Theory Quotes - Page 17

• 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.

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• 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

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• In short, evolution is as close to being a scientific fact as is possible for any theory, given that science is open - ended and no one can predict with certainty what may change in the future. The prospect that evolution by natural selection, at least as a broad mechanism, will be overthrown in the future is about as likely as the prospect of finding out some day that the Earth is really flat. Unfortunately, those who regard these scientific facts as a threat to faith have chosen to distort and misrepresent them to the public.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Religion, Atheism, Earth

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• What are you going to do? What do you want to do?” she prompted. “I’m going to go try to help Niall. He’s not acting like himself, and I have a theory on what’s wrong,” he told her. “Then afterward I'm going to ask you to marry me.

  Melissa Marr

  Trying, Acting, Want

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• Scientists tend to risk theories they admire

  Stephen Hawking

  Risk, Scientist, Admire

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• I believe my theory of relativity to be true. But it will only be proved for certain in 1981, when I am dead.

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, Science, Certain

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• You've never heard of Chaos theory? Non-linear equations? Strange attractors? Ms. Sattler, I refuse to believe you're not familiar with the concept of attraction.

  Michael Crichton

  Believe, Jurassic Park, Strange

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• Classical physics has been superseded by quantum theory: quantum theory is verified by experiments. Experiments must be described in terms of classical physics.

  Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker

  Science, Physics, Quantum

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• A hypothesis or theory is clear, decisive, and positive, but it is believed by no one but the man who created it. Experimental findings, on the other hand, are messy, inexact things, which are believed by everyone except the man who did that work.

  Harlow Shapley

  Science, Men, Hands

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• The mentally disturbed do not employ the Principle of Scientific Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of facts. They shoot for the baroque.

  Philip K. Dick

  Simple, Principles, Facts

  Philip K. Dick (2011). “VALIS”, p.16, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• [Those] who have an excessive faith in their theories or in their ideas are not only poorly disposed to make discoveries, but they also make very poor observations.

  Claude Bernard

  Science, Discovery, Ideas

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• In mysticism, knowledge cannot be separated from a certain way of life which becomes its living manifestation. To acquire mystical knowledge means to undergo a transformation; one could even say that the knowledge is the transformation. Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, can often stay abstract and theoretical. Thus most of today’s physicists do not seem to realize the philosophical, cultural and spiritual implications of their theories.

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  Spiritual, Philosophical, Mean

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• ...have a theory that she is in love with the dream of someone and not an actual person.

  Erin Morgenstern

  Dream, Persons

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• And second, keep in mind that you are a weapon. In theory, when you're done with training, you should be able to kick a hole in a wall or knock out a moose with a single punch." "I would never hit a moose," said Clary. "They're endangered.

  Cassandra Clare

  Wall, Training, Mind

  Cassandra Clare (2011). “City of Fallen Angels”, p.79, Simon and Schuster

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• Carlisle has a theory...he believes that we all bring something of our strongest human traits with us into the next life, where they are intensified - like our minds, and our senses.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Believe, Mind, Next

  Stephenie Meyer (2009). “Twilight: Twilight”, p.205, Hachette UK

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• I have my own theory about why decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft. The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company.

  Walter Isaacson

  Running, Jobs, Moving

  Walter Isaacson (2011). “Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set: Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Einstein”, p.692, Simon and Schuster

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• You were probably educated in the conventional economic theories of your period which were magnificent and most ingenious, but--if you will pardon my saying so--all wrong.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Economic, Pardon, Periods

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• Having said that, I must now admit that I was still afraid of human beings, and before I could meet even the customers in the bar I had to fortify myself by gulping down a glass of liquor. The desire to see frightening things—that was what drew me every night to the bar where, like the child who squeezes his pet all the harder when he actually fears it a little, I proclaimed to the customers standing at the bar my drunken, bungling theories of art.

  Osamu Dazai

  Art, Children, Night

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• My house fly theory is related to my theory about why time seems to go faster as you get older." "Why's that?" the girl asked. "It's proportional," Leonard explained. "When you're five, you've only been alive a couple thousand days. But by the time you're fifty, you've lived around twenty thousand days. So a day when you're five seems longer because it's a greater percentage of the whole.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Girl, Couple, House

  Jeffrey Eugenides (2011). “The Marriage Plot: A Novel”, p.41, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• A theory is a battlefield in your head.

  Haruki Murakami

  Battlefields

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “Kafka On The Shore”, p.219, Random House

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• Our students wanted to know everything: but only the newest theory seemed to them worth bothering with. Knowing nothing of the intellectual achievements of the past, they kept fresh and intact their enthusiasm for 'the latest thing'. Fashion dominated their interest: they valued ideas not for themselves but for the prestige that they could wring from them.

  Claude Levi-Strauss

  Fashion, Past, Knowing Nothing

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• Whole new theories of money were growing here like mushrooms: in the dark and based on bullshit.

  Terry Pratchett

  Dark, Mushrooms, Bullshit

  Terry Pratchett (2007). “Making Money”, Harper

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• All theories are legitimate, no matter. What matters is what you do with them.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  What Matters, Matter, No Matter What

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• The theory is that if you spill all your secrets, you'll have no desire to lie about anything, ever again. Like the worst about you is already in the open, so why not just be honest?

  Veronica Roth

  Lying, Secret, Desire

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• To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religious, Men, Giving

  Smart Set, Dec. 1920

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