Chris Williams: Favourite Quotations
Science
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"The actual science of logic is conversant at present only with things
either certain, impossible, or entirely doubtful, none of which (fortunately)
we have to reason on. Therefore the true logic for this world is the calculus
of Probabilities, which takes account of the magnitude of the probability
which is, or ought to be, in a reasonable man's mind."
James Clerk
Maxwell (1850)
Letter to Lewis Campbell; reproduced in L. Campbell
and W. Garrett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell, Macmillan, 1881
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"I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look
for its thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where
drilling is easy."
Albert Einstein
-
"Anything you can do, I can do meta"
See
this discussion re origins of the quotation
- "Wir müssen wissen -- wir werden wissen!" [We must know -- we
will know!]
David Hilbert
Address to the Society of German Scientists and
Physicians, in Königsberg, 1930
General
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"All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs
ever green."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust, Part 1, 1808)
-
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways;
the point is to change it."
Karl Marx (Theses On Feuerbach, 1845)
- "My grandfather placed a great burden on me when he said: if the
other fellow can do it, let him. I knew I had to find out what only
I could do -- me and no one else."
Alan Garner
Quote from an interview with Nicci Gerard in the
Observer Review, 26 May 1996
-
"Theory may inform, but practice convinces"
George Bain
From frontspiece of
"Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction" (Constable, 1996)
-
"Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation"
Alasdair Gray.
I first heard something similar in the Oysterband
track "Early days of a better nation".
Chris Williams