Hell (Princess of Hell, #4))
In fiction classes... you find that epiphany has a pretty high rate of occurrence... But when you tell your own story honestly, that epiphany thing is rare... The only changes are emergencies or blessings: when you wake up, notice the surroundings, then fall back, and wander more. And if you're lucky you end up walking again through a life where you're never called on to do much noticing.
Darin Strauss (Half a Life)
Many of the most interesting phenomena that we have touched upon fall into this category, including the occurrence of disasters such as earthquakes, financial market crashes, and forest fires. All of these have fat-tail distributions with many more rare events, such as enormous earthquakes, large market crashes, and raging forest fires, than would have been predicted by assuming that they were random events following a classic Gaussian distribution.
Geoffrey West (Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life, in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies)
I am disgusted that I was often taken into their bed and told to do things to both of them. The things a decent parent wouldn't think of. I didn't know that having sex with her or with him was wrong because I'd never known anything else but I never understood why it used to hurt so much. It carried on right until she died and I am sure that if she was still alive it would still be going on now. I wished someone would help me and stop them hurting me. I tried to do what they told me to do because somethings they were nice to me if I did it properly." - Graham talks about being sexually abused by his mother (and her boyfriend) Graham was sexually abused by his mother. The only person who showed him any affection in his childhood was his grandmother. "My mother always told me the police would think I was a 'dirty little bastard' if I told them and they would take me away to a children's home and I would never see grandmother again." "I knew it was my fault and nobody would believe me." - Graham Children often do not tell about abuse because of their fears about how other people will respond. The most common fear is that they will not be believed, It is a child's word against an adult's and the adult may be well liked and respected in the community. Nowadays, because of the television and newspaper coverage, people are aware that child sexual abuse does happen. In the recent past it was thought to be a rare occurrence, so even if they were trusted adults around for a child to tell, the adult would probably have found it difficult to believe and would have little idea what to do about it.
Carolyn Ainscough (Breaking Free: Help for survivors of child sexual abuse)
Working with light is photography at its essence, where everything else is stripped away and all that is left is your vision and intuition about how to convey what you think or feel. We are so distracted by the technology and complexity of digital photography these days, that the opportunity to be still and just notice can become a rare occurrence.
Robert Rodriguez Jr. (Insights From Beyond the Lens: Inside the Art & Craft of Landscape Photography)
Even though she was in a room full of people, an occurrence she had rarely ever experienced before, she had never felt so alone.
Melanie Dickerson (The Merchant's Daughter (Hagenheim #2))
You never know when some chance occurrence is going to win someone over to your side. Meanwhile, artful attempts to curry another’s favor rarely seem to have their intended effect.
Natsume Sōseki (The Miner)
Hey now, wait a second. When will I see you again? You can’t leave a poor lad dangling like that!” His look of bewilderment made me bite my lip to keep from laughing. “Why would you w-want to?” The words were out before I could stop them. A rare occurrence for me. And now I seemed pathetically needy. Very attractive. “Because I love a pair of pretty green eyes.” He grinned.
J.A. Ironside
Sometimes energy of this nature, chaos, ill luck, goes out in the world and begets and begets. Bad luck rarely stops with one occurrence. All Indians know that. To stop it quickly takes great effort,
Louise Erdrich (LaRose)
It happens more frequently, as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape’s body, a fine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means rare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man as a belly with two requirements, and a head with one; whenever any one sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one speaks ‘badly’—and not even ‘ill’—of man, then ought the lover of knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general, to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society), may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and self- satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR as the indignant man.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A Christian accepts responsibility whatever his environment. God has not grudged you intelligence--you are capable of answering the question, 'Am I or am I not responsible for my actions?' Therefore, there is no doubt that you are responsible. 'Temptation cannot but enter the world, but woe unto him through whom temptation cometh.' As to your transgression itself, well, many commit similar ones, but go on living in peace with their consciences and even consider such things as inevitable errors of youth. There are also odd men with the smell of the grave already about them who likewise still go on sinning, playfully shrugging off their responsibility and reassuring themselves. The world is full of such horrors. You, at least, have felt the full depth of your transgressions, and that's a very rare occurrence.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Demons)
Faith is the substance of things unseen. (Rom. 10:17). By faith, we hold as true those things that can in no way be visualized. But one cannot see all things that can be visualized in the same light. This is a statement that was firmly held by philosophers and theologians and subscribed to by popular culture long before the invisible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum were known. A difference was recognized between those things that can be seen by the light of the sun or the flame of a candle and those things that can show themselves on rare occasions without losing their status as members of a class of invisible beings. Some such visions may be everyday occurrences. Others are exceptions- some dreaded, some desired.
Barbara Duden (Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn)
It is critical to your family’s well being and to your kids’ self-esteem that you like (not just love) your youngsters. What does “like” mean? Here’s an example. It’s a Saturday and you’re home by yourself for a few hours—a rare occurrence! Everyone has gone out. You’re listening to some music and just puttering around. You hear a noise outside and look out to see a car pulling up in the driveway. One of your kids gets out and heads for the front door. How do you feel in your gut right at that moment? If it’s “Oh no, the fun’s over!” that may not be like. If it’s “Oh good, I’ve got some company!” that’s more like like. Liking your children and having a good relationship with them is important for lots of reasons. The most important reason, though, may be that it’s simply more fun. Kids are naturally cute and enjoyable a lot of the time, and you want to take advantage of that valuable quality. And they only grow up with you once.
