47 Quotes About Theory

History is a hermaphrodite with many distinguished lovers. We are neither mysteries nor strangers but the living breath of revelation made flesh by the unrestrained desires of a free and universal love. Universal me. Universal you.”--from Past Present and Future are One Aberjhani

What if one were to want to hunt for these hidden presences? You can’t just rummage around like you’re at a yard sale. You have to listen. You have to pay attention. There are certain things you can’t look at directly. You need to trick them into revealing themselves. That’s what we’re doing with Walter, Jaz. We’re juxtaposing things, listening for echoes. It’s not some silly cybernetic dream of command and control, modeling the whole world so you can predict the outcome. It’s certainly not a theory of everything. I don’t have a theory of any kind. What I have is far more profound.’‘ What’s that?’‘ A sense of humor.’ Jaz looked at him, trying to find a clue in his gaunt face, in the clear gray eyes watching him with such - what? Amusement? Condescension? There was something about the man which brought on a sort of hermeneutic despair. He was a forest of signs.‘ We’re hunting for jokes.’ Bachman spoke slowly, as if to a child. ‘Parapraxes. Cosmic slips of the tongue. They’re the key to the locked door. They’ll help us discover it.’‘ Discover what?’‘ The face of God. What else would we be looking for? . Hari Kunzru

A wonderful area for speculative academic work is the unknowable. These days religious subjects are in disfavor, but there are still plenty of good topics. The nature of consciousness, the workings of the brain, the origin of aggression, the origin of language, the origin of life on earth, SETI and life on other worlds..this is all great stuff. Wonderful stuff. You can argue it interminably. But it can't be contradicted, because nobody knows the answer to any of these topics. Michael Crichton

There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery rhymes and the little chants and songs we use to teach young children have choruses and refrains. We are attracted to repetition, even as adults; we want the stimulus and the reward again and again, and in music we get it. Perhaps, therefore, we should not be surprised, should not complain if the balance sometimes shifts too far and our musical sensitivity becomes a vulnerability. . Oliver Sacks

Mere lack of evidence, of course, is no reason to denounce a theory. Look at intelligent design. The fact that it is bollocks hasn’t stopped a good many people from believing in it. Darwinism itself is only supported by tons of evidence, which is a clear indication that Darwin didn’t write his books himself. Eric Idle

The formal scientific definition of theory is quite different from the everyday meaning of the word. It refers to a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence. Unknown

To understand this new frontier, I will have to try to master one of the most difficult and counterintuitive theories ever recorded in the annals of science: quantum physics. Listen to those who have spent their lives immersed in this world and you will have a sense of the challenge we face. After making his groundbreaking discoveries in quantum physics, Werner Heisenberg recalled, "I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be so absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?" Einstein declared after one discovery, "If it is correct it signifies the end of science." Schrödinger was so shocked by the implications of what he'd cooked up that he admitted, "I do not like it and I am sorry I had anything to do with it." Nevertheless, quantum physics is now one of the most powerful and well-tested pieces of science on the books. Nothing has come close to pushing it off its pedestal as one of the great scientific achievements of the last century. So there is nothing to do but to dive headfirst into this uncertain world. Feynman has some good advice for me as I embark on my quest: "I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' because you will get 'down the drain, ' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. Marcus Du Sautoy

Mankind has uncovered two extremely efficient theories: one that describes our universe's structure (Einstein's gravity: the theory of general relativity), and one that describes everything our universe contains (quantum field theory), and these two theories won't talk to each other. Christophe Galfard

I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages: i) this is worthless nonsense; ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; iii) this is true, but quite unimportant; iv) I always said so. J.B.S. Haldane

It's impossible to do science without faith. Sometimes scientists build theories on the premises of faulty assumptions until they discover they were in error and begin again from square one until they discover the true theory. It's quite different with theologians, they build false theory upon false theory until they give you detailed descriptions of heaven and hell and construct dogmas to protect their errors and if you dare say they are in error they condemn you to eternal damnation they arrived at through false theories . Bangambiki Habyarimana

Leadership is built on inspirations. Inspiration does both the theoretical and the practical job. By inspiration, people are not only informed to know what is right. But they are also convinced to always do what’s right. Israelmore Ayivor

The dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view that global warming is a hoax, or that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, or that contraception causes abortion, or that evolution is just another theory, on a par with the theory that the earth is six thousand years old. Hendrik Hertzberg

People easily become familiar with what you teach them practically than what you tell them verbally. Action fixes images in their minds and they can carry those images for a long period. Israelmore Ayivor

People are tired of being told that it's possible... It's time to show them how it can be possible. Leadership is demonstration. Israelmore Ayivor

Leaders walk their talks. They don’t give theories that do not work. They have clarity into their dreams and insight into their directions! Israelmore Ayivor

Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic. Aldous Huxley

Theories look great on paper until reality scribbles all over the page. Richelle E. Goodrich

Theories without data are like daydreams. Jonathan Rottenberg

Spiritual activity, education, civilization, culture, the idea are all vague, indefinite concepts, under the banner of which it is quite convenient to use words that have a still less clear meaning and therefore can easily be plugged into any theory. Leo Tolstoy

