Theory Quotes - Page 11

• There is a theory that if you yearn sincerely enough for a Guru, you will find one. The universe will shift, destiny's molecules will get themselves organized and your path will soon intersect with the path of the master you need.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Destiny, Molecules, Needs

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims”, p.119, A&C Black

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• She firmly held the theory that everyone gets at least one very stupid superpower.

  Maureen Johnson

  Stupid, Very Stupid, Superpower

  Maureen Johnson (2009). “Girl at Sea”, p.27, Harper Collins

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Most areas of intellectual life have discovered the virtues of speculation, and have embraced them wildly. In academia, speculation is usually dignified as theory.

  Michael Crichton

  Intellectual, Academia, Virtue

  10 Copy quote

• If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.

  Charles Darwin

  Theory Of Evolution, Creation Science, Evolution Of Man

  Charles Darwin (2003). “On the Origin of Species”, p.213, Broadview Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

  Charles Darwin

  Lying, Believe, Theory Of Evolution

  Charles Darwin (2012). “On the Origin of the Species and The Voyage of the Beagle”, p.162, Graphic Arts Books

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Perhaps that is our doom, our human curse, to never really know one another. We erect edifices in our minds about the flimsy framework of word and deed, mere totems of the true person, who, like the gods to whom the temples were built, remains hidden. We understand our own construct; we know our own theory; we love our own fabrication. Still . . . does the artifice of our affection make our love any less real?

  Rick Yancey

  Real, Mind, Temples

  Rick Yancey (2010). “The Monstrumologist: The Terror Beneath”, p.300, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I studied psychology in school, and the best psychology is in literature. It's so much easier to understand a character than a theory. You can recognize yourself—or other people—in a different way.

  Natalie Portman

  School, Character, People

  4 Copy quote

• ‎By 2100, our destiny is to become like the gods we once worshipped and feared. But our tools will not be magic wands and potions but the science of computers, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and most of all, the quantum theory.

  Michio Kaku

  Destiny, Magic, Tools

  FaceBook post by Dr. Michio Kaku from Jun 17, 2016

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• You might tell me that you have been engaging in some deep questioning and theological rethinking.1 You can no longer live with the faith you inherited from your parents or constructed earlier in your life. As you sort through your dogma and doctrine, you’ve found yourself praying less, less thrilled about worship, scripture, or church attendance. You’ve been so focused on sorting and purging your theological theories that you’ve lost track of the spiritual practices that sustain an actual relationship with God. You may even wonder if such a thing is possible for someone like you.

  Brian D. McLaren

  Spiritual, Practice, Track

  Brian D. McLaren (2011). “Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words”, p.2, Harper Collins

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• The dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view that global warming is a hoax, or that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, or that contraception causes abortion, or that evolution is just another theory, on a par with the theory that the earth is six thousand years old.

  Hendrik Hertzberg

  Taken, Party, Cutting

  "Trumpery" by Hendrik Hertzberg, prod02.newyorker.com. May 2, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...in our time art is encrusted with a noisy, opaque, logorrhea of theory that prevents a work from coming into direct, media free, non-interpreted contact with its viewer (its reader, its listener)

  Milan Kundera

  Art, Media, Opaque

  9 Copy quote

• Things just seem so much better in theory than in practice.

  Chris Wooding

  Practice, Seems

  Chris Wooding (2010). “The Black Lung Captain: Tales of the Ketty Jay”, p.218, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different.

  Veronica Roth

  Bravery, Divergent, Different

  23 Copy quote

• A bit of theory as we settle down for lunch: the waiter's treatment of Kitty is actually a kind of sandwich, with the bottom bread being the bored and slightly effete way he normally acts with customers, the middle being the crazed and abnormal way he feels around this famous nineteen-year-old girl, and the top bread being his attempt to contain and conceal this alien middle layer with some mode of behavior that at least approximates the bottom layer of boredom and effeteness that is his norm.

  Jennifer Egan

  Girl, Years, Lunch

  Jennifer Egan (2010). “A Visit from the Goon Squad”, p.128, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A scholar can never let mere wrongness get in the way of the theory.

  China Mieville

  Way, Scholar, Mere

  7 Copy quote

• As an experienced editor, I disapprove of flashbacks, foreshadowings, and tricksy devices; they belong in the 1980s with M.A.s in postmodernism and chaos theory.

  David Mitchell

  Editors, Chaos, Flashback

  David Mitchell (2012). “Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel”, p.155, Random House Group

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I spent months searching for some secret code before I realized that common sense has nothing to do with it. Hysteria, psychosis, torture, depression: I was told that if something is unpleasant it's probably feminine. This encouraged me, but the theory was blown by such masculine nouns as murder, toothache, and rollerblade. I have no problem learning the words themselves, it's the sexes that trip me up and refuse to stick.

  David Sedaris

  Sex, Psychosis, Hysteria

  4 Copy quote

• [In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman.

  Antonia Fraser

  Eye, Self, Order

  4 Copy quote

• He was a man who wrote, who interpreted the world. Wisdom grew out of being handed just the smallest sliver of emotion. A glance could lead to paragraphs of theory.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Men, World, Emotion

  Michael Ondaatje (2011). “The English Patient”, p.258, A&C Black

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...operational proof...it's all theory until you see for yourself whether or not something works.

  Julia Child

  Proof

  4 Copy quote

• Entrepreneurship rests on a theory of economy and society. The theory sees change as normal and indeed as healthy. And it sees the major task in society – and especially in the economy – as doing something different rather than doing better what is already being done. This is basically what Say, two hundred years ago, meant when he coined the term entrepreneur.

  Peter Drucker

  Years, Two, Entrepreneur

  "Innovation and Entrepreneurship".

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,' Smiley went on, more lightly. 'Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.

  John le Carre

  Cat, Compassion, Spy

  4 Copy quote

• She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien's theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can't move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.

  William Gibson

  Moving, White, Feet

  William Gibson (2003). “Pattern Recognition”, p.8, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The materialist theory of history, that all politics and ethics are the expression of economics, is a very simple fallacy indeed. It consists simply of confusing the necessary conditions of life with the normal preoccupations of life, that are quite a different thing.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Simple, Men, Expression

  "The Everlasting Man". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton (Part I: On the Creature Called Man, Chapter VII: The War of the Gods and Demons), 1925.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing... My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Philosophy, Book, Ignorance

  Arthur Conan Doyle, General Press (2016). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 56 Stories & 4 Novels”, p.1316, GENERAL PRESS

  7 Copy quote

  Show source