Thomas W. Phelan (1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12: Effective Discipline for Children 2–12)
Here, then, are cases in which the fear that violent pedophiles might abduct children from public places—a vanishingly rare occurrence—was used to justify the punishment of women who were looking for work, women who were at work, or women who simply thought that she and her child might both benefit from the child being allowed some time to play on his own—in other words, women whose failure to devote every moment to their role as mothers was viewed as literally criminal.
Richard Beck (We Believe the Children: The Story of a Moral Panic)
He was almost dead. We mentioned offensives; even those which have only a posthumous effect require, if we are to ‘stage’ them properly, the sacrifice of a part of our strength. M. de Charlus had too little strength left for the activity of a preparation. We hear often of mortal enemies who open their eyes to gaze upon one another in the hour of death and close them again, made happy. This must be a rare occurrence, except when death surprises us in the midst of life. It is, on the contrary, at the moment when we have nothing left to lose, that we are not bothered by the risks which, when full of life, we would lightly have undertaken. The spirit of vengeance forms part of life, it abandons us as a rule—notwithstanding certain exceptions which, occurring in the heart of the same person, are, as we shall see, human contradictions—on the threshold of death. After having thought for a moment about the Verdurins, M. de Charlus felt that he was too weak, turned his face to the wall, and ceased to think about anything
Marcel Proust (In Search Of Lost Time (All 7 Volumes) (ShandonPress))
The publication of the Gospel of Judas within Codex Tchacos represents a significant moment for the study of religion and culture. It is a rare occurrence that a previously unknown gospel manuscript is discovered, particularly one that was mentioned in early Christian sources, and that is precisely what is the case with the Gospel of Judas. The Gospel of Judas can be dated, with some certainty, to around the middle of the second century, or perhaps even a bit before, and the materials included within it are even older. The gospel is thus an early source for our knowledge of an important mystical movement within early Christianity and Judaism, namely the Sethian gnostic school of religious thought. Further, the text provides the opportunity to evaluate, and perhaps reevaluate, the historical role of a figure—Judas Iscariot—who has been much maligned within Christianity and has been a prominent figure in the development of anti-Semitism. All in all, the Gospel of Judas sheds important light on the character of developing Christianity, and reminds us again of the rich diversity of the early church.
Marvin W. Meyer (The Gospel of Judas)
Most of us do not know how to die. It is not something we have rehearsed or practiced. We have a mind full of ideas about what will happen but little if any actual experience with the process. We need to have someone who knows, guides, teaches and reassures us, someone we can trust, someone who will stand naked with us, who will not be overwhelmed. The dying need much more than pat answers or good feelings. Their hearts call for someone who can open into the unknown, someone who will travel the road of fear with them. To find such a companion is a very rare and precious occurrence.
Rodney Smith
This is determined by a wide range of circumstances; it is determined amongst other things by the workers’ average degree of skill, the level of development of science and its technological application, the social organization of the process of production, the extent and effectiveness of the means of production, and the conditions found in the natural environment. For example, the same quantity of labour is present in eight bushels of corn in favourable seasons and in only four bushels in unfavourable seasons. The same quantity of labour provides more metal in rich mines than in poor. Diamonds are of very rare occurrence on the earth’s surface, and hence their discovery costs, on an average, a great deal of labour-time.
Karl Marx (Capital: Volume I (Das Kapital series Book 1))
Clearly historical events have varying degrees of intensity. Some may almost fail to impinge on true reality, that is, on the central, most personal part of a person's life. Others can wreak such havoc there that nothing is left standing. The usual way in which history is written fails to reveal this. '1890: Wilhelm II dismisses Bismark.' Certainly a key event in German history, but scarcely an event at all in the biography of any German outside its small circle of protagonists. Life went on as before. No family was torn apart, no friendship broke up, no one fled their country. Not even a rendezvous was missed or an opera performance cancelled. Those in love, whether happily or not, remained so; the poor remained poor and the rich rich. Now compare that with '1933: Hindenburg sends for Hitler.' An earthquake shatters sixty - six million lives. Official academic history has nothing to tell us about the differences in intensity of historical occurrences. To learn about that, you must read biographies, not those of statesmen but the all too rare ones of unknown individuals. There you will see that one historical event passes over the private (real) lives of people like a cloud over a lake. Nothing stirs, there is only a fleeting shadow. Another event whips up the lake as if in a thunderstorm. For a while it is scarcely recognisable. A third may, perhaps, drain the lake completely. I believe history is misunderstood if this aspect is forgotton (and it is usually forgotton).
Sebastian Haffner (Defying Hitler)
One of the few entry points to the Baltic Sea, the Kattegat passage is a busy and treacherous waterway. The entire region is a maze of fractured islands, shallow waters and tricky cur-rents which test the skills of all mariners. A vital sea route, the strait is used by large container ships, oil tankers and cruise ships alike and provides a crucial link between the Baltic coun-tries and Europe and the rest of the world. Navigating is difficult even in calm weather and clear visibility is a rare occurrence in these higher latitudes. During severe winters, it’s not uncommon for sections of the Baltic Sea to freeze, with ice occasionally drifting out of the straits, carried by the surface currents. The ship I was commandeering was on a back-and-forth ‘pendulum’ run, stopping at the ports of St Petersburg (Russia), Kotka (Finland), Gdańsk (Poland), Aarhus (Denmark) and Klaipėda (Lithuania) in the Baltic Sea, and Bremerhaven (Ger-many) and Rotterdam (Netherlands) in the North Sea. On this particular trip, the weather gods were in a benevolent mood and we were transiting under a faultless blue sky in one of the most picturesque regions of the world. The strait got narrower as we sailed closer to Zealand (Sjælland), the largest of the off-lying Danish islands. Up ahead, as we zigzagged through the laby-rinth of islands, the tall and majestic Great Belt Bridge sprang into view. The pylons lift the suspension bridge some sixty-five metres above sea level allowing it to accommodate the largest of the ocean cruise liners that frequently pass under its domi-nating expanse.