God created… light anddark, heaven and hell–science claims the same thing as religion, that the Big Bang createdeverything in the universe with an opposite.“ Including matter itself, antimatter Dan Brown

The official recruiting process for their posse began. Because Carlos, Narc, and Trevor each had high SQs, Heeb and Evan reasoned that adding the three to their group would raise the average SQ of each group member (much the way that colleges recruit individuals with higher test scores to increase the average test scores of their matriculated students). Zack Love

What’s SQ?” asked Evan.“Sexual Quotient.”“What’s that?”“ Basically, it’s your odds of getting laid. Everyone has an SQ. just like everyone has an IQ.”“I’ve never heard that term before.”“ That’s because I made it up.”“ That figures. Finally applying your actuarial skills to what really matters, eh? Zack Love

And as their penile pain began to subside, the two men were able to form more complex thoughts, resulting in a collaborative work: the development of a worldview that might be described as “penilosophy. Zack Love

If you can't do it, don't pledge to do it. Don't be a liar; say only what you can do. It's better for you to have a "single sentence" manifesto about your life which is fulfilled than to have 25 chapters' theories about your visions that remain undone! Israelmore Ayivor

There were dozens of theories about what it was, that dome. Every scientist in the world, it seemed, had made a pilgrimage to the site. Tests had been conducted, measurements taken. They had tried drilling through it. Under it. Had flown over it. Had dug beneath it. Had approached it by submarine. Nothing worked. Every species of doomsayer from Luddite to End Times nut had had his say. It was a judgment. On America’s technological obsession, on America’s moral failure. This. That. Something else. Then the twins had popped out. Just like that. First Emma. Then, a few minutes later, Anna. Alive and well at the exact moment of their fifteenth birthday. They told tales of life inside the bowl. What they called the FAYZ.Connie Temple’s heart had swelled with pride for what she had learned of her son, Sam. And crashed into despair with tales of her other son, her unacknowledged child, Caine.Then, nothing. No other kids arrived for a while. Black despair settled over the families as they realized that it would be only these two. Months passed. Many lost faith. How could kids survive alone? But then, the Prophetess had reached into their dreams. One night Connie Temple had a lurid, incredible dream. She’d never had such a detailed dream. It was terrifying. The power of it took her breath away. There was a girl in that . Michael Grant

It can be a good thing if deeper theology, or philosophy, only makes one more uncertain. It may lead to a healthy doubt; he may throw his hands up saying, 'God, I just don't know anymore. If you're out there, I'm giving it all to you.' From there, after the surrender, he is allowing God himself, rather than theories, books, and documents, to take over and lead him into all truth. Criss Jami

Theories might inspire you, but experiments will advance you. Amit Kalantri

Every time that we consider our past, examine our present environment, and speculate about the future, we engage in mental projection. Contemplation merges into thinking, and thinking unspools into theorizing suppositions. Every act of attentiveness expands our state of awareness. Deductive surmises represent an ongoing process of making applicable connections between theories and facts. Devising working hypothesis represents one of the highest intellectual achievements of humankind. Kilroy J. Oldster

My best works are for me. Not for the world. Anirudh Arun

The only thing that counts in life is solid, material assets. It's no time for theories when everything is falling to pieces around us. Ayn Rand

Discovery commences with the awareness of anomaly, i.e. with the recognition that nature has somehow violated the paradigm-induced expectations that govern normal science. It then continues with a more or less extended exploration of the area of anomaly. And it closes only when the paradigm theory has been adjusted so that the anomalous has become the expected. Thomas Kuhn

The creator of Bambi was secretly writing pornographic novels on the side. This single fact tells you everything you need to know about turn-of-the-century Vienna, and why it was the perfect place for Sigmund Freud and his far-fetched theories about the human psyche. Eric Weiner

Energetically speaking, antimatter is the mirror image of matter, so the two instantly cancel each other out if they come in contact. Keeping antimatter isolated from matter is a challenge, of course, because everything on earth is made of matter. The samples have to be stored without ever touching anything at all–even air. Dan Brown

The Z-particle Pure energy–no mass at all. It may well be thesmallest building block in nature. Matter is nothing but trapped energy. Dan Brown

Much as I admired the elegance of physical theories, which at that time geology wholly lacked, I preferred a life in the woods to one in the laboratory. J. Tuzo Wilson

Out on the ragged edge of space, there was no time for theories. Adam Christopher

You see, time is an ocean, not a garden hose. Space is a puff of smoke, a wisp of cloud. David Wong

Most of beliefs that are commonly known as scientific facts are based on various theories, which have never been validated. Many of them will never be. Question your beliefs. Choose what promotes love and unity. Raphael Zernoff

All my instincts are one way, and all the facts are the other, and I much fear that British juries have not yet attained that pitch of intelligence when they will give the preference to my theories over Lestrade's facts. Arthur Conan Doyle

The conflict of theories, leading, as it eventually must, to the survival of the fittest, is advantageous. Grove Karl Gilbert

You know you're like, my hero, right? Stuart Stutzman

Theories are there. Heroes are here Robert J. Braathe

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