Theory Quotes - Page 4

• In making theories, always keep a window open so that you can throw one out if necessary.

  Bela Lugosi

  Window, Ifs

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• Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.

  Voltaire

  Funny, Life, Work

  Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.227, Penguin

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• A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.

  H. L. Mencken

  Dog, Fleas, Professors

  H.L. MENCKEN (1958). “PREJUDICES A SELECTION”

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• A young man is a theory, an old man is a fact.

  E. W. Howe

  Men, Facts, Young

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• The world is poisoned with erroneous theories, and needs to be taught sane doctrines, but it is difficult to straighten what has become crooked.

  Frances Xavier Cabrini

  Doctrine, Needs, World

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• The evolution theory is purely the product of the imagination.

  John Ambrose Fleming

  Imagination, Evolution, Products

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• It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Mistake, Math, Science

  "A Scandal in Bohemia" (1891)

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• Set theory in sheep's clothing.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Sheep, Clothings

  Willard Van Orman Quine (1986). “Philosophy of Logic”, p.10, Harvard University Press

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• Cranks live by theory, not by pure desire. They want votes, peace, nuts, liberty, and spinning-looms not because they love these things, as a child loves jam, but because they think they ought to have them. That is one element which makes the crank.

  Rose Macaulay

  Children, Thinking, Nuts

  Rose Macaulay (1926). “A Casual Commentary”

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• The invisible government [bosses] is malign. But the evil doesn't come from the fact that it plays horse with the Newtonian theory of the constitution. What is dangerous about it is that we do not see it, cannot use it, and are compelled to submit to it.

  Walter Lippmann

  Horse, Government, Play

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• The theory of the teacher with all these immigrant kids was that if you spoke English loudly enough they would eventually understand.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Teacher, Teaching, Kids

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “Loon Lake: A Novel”, p.35, Random House

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• It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Charm

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL - Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future: The Critique of the Traditional Morality and the Philosophy of the Past”, p.13, e-artnow

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• Life is not theory. It is reality, with inherent duties to everything and everyone.

  Tivadar Kosztka Csontvary

  Reality, Life Is, Duty

  "The Authority". Pamphlet by Tivadar Kosztka Csontvary,

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• A man is never more satisfied than when he is confirming a favorite theory.

  Sarah Josepha Hale

  Men, Satisfied, Self-satisfaction

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• It is so much easier to talk of poverty than to think of the poor, to argue the rights of capital than to see its results. Pretty soon we come to think of the theories and abstract ideas as things in themselves.

  Walter Lippmann

  Thinking, Rights, Ideas

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• Ten geographers who think the world is flat will tend to reinforce each other's errors ... Only a sailor can set them straight.

  John Ralston Saul

  Thinking, Errors, World

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “Voltaire's Bastards”, p.476, Simon and Schuster

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• Forms of government are forged mainly in the fire of practice, not in the vacuum of theory. They respond to national character and to national realities.

  George F. Kennan

  Character, Reality, Fire

  George F. Kennan (2012). “American Diplomacy: Sixtieth-Anniversary Expanded Edition”, p.26, University of Chicago Press

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• The theory of war as an apt and proportionate means of solving international conflicts is now out of date.

  Pope Pius XII

  War, Mean, Conflict

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• Action will remove the doubts that theory cannot solve.

  Tehyi Hsieh

  Doubt, Action, Getting Started

  Tehyi Hsieh (1948). “Chinese epigrams inside out, and proverbs”

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• It is human to search for the theory of everything and it is superhuman to find it.

  Kedar Joshi

  Science, Superhuman, Humans

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• Today's practicality is often no more than the accepted form of yesterday's theory.

  Kenneth Lee Pike

  Yesterday, Today, Accepted

  Kenneth Lee Pike (1982). “Linguistic Concepts: An Introduction to Tagmemics”

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• The present state of atomic theory is characterized by the fact that we not only believe the existence of atoms to be proved beyond a doubt, but also we even believe that we have an intimate knowledge of the constituents of the individual atoms.

  Niels Bohr

  Believe, Science, Doubt

  Niels Bohr (1977). “The Periodic System (1920-1923)”, p.467, Elsevier

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• No one but a theorist believes his theory; everyone puts faith in a laboratory result but the experimenter himself.

  Albert Einstein

  Business, Believe, Results

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• [When thinking about the new relativity and quantum theories] I have felt a homesickness for the paths of physical science where there are ore or less discernible handrails to keep us from the worst morasses of foolishness.

  Arthur Eddington

  Science, Thinking, Path

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• Asked in 1919 whether it was true that only three people in the world understood the theory of general relativity, [Eddington] allegedly replied: "Who's the third?"

  Arthur Eddington

  Science, People, Understanding

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