Jason Rebello (Red Earth Diaries: A Migrant Couple's Backpacking Adventure in Australia)
According to the traditional philosophy of the Magicians, every man is a unique autonomous center of individual consciousness, energy, and will—a soul, in a word. Like a star shining and existing by its own inward light, it pursues its way in the star-spangled heavens, solitary, uninterfered with, except in so far as its heavenly course is gravitationally modified by the presence, near or far, of other stars. Since in the vast stellar spaces seldom are there conflicts between the celestial bodies, unless one happens to stray from its appointed course—a very rare occurrence—so in the realms of humankind there would lie no chaos, little conflict, and no mutual disturbance were each individual content to be grounded in the reality of his own high consciousness, aware of his ideal nature In the his true purpose in life, and eager to pursue the road which he must follow. Because men have strayed from the dynamic sources inhering within themselves and the universe, and have forsaken their true spiritual wills, because they have divorced themselves from the celestial essences, betrayed by a mess of more sickly pottage than ever Jacob did sell to Esau, the world in this day presents a people with so hopeless an aspect, and a humanity impressed with so despondent a mien. Ignorance of the course of the celestial orbit, and the significance of that orbit inscribed in the skies forever, is the root which is at the bottom of universal dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and race-nostalgia. And because of this the living soul cries for help to the dead, and the creature to a silent God. Of all this crying there comes usually—nothing. The lifting up of the hands in supplication brings no inkling of salvation. The frantic gnashing of teeth results but in mute despair and loss of vital energy. Redemption is only from within and is wrought out by the soul itself with suffering and through time, with much endeavor and strain of the spirit.
Israel Regardie (The Tree of Life: An Illustrated Study in Magic)
The physicist Wolfgang Pauli has pointed out that, due to new discoveries, our idea of the evolution of life requires a revision that might take into account an area of interrelation between the unconscious psycho and biological processes. Until recently it was assumed that the mutation of species happened at random and that a selection took place by means of which the "meaningful," well-adapted varieties survived, and the other disappeared. But modern evolutionists have pointed out that the selections of such mutations by pure chance would have taken much longer than the known age of our planet allows... Jung's concept of synchronicity may be helpful here, for it could throw light upon the occurrence of certain rare "border-phenomena," or exceptional events; thus it might explain how "meaningful" adaptations and mutations could happen in less time than that required by entirely random mutations. Today we know of many instances in which meaningful "chance" events have occurred when an archetype is activated. For example, the history of science contains many cases of simultaneous invention or discovery.
Jolande Jacobi (Man and His Symbols)
Hilda argued that our fate is more likely determined by what she called our “unique environment”—the one we do not share with anyone, not even our siblings. It is the environment we seek out and create for ourselves, for example, when we find something which delights and fascinates us and drives us in a certain direction. Rather like Blomkvist’s reaction as a young boy, perhaps, when he saw the film All the President’s Men and was struck by a strong urge to become a journalist. Heredity and environment interact constantly, Hilda wrote. We seek out occurrences and activities which stimulate our genes and make them flourish, and we avoid things which frighten us or make us uncomfortable. She based her conclusions on a series of studies, among others MISTRA, the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, and investigations by the Swedish Twin Registry at the Karolinska Institute. Identical twins, or so-called monozygotic twins, with their essentially indistinguishable sets of genes, are ideal subjects. Thousands of twins, both identical and fraternal, grow up apart from each other, either because one or both have been adopted, or, more rarely, as the result of some unfortunate mix-up in a maternity ward.
David Lagercrantz (The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye (Millennium, #5))
The first obstacle [to liberal education] is the learning situation itself. What is the ideal learning situation? It is the more or less continuous contact between a student and his teacher, who is another student, more advanced in many ways, but still learning himself. This situation usually does not prevail; in fact, it is extremely rare. Since the immemorial, institutions of learning, especially higher learning, have been established, called „schools“ — and the ambiguity of the term becomes immediately apparent. Institutionalization means ordering activities into certain patters; in the case of learning activities, into classes, schedules, courses, curriculums, examinations, degress, and all the venerable and sometimes ridiculous paraphernalia of academic life. The point is that such institutionalization cannot be avoided: both the gregarious and the rational character of man compel him to impose upon himself laws and regulations. Moreover, the discipline of learning itself seems to require an orderly and planned procedure. And yet we all know how this schedule routine can interfere with the spontaneity of questioning and of leaning and the occurrence of genuine wonderment. A student may even never become aware that there is the possibility of spontaneous learning which depends merely on himself and on nobody and nothing else. Once the institutional character of learning tends to prevail, the goal of liberal education may be completely lost sight of, whatever other goals may be successfully reached. And I repeat, this obstacle is not extraneous to learning. It is prefigured in the methodical and systematic character of exploratory questioning. It has to be faced over and over again.
