Conjecture Quotes - Page 3

• At bottom, textual criticism for virtually all other ancient literature relies on creative conjectures, or imaginative guesses, at reconstructing the wording of the original. Not so with the New Testament.

  Daniel B. Wallace

  Ancient Literature, Creative, Criticism

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• The wisdom of God exceeds that of the wisest man, more than his wisdom exceeds that of a child. If a child were to conjecture how an army is to be formed in the day of battle--how a city is to be fortified, or a state governed--what chance has he to guess right? As little chance has the wisest man when he pretends to conjecture how the planets move in their courses, how the sea ebbs and flows, and how our minds act upon our bodies.

  Thomas Reid

  Children, Moving, Army

  Thomas Reid, William Hamilton, Harry M. Bracken, Thomas Reid, Sir William Hamilton (1967). “Philosophical Works”, p.235, Georg Olms Verlag

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• The importance of the romantic element does not rest upon conjecture. Pleasing testimonies abound. Hannah More traced her earliest impressions of virtue to works of fiction; and Adam Clarke gives a list of tales that won his boyish admiration. Books of entertainment led him to believe in a spiritual world; and he felt sure of having been a coward, but for romances. He declared that he had learned more of his duty to God, his neighbor and himself from Robinson Crusoe than from all the books, except the Bible, that were known to his youth.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Spiritual, Believe, Book

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

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• When we look to presumed sources of origin for competing evolutionary explanations of the giraffe's long neck, we find either nothing at all, or only the shortest of speculative conjectures. Length, of course, need not correspond with importance. Garrulous old Polonius , in a rare moment of clarity, reminded us that "brevity is the soul of wit" (and then immediately vitiated his wise observation with a flood of woolly words about Hamlet 's Madness.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Wise, Long, Soul

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• For several weeks, I have been the subject of leaked stories, conjecture, and false attacks about a land exchange. None of them bear any resemblance to the truth, including the rumor that I am planning on resigning.

  Rick Renzi

  Land, Rumor, Bears

  "Renzi could resign soon" by Patrick O'Connor, www.politico.com. April 27, 2007.

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• We must consider how very little history there is--I mean real, authentic history. That certain kings reigned and certain battles were fought, we can depend upon as true; but all the coloring, all the philosophy, of history is conjecture.

  Samuel Johnson

  Kings, Philosophy, Real

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.526

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• I was so frivolous for so many years. It was so much fun, but you feel guilty about the brain energy you use to think about whether some celebrity was sleeping with another celebrity. The conjecture that goes along with that. You feel like your mind has been shot apart.

  Chelsea Handler

  Fun, Sleep, Thinking

  "Chelsea Handler on Her Super Bowl Ad and Pro-Nudity Campaign". Interview with Emily Zemler, www.esquire.com. February 2, 2015.

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• Everyone has this conjecture that action films are somewhat less prestigious than dramatic films. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've done them both and this is hard and dangerous.

  Sylvester Stallone

  Done, Action, Film

  "Sylvester Stallone Talks Topping THE AVENGERS, the Cast, Using Actors’ “Baggage” as an Advantage, and More on the Set of THE EXPENDABLES 3". Group Interview, collider.com. April 16, 2014.

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• Physiognomy is not a guide that has been given us by which to judge of the character of men: it may only serve us for conjecture.
  [Fr., La physionomie n'est pas une regle qui nous soit donnee pour juger des hommes; elle nous peut servir de conjecture.]

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Character, Men, Judging

  "Les Caractères", XII, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 97-106,

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• The highest reach of a news-writer is an empty Reasoning on Policy, and vain Conjectures on the public Management.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  News, Management, Journalism

  "The Characters or Manners of the Present Age". Book by Jean de La Bruyère, Chapter I, 1688.

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• It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Knowledge, Simple, Arbitrary

  "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Will Fitzgerald, 1952.

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• A satirist, often in danger himself, has the bravery of knowing that to withhold wit's conjecture is to endanger the species.

