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Plausible Quotes

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Plausible Quotes

“I plot as I go. Many novelists write an outline that has almost as many pages as their ultimate book. Others knock out a brief synopsis... Do what is comfortable. If you have to plot out every move your characters make, so be it. Just make sure there is a plausible purpose behind their machinations. A good reader can smell a phony plot a block away.”

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Author:Clive Cussler
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“You could take up the line that some of the gnostics took up - a line which I often thought was a very plausible one - that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.”

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Book:Bertrand Russell's Best
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“There is no exercise of the intellect which is not, in the final analysis, useless. A philosophical doctrine begins as a plausible description of the universe; with the passage of the years it becomes a mere chapter if not a paragraph or a name in the history of philosophy.”

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Book:Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings
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“I lived, particularly in childhood but with lessening intensity right on to middle age, in a world that was peculiarly and intimately my own, scarcely to be shared with others or even made plausible to them. I habitually read special meanings into things, scenes and places qualities of wonder, beauty, promise, or horror for which there was no external evidence visible or plausible to others. My world was peopled with mysteries, seductive hints, vague menaces, "intimations of immortality.”

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Book:MEMOIRS 1925-1950
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“Most expositions of Aristotle's doctrines, when they have not been dictated by a spirit of virulent detraction, or unsympathetic indifference, have carefully suppressed all, or nearly all, the absurdities, and only retained what seemed plausible and consistent. But in this procedure their historical significance disappears.”

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Book:Aristotle: a chapter from the history of science including analyses of Aristotle's scientific writings
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“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." The adage is true as long as you don't really believe the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds.”

IfsBelieveMayLongWholeParentHurtBreakHellTeacherEffectsHusbandStonesPropertySticksDeedsBonesDoctrineSinnerPriestsLastingArticlesAdagesUpbringingHurt MePlausibleObnoxiousLong LastingSticks And Stones
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“All "if" statements about the past are as dubious as prophecies of the future are. It seems fairly plausible that if Alexander or Ghengis Khan had never been born, some other individual would have filled his place and executed the design of the Hellenic or Mongolic expansion; but the Alexanders of philosophy and religion, of science and art, seem less expendable; their impact seems less determined by economic challenges and social pressures; and they seem to have a much wider range of possibilities to influence the direction, shape and texture of civilizations.”

IfsArtPhilosophySeemsPastIndividualSocialBornChallengesInfluenceEconomicDesignPossibilityCivilizationShapesPressureImpactFilledDeterminedStatementsRangeProphecyExpansionTextureArt And SciencePlausibleDubiousPhilosophy And ReligionSocial PressureExpendables
Author:Arthur Koestler
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“I love stories where the impossible appears believable, plausible and real. Maybe it's silly, but it's one of the reasons Michael Crichton's writing always appealed to me: he took outlandish ideas and made them seem completely within the realm of possibility. I remember reading "Jurassic Park" and feeling like: "Oh, yeah - no, that's totally happening right now. They're bringing back dinosaurs!"”

WritingMadeIdeasRealReasonStoriesFeelingsSeemsRememberReadingImpossiblePossibilityRight NowHappeningsYeahSillyLove StoryRealmsParksDinosaursPlausibleBelievableOutlandishJurassic ParkRealm Of Possibility
Author:J. J. Abrams
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“The denial of any distinction between foreseen and intended consequences, as far as responsibility is concerned, was not made by Sidgwick in developing any one 'method of ethics'; he made this important move on behalf of everybody and just on its own account; and I think it plausible to suggest that this move on the part of Sidgwick explains the difference between old-fashioned Utilitarianism and the consequentialism, as I name it, which marks him and every English academic moral philosopher since him.”

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Book:Human Life, Action and Ethics: Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe
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“The emergence of a unified cognitive moment relies on the coordination of scattered mosaics of functionally specialized brain regions. Here we review the mechanisms of large-scale integration that counterbalance the distributed anatomical and functional organization of brain activity to enable the emergence of coherent behaviour and cognition. Although the mechanisms involved in large-scale integration are still largely unknown, we argue that the most plausible candidate is the formation of dynamic links mediated by synchrony over multiple frequency bands.”

StillsMomentsBrainInvolvedActivityBandOrganizationArguingScalesRelyCandidatesRegionsLinksReviewsMechanismMultipleBehaviourIntegrationFrequencyFormationCognitionCognitiveEmergenceUnifiedPlausibleLarge ScaleCoordinationMosaics
Author:Francisco Varela
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“The trauma of 9/11 stimulated infinite possibilities for worry - some quite plausible, but most inspired by remote what-if fantasies. A society bingeing on fear makes itself vulnerable to far more profound forms of destruction than terror attacks. The "terrorism war", like a nostalgic echo of the cold war, is using these popular fears to advance a different agenda - the re-engineering of American life through permanent mobilization.”

IfsDifferentWarFormWorryFantasyPossibilityColdDestructionInfiniteProfoundInspiredTerrorTraumaTerrorismVulnerablePermanentAgendasWhat IfEngineeringEchoesCold WarNostalgicAmerican LifePlausibleInfinite PossibilitiesMobilizationTerror Attacks
Author:William Greider
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“When confronted with a demand that the universe have a cause, infidels have usually pointed out that God was not much of an explanation. This is true enough, but not really a positive argument. After mechanistic explanation became popular, infidels liked to restrict causality to the chain of causes in an eternal material universe, pointing out that no supernatural cause was then necessary. Plausible, but still rather defensive. Today's skeptic can do better. In all likelihood, the universe is uncaused. It is random. It just is.”

StillsEnoughTodayReligionUniverseCausesCan DoMaterialsDemandEternalArgumentChainsExplanationPointingSkepticPlausibleLikelihoodInfidelCausality
Author:Taner Edis
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“The Pixar people continuously amaze me. They come up with something that actually looks as though it takes place in this happy, real-world. Every plot line is not just plausible, but oddly authentic. The stories are full of adventure, humor and love. The characters are written with great human dimension. I don't know how they do it but they astound me.”

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Author:Tom Hanks
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“That so many of us find it entirely plausible that a vast network of researchers and health officials and doctors worldwide would willfully harm children for money is evidence of what capitalism is really taking from us. Capitalism has already impoverished the working people who generate wealth for others. And capitalism has already impoverished us culturally, robbing unmarketable art of its value. But when we begin to see the pressures of capitalism as innate laws of human motivation, when we begin to believe that everyone is owned, then we are truly impoverished.”

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Author:Eula Biss
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“He must be able to hear them [the counter arguments] from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty.”

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Author:John Stuart Mill
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“There is not a single rule, however plausible, and however firmly grounded in epistemology, that is not violated at some time or other. It becomes evident that such violations are not accidental events, they are not results of insufficient knowledge or of inattention which might have been avoided. On the contrary, we see that they are necessary for progress.”

Has BeensMightScienceResultsProgressEventsContraryEvidentGroundedMight Have BeenAvoidedViolationScientific MethodPlausibleInsufficientEpistemologyInattention
Book:Against Method
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“The system of Descartes... seemed to give a plausible reason for all those phenomena; and this reason seemed more just, as it is simple and intelligible to all capacities. But in philosophy, a student ought to doubt of the things he fancies he understands too easily, as much as of those he does not understand.”

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Book:VOLTAIRE – Premium Collection: Novels, Philosophical Writings, Historical Works, Plays, Poems & Letters (60+ Works in One Volume) - Illustrated: Candide, A Philosophical Dictionary, A Treatise on Toleration, Plato's Dream, The Princess of Babylon, Zadig, The Huron, Socrates, The Sage and the Atheist, Dialogues, Oedipus, Caesar…
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