Jacob Klein (Jacob Klein Lectures and Essays)
Neo-Darwinism and Mutations In order to find a solution, Darwinists advanced the "Modern Synthetic Theory," or as it is more commonly known, Neo-Darwinism, at the end of the 1930s. Neo- Darwinism added mutations, which are distortions formed in the genes of living beings due to such external factors as radiation or replication errors, as the "cause of favorable variations" in addition to natural mutation. Today, the model that stands for evolution in the world is Neo-Darwinism. The theory maintains that millions of living beings formed as a result of a process whereby numerous complex organs of these organisms (e.g., ears, eyes, lungs, and wings) underwent "mutations," that is, genetic disorders. Yet, there is an outright scientific fact that totally undermines this theory: Mutations do not cause living beings to develop; on the contrary, they are always harmful. The reason for this is very simple: DNA has a very complex structure, and random effects can only harm it. The American geneticist B. G. Ranganathan explains this as follows: First, genuine mutations are very rare in nature. Secondly, most mutations are harmful since they are random, rather than orderly changes in the structure of genes; any random change in a highly ordered system will be for the worse, not for the better. For example, if an earthquake were to shake a highly ordered structure such as a building, there would be a random change in the framework of the building which, in all probability, would not be an improvement. Not surprisingly, no mutation example, which is useful, that is, which is observed to develop the genetic code, has been observed so far. All mutations have proved to be harmful. It was understood that mutation, which is presented as an "evolutionary mechanism," is actually a genetic occurrence that harms living things, and leaves them disabled. (The most common effect of mutation on human beings is cancer.) Of course, a destructive mechanism cannot be an "evolutionary mechanism." Natural selection, on the other hand, "can do nothing by itself," as Darwin also accepted. This fact shows us that there is no "evolutionary mechanism" in nature. Since no evolutionary mechanism exists, no such any imaginary process called "evolution" could have taken place.
Harun Yahya (Those Who Exhaust All Their Pleasures In This Life)
Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority—where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;—exclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green and grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes; supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this burden and disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it, and remains, as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is then certain: he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as such, he would one day have to say to himself: "The devil take my good taste! but 'the rule' is more interesting than the exception—than myself, the exception!" And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would go "inside." The long and serious study of the AVERAGE man—and consequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's equals):—that constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every philosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge should be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and lighten his task; I mean so-called cynics, those who simply recognize the animal, the commonplace and "the rule" in themselves, and at the same time have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them talk of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSES—sometimes they wallow, even in books, as on their own dung-hill. Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgust—namely, where by a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the case of the Abbé Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man of his century—he was far profounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more frequently, as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape's body, a fine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means rare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man as a belly with two requirements, and a head with one; whenever any one sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one speaks "badly"—and not even "ill"—of man, then ought the lover of knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general, to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society), may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR as the indignant man.
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
You are the salt of the earth….” —Matthew 5:13 (NRSV) FRIENDSHIP THROUGH BOOKS I met Bill years earlier when he’d joined the St. James Literary Society, a book and discussion group at New London, Connecticut’s homeless shelter. Bill was what we used to call a “rag man,” one who collected bottles and other castoffs to sell or give away. He always had a shopping cart crammed with stuff. Initially, he fought my friendship with the tenacity that only a street person possesses; to survive, Bill believed he could love no one and allow no one to love him. I lured him and other shelter residents with their love of books. I'd learned from volunteering that many homeless people enjoy reading; books provided an escape. Bill was a voracious reader. We found nearly one thousand tattered books in his apartment after he died, most purchased for a few cents. Although he preferred books to people, eventually he began talking. But are our meetings making any difference in his life, I wondered. Then, one night, we were discussing childhood memories, and Bill told us he’d been a Boy Scout, had earned a service badge for collecting eyeglasses. I teased, “Too bad I have to drag these things out of you.” He didn’t laugh. Instead, he met my eyes directly—a rare occurrence—and said, “Until this group, I wouldn’t have told anyone these things.” And then I was the wordless one. Lord, I praise You for giving me the opportunity to love and be loved. —Marci Alborghetti Digging Deeper: Mt 5:1–20
Guideposts (Daily Guideposts 2014)
We are so distracted by the technology and complexity of digital photography these days, that the opportunity to be still and just notice can become a rare occurrence.
Robert Rodriguez Jr. (Insights From Beyond the Lens: Inside the Art & Craft of Landscape Photography)
As cops we often cry loudly about the lack of training in our profession (I am guilty of it myself). However while we complain and whine about the seemingly lack of interest in ongoing training we also miss the opportunities to train and learn from the everyday lessons available to us. Those lessons that come from every call we respond to and every shift we work. The uses of training tools such as; tactical decision games and after action reviews still are rare occurrences in our profession and seemingly only used when some catastrophic or unconventional crisis has occurred i.e. a cop killed in the line of duty or a deadly force scenario that leaves the public calling for an explanation. We should be doing more to harness the wisdom of the street cop and what he learns from each and every day on each and every shift. The shift debriefing is a training tool we can and should utilize to develop full spectrum cops capable of making sound decisions and employing sound tactics to resolve crisis situations and record and report them accurately in the aftermath.
