Explanation Quotes - Page 20

• Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment.

  Rosalind Franklin

  Giving, Facts, Experiments

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• Because the region of the Celestial World is of so great and such incredible magnitude as aforesaid, and since in what has gone before it was at least generally demonstrated that this comet continued within the limits of the space of the Aether, it seems that the complete explanation of the whole matter is not given unless we are also informed within narrower limits in what part of the widest Aether, and next to which orbs of the Planets [the comet] traces its path, and by what course it accomplishes this.

  Tycho Brahe

  Space, World, Matter

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• Financiers are great mythomaniacs, their explanations and superstitions are those of primitive men; the world is a jungle to them.They perceive acutely that they are at the dawn of economic history.

  Christina Stead

  Men, Primitive Man, Dawn

  Christina Stead (2012). “House of All Nations”, p.122, Open Road Media

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• As I write, there is a craze for what is called psychoanalysis, or the cure of diseases by explaining to the patient what is the matter with him: an excellent plan if you happen to know what is the matter with him, especially when the explanation is that there is nothing the matter with him.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Writing, Disease, Matter

  George Bernard Shaw (2016). “The Critical Shaw: On Literature”, p.48, RosettaBooks

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• What causes adolescents to rebel is not the assertion of authority but the arbitrary use of power, with little explanation of therules and no involvement in decision-making. . . . Involving the adolescent in decisions doesn't mean that you are giving up your authority. It means acknowledging that the teenager is growing up and has the right to participate in decisions that affect his or her life.

  Laurence Steinberg

  Giving Up, Growing Up, Teenager

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• However much I might try to expound or explain Love, when I come to Love itself, I am ashamed of my explanations... Love alone can explain the mysteries of love and lovers.

  Rumi

  Trying, Might, Lovers

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• The physicist may be satisfied when he has the mathematical scheme and knows how to use for the interpretation of the experiments. But he has to speak about his results also to non-physicists who will not be satisfied unless some explanation is given in plain language. Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be the criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.

  Werner Heisenberg

  Philosophy, Plain Language, Understanding

  "Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science". Book by Werner Heisenberg, 1958.

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• A teacher's hardest lesson is to limit his explanation to the minimum.

  Ernst Bacon

  Teacher, Lessons, Limits

  Ernst Bacon, Sara Davis Buechner (2011). “Notes on the Piano”, p.76, Courier Corporation

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• There is nothing more difficult to outgrow than anxieties that have become useful to us, whether as explanations for a life that never quite finds its true force or direction, or as fuel for ambition, or as a kind of reflexive secular religion that, paradoxically, unites us with others in a shared sense of complete isolation: you feel at home in the world only by never feeling at home in the world.

  Christian Wiman

  Home, Ambition, Anxiety

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• How are you, G.I. Joe? It seems to me that most of you are poorly informed about the going of the war, to say nothing about a correct explanation of your presence over here. Nothing is more confused than to be ordered into a war to die.

  Hanoi Hannah

  Confused, War, Your Presence

  "The Life and Death of Hanoi Hannah" by Don North, donnorth.com. October 17, 2016.

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• There is no explanation in the Big Bang theory for the seemingly fortuitous fact that the density of matter has just the right value for the evolution of a benign, life supporting universe.

  Robert Jastrow

  Bangs, Density, Matter

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• Only professional mathematicians learn anything from proofs. Other people learn from explanations.

  Ralph P. Boas, Jr.

  Knowledge, Math, People

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• Among all of the mathematical disciplines the theory of differential equations is the most important... It furnishes the explanation of all those elementary manifestations of nature which involve time.

  Sophus Lie

  Education, Discipline, Important

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• A single kind of red cell is supposed to have an enormous number of different substances on it, and in the same way there are substances in the serum to react with many different animal cells. In addition, the substances which match each kind of cell are different in each kind of serum. The number of hypothetical different substances postulated makes this conception so uneconomical that the question must be asked whether it is the only one possible. ... We ourselves hold that another, simpler, explanation is possible.

  Karl Landsteiner

  Animal, Numbers, Cells

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• Mathematics, however, is, as it were, its own explanation; this, although it may seem hard to accept, is nevertheless true, for the recognition that a fact is so is the cause upon which we base the proof.

  Gerolamo Cardano

  Causes, Facts, May

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• It should be obvious that this pattern of systematic holes and gaps in Iraq's declaration is not the result of accidents, editing oversights or technical mistakes. These are material omissions that - in our view - constitute another material breach. It is up to Iraq to prove that there is some other explanation besides the obvious one, that this declaration is just one more act of deception in a history of lies from a defiant dictator.

  John Negroponte

  Mistake, Lying, Editing

  "U.N. officials react to Blix briefing". www.cnn.com. December 19, 2002.

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• The great proliferation of museums in the nineteenth century was a product of the marriage of the exhibition as a way of awakening intelligent interest in the visitor with the growth of collections that was associated with empire and middle-class affluence. Attendance at museums was as much associated with moral improvement as with explanation of the human or natural world.

  Richard Fortey

  Intelligent, Class, Museums

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• The more the years go by, the less I know. But if you give explanations and understand everything, then nothing can happen. What helps me go forward is that I stay receptive, I feel that anything can happen.

  Anouk Aimee

  Learning, Years, Giving

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• I am a great mayor; I am an upstanding Christian man; I am an intelligent man; I am a deeply educated man; I am a humble man.

  Marion Barry

  Christian, Education, Humble

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• Science attempts to figure out laws and then uses it later. While the work of art reflects the cosmic order without asking for an explanation

  Alija Izetbegovic

  Art, Order, Law

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• I have no decision-making role at all in my job description. I would have liked an explanation as to why I was moved from first base coach to the ambassadorship, but none was ever given.

  Mookie Wilson

  Jobs, Decision, Roles

  Mookie Wilson, Erik Sherman (2014). “Mookie: Life, Baseball, and the '86 Mets”, p.134, Penguin

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• The publisher, Jeff Johnson, who has offered not a word of explanation to me, has privately told people that he hated every word that I wrote. I assume that mostly refers to my exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq. Fortunately sixty percent of Americans now get the point, but only after tens of thousand of Americans and Iraqis have been killed and maimed as the carnage spirals out of control. My only regret is that my pen was not sharper and my words tougher.

  Robert Scheer

  Regret, Lying, Iraq

  "On Leaving the LA Times". www.huffingtonpost.com. May 25, 2011.

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• How good is Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel anyway? ... to me, Daniel's brilliance has nothing to do with the big numbers he puts up more or less every week. Howie Long once gave a great explanation of what it was like to get beat by quarterback legend Joe Montana. He said it was like getting knocked out in a pillow fight. You never felt the blow. And you were all kinds of mad afterward. That's as good as any description of Daniel. ... So what does Daniel do? Something right. On every play. In chess, grandmasters will tell you that it's the most innocuous-looking moves that are deadliest.

  Joe Posnanski

  Moving, Fighting, Blow

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• Feeling very happy - why? An explanation is needed. No, happiness needs no explanation, happiness is its own explanation. God is creating because that is the only way he can be happy, that is the only way he loves, that is the only way he sings, that's the only way he can be at all. Creation is his innermost nature, no why is needed.

  Rajneesh

  Happiness, Creating, Feelings

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• The main object of teaching is not to give explanations, but to knock at the doors of the mind.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Teaching, Past, Doors

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