Axioms Quotes

• The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

  Albert Einstein

  Education, Science, Numbers

  1970 Quoted in Life Magazine, 9 Jan.

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• For axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses.

  John Keats

  Philosophy, Experience, Pulse

  Letter to J. H. Reynolds, 3 May 1818, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 279

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• We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.

  John Keats

  Book, Experience, Gone

  Letter to J. H. Reynolds, 3 May 1818, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 279

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• A science is something which is constructed from truth on workable axioms. There are 55 axioms in scientology which are very demonstrably true, and on these can be constructed a great deal.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Deals, Scientology

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• If nature leads us to mathematical forms of great simplicity and beauty - by forms I am referring to coherent systems of hypothesis, axioms, etc. - to forms that no one has previously encountered, we cannot help thinking that they are "true," that they reveal a genuine feature of nature... You must have felt this too: The almost frightening simplicity and wholeness of relationships which nature suddenly spreads out before us and for which none of us was in the least prepared.

  Werner Heisenberg

  Thinking, Simplicity, Etc

  "Bittersweet Destiny: The Stormy Evolution of Human Behavior". Book by Del Thiessen, 1995.

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• Fanon calls his ideology a new humanism, not only in contrast to the elite humanism of the West, but also on the axiom that the wretched of the earth, understood socially, think and thus must be a basis of a new politics. This, of course, is not achieved immediately, but it must become an explicit element of the struggle for liberation.

  Nigel Gibson

  Struggle, Thinking, Elements

  "Frantz Fanon and the Arab Uprisings: An Interview with Nigel Gibson". Interview with Yasser Munif, www.middleeastdigest.com. August 17, 2012.

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• The classical theorists resemble Euclidean geometers in a non-Euclidean world who, discovering that in experience straight lines apparently parallel often meet, rebuke the lines for not keeping straight as the only remedy for the unfortunate collisions which are occurring. Yet, in truth, there is no remedy except to throw over the axiom of parallels and to work out a non-Euclidean geometry.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Work Out, World, Lines

  John Maynard Keynes (2006). “General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money”, p.15, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• To choose one sock from each of infinitely many pairs of socks requires the Axiom of Choice, but for shoes the Axiom is not needed.

  Bertrand Russell

  Shoes, Choices, Pairs

  "Weighing the Odds: A Course in Probability and Statistics". Book by David Williams, p. 498, 2001.

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• Axioms are delightful in theory, but impossible in practice.

  Antoine Rivarol

  Practice, Impossible, Theory

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• ...the mathematician uses an indirect definition of congruence, making use of the fact that the axiom of parallels together with an additional condition can replace the definition of congruence.

  Hans Reichenbach

  Together, Use, Definitions

  Hans Reichenbach (1958). “Philosophie Der Raum-Zeit-Lehre”, p.87, Courier Corporation

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• What exactly is mathematics? Many have tried but nobody has
  really succeeded in defining mathematics; it is always something
  else. Roughly speaking, people know that it deals with numbers,
  figures, with relations, operations, and that its formal procedures
  involving axioms, proofs, lemmas, theorems have not changed
  since the time of Archimedes.

  Stanislaw Ulam

  Numbers, Exactly Is, People

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• A priori one should expect a chaotic world which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way... The kind of order created by Newton's theory of gravitation...is wholly different. Even if the axioms of the theory are proposed by man, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world.... That is the "miracle" which is being constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands.

  Albert Einstein

  Men, Order, Miracle

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• We must start with scientific fundamentals, and that means with the data of experiments and not with assumed axioms predicated only upon the misleading nature of that which only superficially seems to be obvious. It is the consensus of great scientists that science is the attempt to set in order the facts of experience.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Mean, Order, Data

  "The Wellspring of Reality". "Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking" by Buckminster Fuller, 1975.

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• My fundamental axiom of speculative philosophy is that materialism and spiritualism are opposite poles of the same absurdity-the absurdity of imagining that we know anything about either spirit or matter.

  Thomas Huxley

  Philosophy, Opposites, Fundamentals

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• Applying the axioms of physical science to human life has something reprehensible to it.

  Albert Einstein

  Human Life, Humans, Physical Science

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• You want at least 5% of the population being serious. That five, 6% of the population carries the rest of the people. You've heard that old axiom: 5% of the people pull the wagon; 95% are in it.

  Rush Limbaugh

  People, Population, Want

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• My Design in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments: In order to which, I shall premise the following Definitions and Axioms.

  Isaac Newton

  Book, Science, Light

  Opticks Book One, Part I

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• You can "prove" anything on the verbal level, just be accepting the necessary axioms at the beginning.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Levels, Accepting, Prove

  Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

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• Lagrange, in one of the later years of his life, imagined that he had overcome the difficulty (of the parallel axiom). He went so far as to write a paper, which he took with him to the Institute, and began to read it. But in the first paragraph something struck him that he had not observed: he muttered: 'Il faut que j'y songe encore', and put the paper in his pocket.' [I must think about it again]

  Augustus De Morgan

  Writing, Thinking, Years

  "Budget of Paradoxes". Book by Augustus De Morgan (p. 178), 1872.

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• Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms.

  Will Durant

  Philosophy, Doubt, Belief

  Will Durant (2012). “Story of Philosophy”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• An axiomatic system establishes a reverberating relationship between what a mathematician assumes (the axioms) and what he or she can derive (the theorems). In the best of circumstances, the relationship is clear enough so that the mathematician can submit his or her reasoning to an informal checklist, passing from step to step with the easy confidence the steps are small enough so that he cannot be embarrassed nor she tripped up.

  David Berlinski

  Steps, Assuming, Enough

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• One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion used decreases in degree. The decrease in enjoyment between the beginning and the end of a meal may be taken as an example.

  William Stanley Jevons

  Taken, Men, Important

  William Stanley Jevons (1973). “Papers and correspondence of William Stanley Jevons”

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• An Italian proverb says, In men every mortal sin is venial; in woman every venial sin is mortal. And a German axiom, that There are only two good women in the world: one of them is dead, and the other is not to be found.

  George Augustus Henry Sala

  Italian, Men, Two

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• We find sects and parties in most branches of science; and disputes which are carried on from age to age, without being brought to an issue. Sophistry has been more effectually excluded from mathematics and natural philosophy than from other sciences. In mathematics it had no place from the beginning; mathematicians having had the wisdom to define accurately the terms they use, and to lay down, as axioms, the first principles on which their reasoning is grounded. Accordingly, we find no parties among mathematicians, and hardly any disputes.

  Thomas Reid

  Philosophy, Party, Issues

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• The once-surprising existence of non-Euclidean models of Euclid's first four axioms can be seen as a sort of mathematical joke.

  John Allen Paulos

  Science, Four, Firsts

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