Fred Leland (Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security)
Venous Air Embolism is a rare but potentially fatal complication of central line insertion in the upper body area and could be prevented with trendelenburg positioning (at least 15 degrees), given no orthopnea. In case, Venous Air Embolism is suspected during line procedure with symptoms of sudden occurrence of cardiopulmonary dysfunction like hypotension, hypoxia or churning murmur over the left sternal border (“millwheel murmur”) - following 7 immediate maneuvers are essential: 1. Clamp the line (do not withdraw) - to prevent further air. 2. Rotate patient to left lateral decubitus position - to decrease air leaving through RV outflow tract. 3. Enhance (or do if not done yet) Trendelenburg position - to help air trapped in the apex of the ventricle. 4. Increase oxygen to 100% - Supplemental oxygen reduces the size of embolus. (Avoid High PEEP as it may increase the risk of paradoxical emboli). 5. Advance the catheter little, unclamp the line and aspirate from the 'distal port' to attempt to remove air. (PA-catheter is not as effective as triple lumen catheter in aspirating air). 6. If hypotension occurs - start IVF wide open and add pressor if needed (catecholamine are preferred).
Iqbal Ratnani (Critical Care Pearls: Basics for critical patient care and board review)
As much as it pains me, this little link with Sawyer isn’t ending anytime soon. Even though I swore I didn’t want any part in this escalating, something about this sullen mess of a boy gives me hope. And that’s a rare occurrence on a day like today.
Allyson Kennedy (The Crush (The Ballad of Emery Brooks, #1))
The National Council of Women in Canada was appalled by these judicial attitudes. It pointed out, before and after the Seduction Act, that "false charges of this kind ae of very rare occurrence." In fact, the obverse was true. It was almost impossible to get a woman to press charges of seduction or rape because her sexual background would then be put under scrutiny.
Carolyn Whitzman (Clara at the Door with a Revolver: The Scandalous Black Suspect, the Exemplary White Son, and the Murder that Shocked Toronto)
A few thousand years later, scientists finally put saffron to the test in a head-to-head trial against the antidepressant drug Prozac for the treatment of clinical depression. Both the spice and the drug worked equally well in reducing depression symptoms.44 As you can see in the box here, this may not be saying much, but at the very least, the saffron was safer in terms of side effects. For example, 20 percent of people in the Prozac group suffered sexual dysfunction, a common occurrence with many antidepressant medications, whereas no one in the saffron group did. However, saffron may be one of those rare cases in which the natural remedy is more expensive than the drug. Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice. It is harvested from crocus flowers, specifically the dried stigmas (the threadlike tips inside the flower), which are ground up to make the spice. You need more than fifty thousand crocuses—enough to cover a football field—to produce just a single pound of saffron.45 A Prozac-equivalent dose of saffron may cost more than twice as much as the drug, but a subsequent study found that even just smelling saffron appeared to have psychological benefits. Though researchers diluted the spice so much that the study subjects couldn’t detect its odor, they still noted a significant drop in stress hormones measured in women who sniffed the saffron for twenty minutes compared with those who spent twenty minutes smelling a placebo, along with significant improvement in the women’s symptoms of anxiety.
Michael Greger (How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease)
Though rampage shootings are rare in occurrence, the disproportionate amount of coverage they receive in the media leads the public to believe that they occur at a much more regular frequency than they do.
Seamus McGraw (From a Taller Tower: The Rise of the American Mass Shooter)
I don’t know if I should think of such occurrences as luck, chance, or opportunism. In a way they are examples of what I have always tried to do: take something negative or unexpected and turn it around so it might resemble a possibility. Anything that goes wrong might be also a chance for something nice to happen. At the very least it is unexpected, and therefore can shift us, even slightly, out of our routines and routine ways of thinking. I’m not sure I exactly like what I’m writing here. It feels to me too much like a motivational speech, an inspirational message, all that bullshit that can so easily devolve into capitalism insisting the individual must make the best of each and every situation, whatever hardships arise along the way. But if there’s anything I still like about performance, it’s that the unexpected might happen at any time, live in front of an audience or at any point during the process. It is a place where surprises can most productively occur, and it is still somewhat shocking to me that most shows are set up to ensure they so rarely do.
Jacob Wren (Authenticity is a Feeling: My Life in PME-ART)
Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority—where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;—exclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green and grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes; supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this burden and disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it, and remains, as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is then certain: he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as such, he would one day have to say to himself: "The devil take my good taste! but 'the rule' is more interesting than the exception—than myself, the exception!" And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would go "inside." The long and serious study of the AVERAGE man—and consequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's equals):—that constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every philosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge should be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and lighten his task; I mean so-called cynics, those who simply recognize the animal, the commonplace and "the rule" in themselves, and at the same time have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them talk of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSES—sometimes they wallow, even in books, as on their own dung-hill. Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgust—namely, whereby a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the case of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man of his century—he was far profounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more frequently, as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape's body, a fine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means rare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man as a belly with two requirements, and a head with one; whenever anyone sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one speaks "badly"—and not even "ill"—of man, then ought the lover of knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general, to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society), may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR as the indignant man.
Friedrich Nietzsche
If you eat standard American food, you will inevitably develop standard American diseases. If we want to rival the low cholesterol of populations that eat mostly natural plant foods and do not have heart disease, we must try to attain total cholesterol numbers lower than 150 mg/dl. The average total cholesterol level in rural China, as documented in the Cornell China Study, was 127 mg/dl.90 Heart attacks were rare, and both cancer and heart disease rates plummeted as cholesterol levels fell, which reflected a very low consumption of animal products. The lowest occurrence of heart disease and cancer occurred in the group that consumed plant-based diets with less than two servings of animal products per week.
