Theory Quotes - Page 2

• A theory must be tempered with reality.

  Jawaharlal Nehru

  Science, Technology, Reality

  Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore (1968). “Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore: Being a Treasury of Over Ten Thousand Invaluable and Inspiring Thoughts, Views, and Obervations on about Eight Hundred Subjects of Popular Interest, Collected from the Speeches and Writings of These Three Great Leaders of Modern India”

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• He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Love, Math, Reality

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• How empty is theory in the presence of fact!

  Mark Twain

  Facts, Empty

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• The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Love Life, Imagination, Favors

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”

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• Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Inspirational Life, History, Biographies

  Contarini Fleming pt. 1, ch. 23 (1832) See RalphWaldo Emerson 11

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• When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, Space, Matter

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• I don't like theorizing about my work myself, but that's not to say I have no interest in theory. Other people are free to say what they want about my work.

  David Shrigley

  People, Want, Interest

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• Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of facts.

  George Santayana

  Ignorance, Science, Facts

  George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.78, Courier Corporation

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• A theory is the more impressive the greater is the simplicity of its premises, the more different are the kinds of things it relates and the more extended the range of its applicability.

  Albert Einstein

  Simplicity, Different, Kind

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• Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting points and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.

  Albert Einstein

  Education, Science, Climbing

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• A cardinal principle in systems theory is that all parties that have a stake in a system should be represented in its management.

  Malcolm Knowles

  Party, Intelligence, Principles

  Malcolm Shepherd Knowles (1984). “The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species”, Gulf Publishing Company

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• The girl I find who wants to talk about quantum theory in a bar is the one I want to marry.

  Brandon Boyd

  Girl, Bars, Want

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• It is not enough for theory to describe and analyze, it must itself be an event in the universe it describes.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Events, Enough, Acceleration

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• Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all.

  Michel de Montaigne

  God, Wisest

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• The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a simple datum of experience.

  Albert Einstein

  Simple, Data, Goal

  "On the Method of Theoretical Physics". The Herbert Spencer Lecture, delivered at Oxford, June 10, 1933.

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• I cannot seriously believe in it [quantum theory] because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance [spukhafte Fernwirkungen].

  Albert Einstein

  Distance, Believe, Science

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• I never once made a discovery ... I speak without exaggeration that I have constructed three thousand different theories in connection with the electric light ... Yet in only two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Light, Discovery, Two

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• Conjecture as to things useful, is good; but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.

  Samuel Johnson

  Would Be, Useless, Conjecture

  Samuel Johnson (1798). “Dr. Johnson's Table Talk: Containing Aphorisms on Literature, Life, and Manners; with Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Selected and Arranged from Dr. Boswell's Life of Johnson”, p.394

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• Some theories are good for nothing except to be argued about.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

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• The theory that music has a depraving effect on morals has now been abandoned to the old women of both sexes.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Sex, Moral, Abandoned

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• It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment.

  Thomas Malthus

  Philosophy, Economy, Experiments

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated”, p.11, eKitap Projesi

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• Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as are those which a chick which has not broken its way through its shell might form of the outside world.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Broken, Shells

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• It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Education, Mistake, Math

  "A Scandal in Bohemia" (1891)

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• There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate with the theory of the earth.

  Walt Whitman

  Earth, Accounts

  Walt Whitman (2013). “Walt Whitman: Selected Poems 1855-1892”, p.164, St. Martin's Press

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• To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

  Charles Darwin

  Distance, Believe, Eye

  "The Collapse of Evolution". Book by Scott Huse, p. 73, 1996.

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