A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“A theology should be like poetry, which takes us to the end of what words and thoughts can do.”
“A theology that can function as an aesthetic makes for a religion that worships the beautiful at the expense of all else and an aesthetic that can function as a theology makes for an art that is expressive only of goodness.”
“A theology that cannot be sung is not worth having.... Authentic Christian faith is not merely believed. Nor is it merely acted upon. It is sung - with utter joy sometimes, in uncontrollable tears sometimes, but it is sung.”
Source: With One Voice: Discovering Christ's Song in Our Worship
“A theology whose god is a metaphor is wasting its time.”
“A theology without spirituality would be a sterile academic exercise.”
“A theorem is a proposition which is a strict logical consequence of certain definitions and other propositions.”
“A theoretical physicist can spend his entire lifetime missing the intellectual challenge of experimental work, experiencing none of the thrills and dangers - the overhead crane with its ten-ton load, the flashing skull and crossbones and danger, radioactivity signs. A theorist's only real hazard is stabbing himself with a pencil while attacking a bug that crawls out of his calculations.”
Source: The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, what is the Question?
“A theoretical system does not merely state facts which have been observed and that logically deducible relations to other facts which have also been observed.”
Source: The Structure of Social Action: A Study in Social Theory with Special Reference to a Group of Recent European Writers
“A theorist today is hardly considered respectable if he or she has not introduced at least one new particle for which there is no experimental evidence.”
“A theory accepted by 99 percent of scientists may be wrong.”
Source: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science
“A theory can be proved by experiment; but no path leads from experiment to the birth of a theory.”
“A theory deeply etched in our law [is that] a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse the rights of free speech after they break the law rather than to throttle them and all others beforehand.”
“A theory has only the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right, but irrelevant.”
“A theory held that an anti-Castro group was behind the assassination…. Sylvia Orenstein, who was born in New York City on 22nd July, 1921, promoted this theory while taking evening classes at Brooklyn College. The marriage to her professor, James Meagher, accounted for her name change. As Sylvia Meagher, she became a research analyst at the UN’s World Health Organization. Her book, “Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, the Authorities, and the Report After the Fact,” published in 1967, supported this widely held theory. In her book, she expressed that she was not convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald had been a lone gunman. Her conclusion was that the Warren Commission had attempted to cover-up important details of the actual people behind the assassination. In 1980, Meagher co-authored another book named “Master Index to the John F. Kennedy Assassination Investigations.” Meagher continued to believe that John F. Kennedy had been killed by Anti-Castro exiles until her death at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City, at the age of 67, on January 14, 1989.”
“A theory in its day helps to solve the problems of the day.”
Source: The Ascent of Man
“A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: it must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.”
“A theory is just a mathematical model to describe the observations.”
“A theory is like medicine (or government): often useless, sometimes necessary, always self-serving, and on occasion lethal. So it needs to be used with care, moderation and close adult supervision.”
Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
“A theory is no more like a fact than a photograph is like a person.”
“A theory is nothing but a tool to know the reality. If a theory contradicts reality, it must be discarded at the earliest.”
Source: Myths are Real, Reality is a Myth
“A theory is only as good as its assumptions. If the premises are false, the theory has no real scientific value. The only scientific criterion for judging the validity of a scientific theory is a confrontation with the data of experience.”
“A theory is scientific only if it can be disproved. But the moment you try to cover absolutely everything the chances are that you cover nothing.”
“A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.”
Source: Some strangeness in the proportion: a centennial symposium to celebrate the achievements of Albert Einstein
“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.”
“A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended is its area of applicability. Therefore the deep impression which classical thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of universal content concerning which I am convinced that within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, it will never be overthrown.”
Source: A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein
“A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended its area of applicability.”
“A theory must be tempered with reality.”
Source: 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
“A theory of creativity is actually just a metaphor. A pool of ideas, a well of memories, a voice.”
Source: 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel
“A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.”
Source: The Possibility of Altruism
“A theory of personal resurrection or reincarnation of the individual is untenable when we but pause to consider the magnitude of the idea. On the contrary, I must believe that rather than the survival of all, we must look for survival only in the spirit of the good we have done in passing through.Once obsolete, an automobile is thrown to the scrap heap. Once here and gone, the human life has likewise served its purpose. If it has been a good life, it has been sufficient. There is no need for another.”
“A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of government as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by government. Somewhere in between and In gradations is the group that has the sense that gov't exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly.”
“A theory of the universe that states: If anyone finds out what the universe is for, it will disappear and be replaced by something more bizarrely inexplicable.”
“A theory on why we stop remembering: there is a part of our story that we do not know how to tell to ourselves and we will away its existence for so long that finally our brain agrees to a trade: I will let you forget this, but you will never feel whole.”
Source: Find Me
“A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong”
“A theory that denies that thoughts can regulate actions does not lend itself readily to the explanation of complex human behavior.”
Source: Social foundations of thought and action: a social cognitive theory
“A theory that explains everything, explains nothing”
“A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.”
“A theory which cannot be mortally endangered cannot be alive.”
“A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.”
Source: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
“A theory with mathematical beauty is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits some experimental data.”
“A theory's assumptions always are and ought to be unrealistic. Further, we should attempt to make them more unrealistic in order to increase a theory's fruitfulness.”
“A thesaurus is a dictionary on drugs.”
“A thesis has to be presentable... but don't attach too much importance to it. If you do succeed in the sciences, you will do later on better things and then it will be of little moment. If you don't succeed in the sciences, it doesn't matter at all.”
“A thick, chargrilled patty--- medium-rare, oozing juice. Smear of special sauce. Butter lettuce; beefsteak tomato; white onion, lightly fried. Crinkle-cut pickle chips, Kosher dill. Toasted sesame seed bun.”
Source: Aftertaste
“A thick headcloth forms a good protection against the sun, and if you wear a hat your best Arab friends will be ashamed of you in public.”
Source: Lawrence of Arabia: The Man Behind the Myth (Complete Autobiographical Works, Memoirs & Letters): Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Memoirs of the Arab Revolt) + The Evolution of a Revolt + The Mint (Memoirs of the secret service in Royal Air Force) + Collected Letters (1915-1935)
“A thick hide is a gift from God.”
“A thick, intense fog was rolling in from the ocean, which created long, strange shadows to form like creatures of their own kind.”
“A thick skin is a gift from God.”
“A thick, soupy lava p0urs across my chest and dribbles down my spine and breasts. Why shouldn't I have this one thing? I've hoped and prayed and begged, and nothing has worked. A good wife doesn't get angry, and she definitely doesn't blame her husband for anything, but how can I be a good wife without a baby? How can I create a perfect life for us if my husband keeps disappearing, returning home far too late smelling like flowers and sporting bruised lips?”
Source: Trad Wife
“A thick stick in one's hand makes people respectful.”
Source: The Complete Lewis Carroll Collection (Illustrated)