Joel Fuhrman (The End of Heart Disease: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Eat for Life))
But for now, the reality of the situation was that they had one night. He blinked, returning to the moment. Now what would they do? Stealth remained critical for two people such as them, and there was the allure of staying in and letting things naturally unfold between them. But spending time out together was such a rare occurrence, something to possibly indulge in if they did indeed have the means and—
Mike Chen (Star Wars: Brotherhood)
And it is a comparatively rare occurrence.
Avi Loeb (Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth)
Henry transferred his fond expression from the device to his wife, a rare occurrence. “What pure genius, Charlotte. Pretending you could summon the Clave on the spot, just to frighten that man! But how did you know I’d have a device you could put to your uses?” “Well, you did, darling,” said Charlotte. “Didn’t you?” Henry looked sheepish. “You are as terrifying as you are wonderful, my dear.” “Thank you, Henry.
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
risk is not measurable (outside of casinos or the minds of people who call themselves “risk experts”). This provides a solution to what I’ve called the Black Swan problem—the impossibility of calculating the risks of consequential rare events and predicting their occurrence. Sensitivity to harm from volatility is tractable, more so than forecasting the event that would cause the harm. So we propose to stand our current approaches to prediction, prognostication, and risk management on their heads.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder)
There is an immense, unreserved trust in life when one is young. You pursue, go off track, rediscover, whine, ans then allow your share of happiness to find you. And you do not realize how rare that occurrence is. You feel entitled to that bliss. And for a while, you bask in it. And it goes on, until the day it is taken away from you. And when that happens, your innocence is gone.
Lidija Stankovikj (The Outcasts - A Thousand Dreams of Redemption)
Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority—where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;—exclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green and grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes; supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this burden and disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it, and remains, as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is then certain: he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as such, he would one day have to say to himself: "The devil take my good taste! but 'the rule' is more interesting than the exception—than myself, the exception!" And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would go "inside." The long and serious study of the AVERAGE man—and consequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's equals):—that constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every philosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge should be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and lighten his task; I mean so-called cynics, those who simply recognize the animal, the commonplace and "the rule" in themselves, and at the same time have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them talk of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSES—sometimes they wallow, even in books, as on their own dung-hill. Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgust—namely, where by a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the case of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man of his century—he was far profounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more frequently, as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape's body, a fine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means rare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man as a belly with two requirements, and a head with one; whenever any one sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one speaks "badly"—and not even "ill"—of man, then ought the lover of knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general, to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society), may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR as the indignant man.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Life itself is a rare occurrence.
Dipti Dhakul
Supernatural Supernatural has several meanings; the usual is “miraculous; ascribed to agencies or powers above or beyond nature; divine.” Because science is commonly regarded as a method of studying the natural world, a supernatural phenomenon is by this definition unexplainable by, and therefore totally incompatible with, science. Today, a few religious traditions continue to maintain that psi is supernatural and therefore not amenable to scientific study. But a few hundred years ago virtually all natural phenomena were thought to be manifestations of supernatural agencies and spirits. Through years of systematic investigation, many of these phenomena are now understood in quite ordinary terms. Thus, it is entirely reasonable to expect that so-called miracles are simply indicators of our present ignorance. Any such events may be more properly labeled first as paranormal, then as normal once we have developed an acceptable scientific explanation. As astronaut Edgar Mitchell put it: “There are no unnatural or supernatural phenomena, only very large gaps in our knowledge of what is natural, particularly regarding relatively rare occurrences.”2 Mystical Mystical refers to the direct perception of reality; knowledge derived directly rather than indirectly. In many respects, mysticism is surprisingly similar to science in that it is a systematic method of exploring the nature of the world. Science concentrates on outer, objective phenomena, and mysticism concentrates on inner, subjective phenomena. It is interesting that numerous scientists, scholars, and sages over the years have revealed deep, underlying similarities between the goals, practices, and findings of science and mysticism. Some of the most famous scientists wrote in terms that are practically indistinguishable from the writings of mystics.
Dean Radin (The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena)
the greatest harm lurking in the lives of our kids is not the rare occurrence of the perverted stranger on the street but the declining mental health and wellness of children whose parents do too much for them.
Julie Lythcott-Haims (How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success)
The party wound down for the night, with Ridge actually complaining he was too full to eat anymore, something that Cecile had demanded he repeat on camera since it was such a rare occurrence.