  Penelope Gilliatt

  Knowing, Bravery, Satire

  Penelope Gilliatt (1990). “To wit: skin and bones of comedy”, Scribner

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• Alas! What is man? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, of whether he discard it, a frail and trembling creature; standing on time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture, still more perplexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation, as to whence he has come, or whither he is going; alas, he has not the means: his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Mean, Men, Light

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.480

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• I'm weary of conjectures, - this must end 'em.
  Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life,
  My bane and antidote, are both before me:
  This in a moment brings me to an end;
  But this informs me I shall never die.
  The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
  At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
  The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
  Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
  But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
  Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
  The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

  Joseph Addison

  Life, Crush, Stars

  "Cato, A Tragedy". Play by Joseph Addison, 1713.

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• Nothing is known in our profession by guess; and I do not believe, that from the first dawn of medical science to the present moment, a single correct idea has ever emanated from conjecture: it is right therefore, that those who are studying their profession should be aware that there is no short road to knowledge; and that observation on the diseased living, examination of the dead, and experiments upon living animals, are the only sources of true knowledge; and that inductions from these are the sole bases of legitimate theory.

  Astley Cooper

  Believe, Knowledge, Science

  A Treatise on Dislocations and Fractures of the Joints

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• From the almost total absence of fossil evidence relative to the origin of the phyla, it follows that any explanation of the mechanism in the creative evolution of the fundamental structural plans is heavily burdened with hypothesis. This should appear as an epigraph to every book on evolution. The lack of direct evidence leads to the formulation of pure conjecture as to the genesis of the phyla; we do not even have a basis to determine the extent to which these opinions are correct.

  Pierre-Paul Grasse

  Book, Creative, Fossils

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• Every conjecture we can form with regard to the works of God has as little probability as the conjectures of a child with regard to the works of an adult.

  Thomas Reid

  God, Children, Adults

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• Such self-transformation is the most difficult and dangerous challenge to the imagination, and it is the most rewarding. Meeting it is only possible for the person whose mind is open to contradictions and well-practiced in free conjecture.

  Robert Grudin

  Self, Imagination, Challenges

  Robert Grudin (1990). “The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and Innovation”, Ticknor & Fields

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• To believe straight away is foolishness, to believe after having seen clearly is good sense. That is the Buddhist policy in belief; not to believe stupidly, or to rely only on people, textbooks, conjecture, reasoning, or whatever the majority believes, but rather to believe what we see clearly for ourselves to be the case. This is how it is in Buddhism.

  Buddhadasa

  Buddhist, Believe, Buddhism

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• Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Mind, Drs, May

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• Mathematics is about problems, and problems must be made the focus of a student's mathematical life. Painful and creatively frustrating as it may be, students and their teachers should at all times be engaged in the process - having ideas, not having ideas, discovering patterns, making conjectures, constructing examples and counterexamples, devising arguments, and critiquing each other's work.

  Paul Lockhart

  Teacher, Math, Ideas

  "A Mathematician's Lament". Book by Paul Lockhart, www.huffingtonpost.com. 2009.

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• It is well to fetter the wings of our fancy and restrain its flights. It is quite possible we may have formed entirely erroneous ideas of what we actually see. The greenish gray patches may not be seas at all, nor the ruddy continents, solid land. Neither may the obscuring patches be clouds of vapor. Man is too quick at forming conclusions. Let him but indistinctly see a thing, or even be undecided as to whether he does actually see it and he will then and there set himself to theorizing, and build immense castles of conjecture on a foundation, of whose existence he is by no means certain.

  Edward E. Barnard

  Mean, Men, Clouds

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• Everybody liked better to conjecture how the thing was, than simply to know it; for conjecture soon became more confident than knowledge, and had a more liberal allowance for the incompatible.

  George Eliot

  Allowance, Knows

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch”, p.785, Booklassic

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• In geology we cannot dispense with conjectures: [but] because we are condemned to dream let us ensure that our dreams are like those of sane men-e.g. that they have their foundations in truth-and are not like the dreams of the sick, formed by strange combinations of phantasms, contrary to nature and therefore incredible.

  Scipione Breislak

  Dream, Science, Men

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• Scientists have no agreed theory of the origin of life - plenty of scenarios, conjectures and just-so stories, but nothing with solid experimental support.

  Paul Davies

  Origin Of Life, Support, Stories

  "Life, but not as we know it" by Paul Davies, www.theguardian.com. March 14, 2010.

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