Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
Ivan Turgenev

For fossils to thrive, certain favorable circumstances are required. First of all, of course, remnants of life have to be there. These then need to be washed over with water as soon as possible, so that the bones are covered with a layer of sediment.
Richard Leakey

It is not impossible to think that the minds of philosophers sometimes act like those of other mortals, and that, having once been determined by diverse circumstances to adopt certain views, they then look for and naturally find reasons to justify these views.
Morris Raphael Cohen

We had such a wonderful set of circumstances in Wilmington. Yes, the four of us became famous literally overnight, but we were in a small town and we always knew when people were coming down. We always knew when to behave.
Katie Holmes

I hope that doing truthful portrayals of people in a variety of circumstances gives people a kind of subterranean link to those characters.
Mira Sorvino

Meanwhile, our young men and women whose economic circumstances make military service a viable career choice are dying bravely in a war with no end in sight.
Charles Rangel

Libertarians argue that no normal adult has the right to impose choices on other normal adults, except in abnormal circumstances, such as when one person finds another unconscious and administers medical assistance or calls an ambulance.
Tom G. Palmer

In order to figure out how to make atoms compute, you have to learn how to speak their language and to understand how they process information under normal circumstances.
Seth Lloyd

I'm interested in why people compromise when they shouldn't. It comes back to what V's about in a sense. We've all got ideals, but given the right circumstances, we'll forget about them and put them behind us. I'm very interested in why people do that.
David Lloyd

The function of intellect is to provide a means of modifying our reactions to the circumstances of life, so that we may secure pleasure, the symptom of welfare.
Edward Thorndike

It has pleased and interested me to see how I could get along under difficult circumstances and with so much discomfort but as I say I was not sent out here to improve my temper or my health or to make me more content with my good things in the East.
Richard H. Davis

We were doing it under the most extraordinary circumstances, but the first out of the tent in the morning would be David Lean. He said to me on the very first day of shooting, Pete, this is the beginning of a great adventure.
Peter O'Toole

Privacy under what circumstance? Privacy at home under what circumstances? You have more privacy if everyone's illiterate, but you wouldn't really call that privacy. That's ignorance.
Bruce Sterling

It must inquire not merely about the circumstances of the time in general, but in particular about the writer's position with regard to these things, the interests and motives, the leading ideas of his literary activity.
Ferdinand Christian Baur

We are constantly being put to the test by trying circumstances and difficult people and problems not necessarily of our own making.
Terry Brooks

Indiscriminate attacks on civilians ought, under all circumstances, to be illegal in war as in peacetime.
Gijs de Vries

It will be quite satisfactory if you open them gradually, as the circumstances may require; but the President assures you that this will not be the case if you make a treaty with England first.
Townsend Harris

Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven.
T. E. Lawrence

The next day I was put on paid leave from my new job at Louisiana State University. This is very painful to me, though once again I understand the circumstances in which my employers find themselves in light of these actions taken against me.
Steven Hatfill

So interviews are a valuable tool, but under certain circumstances they'd be more valuable than others.
Hans Blix