Pixel Ate (Hatchamob: Book 13)
As to life in a prison, of course there may be two opinions, said the prince. I once heard the story of a man who lived twelve years in a prison-I heard it from the man himself. He was one of the persons under treatment with my professor; he had fits, and attacks of melancholy, then he would weep, and once he tried to commit suicide. His life in prison was sad enough; his only acquaintances were spiders and a tree that grew outside his grating-but I think I had better tell you of another man I met last year. There was a very strange feature in this case, strange because of its extremely rare occurrence. This man had once been brought to the scaffold in company with several others, and had had the sentence of death by shooting passed upon him for some political crime. Twenty minutes later he had been reprieved and some other punishment substituted; but the interval between the two sentences, twenty minutes, or at least a quarter of an hour, had been passed in the certainty that within a few minutes he must die. I was very anxious to hear him speak of his impressions during that dreadful time, and I several times inquired of him as to what he thought and felt. He remembered everything with the most accurate and extraordinary distinctness, and declared that he would never forget a single iota of the experience. About twenty paces from the scaffold, where he had stood to hear the sentence, were three posts, fixed in the ground, to which to fasten the criminals. The first three criminals were taken to the posts, dressed in long white tunics, with white caps drawn over their faces, so that they could not see the rifles pointed at them. Then a group of soldiers took their stand opposite to each post. My friend was the eighth on the list, and therefore he would have been among the third lot to go up. A priest went about among them with a cross: and there was about five minutes of time left for him to live. He said that those five minutes seemed to him to be a most interminable period, an enormous wealth of time; he seemed to be living, in these minutes, so many lives that there was no need as yet to think of that last moment, so that he made several arrangements, dividing up the time into portions--one for saying farewell to his companions, two minutes for that; then a couple more for thinking over his own life and career and all about himself; and another minute for a last look around. He remembered having divided his time like this quite well. While saying good- bye to his friends he recollected asking one of them some very usual everyday question, and being much interested in the answer. Then having bade farewell, he embarked upon those two minutes which he had allotted to looking into himself; he knew beforehand what he was going to think about. He wished to put it to himself as quickly and clearly as possible, that here was he, a living, thinking man, and that in three minutes he would be nobody; or if somebody or something, then what and where? He thought he would decide this question once for all in these last three minutes. A little way off there stood a church, and its gilded spire glittered in the sun. He remembered staring stubbornly at this spire, and at the rays of light sparkling from it. He could not tear his eyes from these rays of light; he got the idea that these rays were his new nature, and that in three minutes he would become one of them, amalgamated somehow with them. The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the uncertainty, were dreadful, but worst of all was the idea, 'What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!' He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished they would shoot him quickly and have done with it!
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Surprisingly, he really was getting ready to work. This was a rare phenomenon, witnessing Master Shiliu doing something productive—an uncommon occurrence comparable to flowers blossoming on an iron tree.
Priest (Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang (Novel) Vol. 1)
Overconfidence by the programmer could be attacked by a system that introduced random errors into the program under test. The location and nature of these errors would be recorded inside the system but concealed from the programmer. The rate at which he found and removed these known errors could be used to estimate the rate at which he is removing unknown errors. A similar technique is used routinely by surveillance systems in which an operator is expected to spend eight hours at a stretch looking at a radar screen for very rare events—such as the passing of an unidentified aircraft. Tests of performance showed that it was necessary to introduce some nonzero rate of occurrence of artificial events in order to keep the operator in a satisfactory state of arousal. Moreover, since these events were under control of the system, it was able to estimate the current and overall performance of each operator.
Gerald M. Weinberg (The Psychology of Computer Programming)
Writing is my response to my own crazy world. It's often sporadic, ignited by some noteworthy occurrence in my life. Rarely is it reflective, frequently intrusive. You see sometimes I aim for allegory, but there are certain truths about life that one has to paint as it is, there are ideas that cannot be dressed up. I more than anyone else understands how suffering and personal experiences influences the creative process. My books are nurtured by happiness and despair. Every experience in my everyday life comes with it owns dripping of medicine and or toxins, lessons that only my interactions with others can effectively teach. My life is entirely influenced by human behavior and my books are about my culture and human nature. My degree is from HardKnock Life University. Who I am is a reflection of the people who shaped my life. I am their reflection. I am novelist. The only doctorate i have is on life. The reality of life is the only thing I know.I’m
Crystal Evans (Jamaican Acute-Ghetto-itis: Jamaican Sociological Commentary)
From the outside, looking at a woman objectively, there’s no obvious single transition point which marks the beginning of this odyssey. Menarche, the first occurrence of menstruation and a gateway to adulthood, is easily identifiable; pregnancy, a gateway to motherhood, is even more visible. But the features of menopause — that final, great biological upheaval in a woman’s life — aren’t nearly so obvious from the outside and are often deliberately concealed. To add to the complexity, the passage lasts for a much longer period of time. Usually, it starts during our “midlife” years. Perimenopause, sometimes called “menopause transition,” kicks off several years before menopause itself, and is defined as the time during which our ovaries gradually begin to make less estrogen. This usually happens in our forties, but in some instances it can begin in our thirties or, in rare cases, even earlier. During perimenopause, the ovaries are effectively winding down, and irregularities are common. Some months women continue to ovulate — sometimes even twice in the same cycle — while in other months no egg is released. Though four to six years is the average span, perimenopause can last for as little as a year or it can go on for more than ten. Menopause is usually declared after twelve months have passed without a period. In the US, the average age at which menopause is recorded is fifty-one years, though around one in a hundred women reach this point before the age of forty. Four years is the typical duration of menopause, but around one in ten women experiences physical and psychological challenges that last for up to twelve years — challenges which include depression, anxiety, insomnia, hot flashes, night sweats, and reduced libido. Sometimes, these challenges are significant; at their most severe they can present as risks to physical or mental health, and women need help to manage them.
Sharon Blackie (Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life)
How can we distinguish this type of reliable artificial event from the naturally occurring types that also happen repeatedly? On large enough timescales, wouldn’t meteor strikes also be considered reliable and repeatable? Yes, they are. But this is precisely the point: what life does is turn something that can happen, but perhaps is so exponentially rare or impossible as to never be observed, into something that can happen with very regular occurrence and be observed in abundance. Perhaps you are not surprised by a single event of ejecta that start orbiting a planet, but if you saw two, or three, or ten thousand in a short interval with precise control, your degree of surprise would increase. Physicists will sometimes talk about the laws of physics as universal regularities in our universe. What life does is create local regularities—these are things that can happen repeatedly with high likelihood, but only in a local part of the universe because they require memory and information stored locally to happen, and these can be acquired only via evolution.
