Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and irregular and seldom met with, which it always proves more easy to ignore than to attend to.. Anyone will renovate his science who will steadily look after the irregular phenomena, and when science is renewed, its new formulas often have more of the voice of the exceptions in them than of what were supposed to be the rules. William James
About This Quote

The first line of the quote is the title of a book by Henri Poincaré. The second line refers to an essay by the great physicist Lord Kelvin (William Thomson). These two lines are significant because they show philosophers and scientists alike that science is not an absolute truth, but rather a theory that must be constantly updated. Facts are accepted as true, but new findings can always change what is accepted as true. Scientists must be ready for this, and must attempt to study the exceptions to their theories when they arise.

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More Quotes By William James
  1. The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.
  2. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
  3. A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
  4. Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true, " it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if...
  5. See the exquisite contrast of the types of mind! The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, observes truth at its work in particular cases, and generalises. Truth, for him, becomes a class-name for all sorts of definite working-values in experience. For the rationalist it remains...
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