Sara Imari Walker (Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence)
Saffron The earliest recorded medical use of a spice appears to be more than 3,600 years ago, when saffron was evidently first used for healing.43 A few thousand years later, scientists finally put saffron to the test in a head-to-head trial against the antidepressant drug Prozac for the treatment of clinical depression. Both the spice and the drug worked equally well in reducing depression symptoms.44 As you can see in the box here, this may not be saying much, but at the very least, the saffron was safer in terms of side effects. For example, 20 percent of people in the Prozac group suffered sexual dysfunction, a common occurrence with many antidepressant medications, whereas no one in the saffron group did. However, saffron may be one of those rare cases in which the natural remedy is more expensive than the drug. Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice. It is harvested from crocus flowers, specifically the dried stigmas
Michael Greger (How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease)
What is a living reality without experience? If there is anything about which we feel to be true, it is that the world we endure is authentic. We can see, touch and hear it. Our conscious existence of presence is an exhibition within the mind, but in many other occurrences, some of us rarely accept that we create our own realities.
Henry Johnson Jr (Liberian Son)
My entire adult life, I have waited for novels that make me feel like something radical has happened to me. The occurrence is rare; most novels make me feel like something I’ve already felt for too long.
Kate Zambreno (O Fallen Angel)
Success is a rare occurrence while failure is in abundance.
John Taskinsoy
Alex smiled and Kelsey returned it, an expression she couldn’t contain when he smiled, especially at her. It was such a rare occurrence, like a comet, beautiful but not visible for long.
Dianne Frost (Lumen Cove)
Giggling is a plague on the nervous system that I believe is hardwired into some people’s physiology and seems to be a reaction to tremendous nerves, fatigue, or self-consciousness. It is rarely a welcome occurrence to the giggler and can feel like going over Niagara Falls without a barrel
Linda Ronstadt (Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir)
There have been cases of people with stable neck fractures that only compress the spinal cord after the person starts moving again.  This rare occurrence, coupled with the fact that most patients who come in as head traumas are too groggy, concussive, or drunk to cooperate, warranted the collars, straps, precautions, and numerous studies.  And people wonder why healthcare is so expensive.  There should be an ER tax on beer.
Salvatore Iaquinta (The Year They Tried to Kill Me : Surviving a Surgical Internship Even If the Patients Don't)
M: Man lives in a world whose noise is so wide and deep that it requires either an extraordinary DNA or a cataclysmic chance occurrence for him to turn away from the noise and seek The Truth. It is almost impossible for him to deem that all that he has been told for his entire life and all that he hears on a daily basis is completely false and full of lies. Monumentally rare are such men. But this is the only way. For without it, one is destined to a life of misery, turmoil, and anxiety.
Kapil Gupta (A Master's Secret Whispers: For those who abhor the noise and seek The Truth about life and living)
fairly rare occurrence these days. Plus, she has already spoken to her mother
Nick Alexander (The Bottle of Tears)
Yet another way of becoming aware of parallel worlds of self is by noticing rare and unusual events, out-of-line occurrences or strange coincidences in “everyday life”. The timelines (highways, parallel realities) that closely border your current timeline (the neighbouring highways) often generate “spill overs” or crossover points to your current timeline. The events that don’t seem to belong to your daily routine (habitual focus) are spillovers from parallel realities. Were you to stay with these events rather than returning to your habitual path, you would start moving in the direction of the alternative highway.
Frederick Dodson
The use of 'ל' with imperfect ... the earliest occurrence of this construction found in Aramaean ... 'ל' has clearly a jussive force, and the cohortative conception of the passive itself may explain the construction. It is rare but appears in South Semitic (Sabaean), North Semitic (Mandaean), Biblical Aramaean, Targum (Ps.-Jon.) and Talmud Babli. It does not appear in Phoenician inscriptions.
John Courtenay James
Fragility can be measured; risk is not measurable (outside of casinos or the minds of people who call themselves “risk experts”). This provides a solution to what I’ve called the Black Swan problem—the impossibility of calculating the risks of consequential rare events and predicting their occurrence. Sensitivity to harm from volatility is tractable, more so than forecasting the event that would cause the harm. So we propose to stand our current approaches to prediction, prognostication, and risk management on their heads. In
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder)
Ghosts, like nuggets of gold, are where you find them. There seems to be no particular habitat or locality where ghosts abound. It does seem to be the rule, though, that the older the town or community, the greater the likelihood of running across ghost stories. There are literally hundreds of stories about ghosts of the long ago and ghosts in far-off places, but the accounts are usually frank hearsay and impossible to verify. It is a most unusual circumstance when one is able to document a tale of supernatural occurrences. It is even more rare to find hard-headed, practical businessmen who will look you square in the eye and tell you, not only that they have seen a ghost, but when and where and under what circumstances the sighting occurred.
Charles Harry Whedbee (Outer Banks Tales to Remember)
Just as Sylvia rated her pain, so can we rate our own stress on a ten point scale. When we first start doing all our stressors are eleven, but over time we learn that real tens are rare occurrences. Most stresses such as ruining a meal, forgetting an appointment, or losing a library book are only ones and twos. Just being able to assign a number to our upset emotions helps us keep our lives in perspective.
Mary Pipher (Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age)
The message of Microbe Hunters was clear: Great men like Pasteur, Reed, Theobald Smith, and Paul Ehrlich were a rare breed. But for all their skill, training, and dogged pursuit of that deadly microbe or magical elixir, their mission was infinitely complex, the challenges multifaceted, and the trail of disease and death a daily occurrence.
Allen M. Hornblum (Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America)