Best principles & facts Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I take what I see work. I'm a strict believer in the scientific principle of believing nothing, only taking the best evidence available at the present time, interpreting it as best you can, and leaving your mind open to the fact that new evidence will appear tomorrow.”

Mind Believe Facts Principles Tomorrow Evidence Leaving Available Believer Strict Present Time Interpreting

Author:Adam Osborne

“Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.”

Ideas Facts Reality Principles Agree Endless Abstract Frustration Concrete Penalties Inconsistency

Book:Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking

Source: Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking

“A major fault, for example, is the fact that, along with the materialist principle, Darwin introduced into his theory of evolution reactionary Malthusian ideas.”

Ideas Facts Principles Example Theory Evolution Majors Faults Reactionaries Theory Of Evolution

Author:Trofim Lysenko

“Hitherto the principle of causality was universally accepted as an indispensable postulate of scientific research, but now we are told by some physicists that it must be thrown overboard. The fact that such an extraordinary opinion should be expressed in responsible scientific quarters is widely taken to be significant of the all-round unreliability of human knowledge. This indeed is a very serious situation.”

Source: The new science: 3 complete works: Where is science going? The universe in the light of modern physics; The philosophy of physics

“Being humble does not mean being weak, reticent, or self-effacing. It means recognizing principle and putting it ahead of self. It means standing firmly for principle, even in the fact of opposition.”

Mean Doe Self Facts Motivational Principles Standing Weak Humble Opposition Recognizing Be Humble Stand Firm

Book:The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything

Source: The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything

“In principle, there’s nothing wrong with the concept of an infographic. What concerns me is the types of things that people are doing with them. They get far off topic, or the fact checking is really poor. The infographic may be neat, but if the information it’s based on is simply wrong, then it’s misleading people.”

People Ifs May Facts Poor Principles Information Type Concepts Concern Topics Mislead Neat

Author:Matt Cutts

“The new tinge to modern minds is a vehement and passionate interest in the relation of general principles to irreducible and stubborn facts. All the world over and at all times there have been practical men, absorbed in 'irreducible and stubborn facts'; all the world over and at all times there have been men of philosophic temperament, who have been absorbed in the weaving of general principles. It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty of our present society.”

“The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.”

Source: Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848

“The President of the United States of necessity owes his election to office to the suffrage and zealous labors of a political party, the members of which cherish with ardor and regard as of essential importance the principles of their party organization; but he should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves the country best.”

Source: Inaugural Speeches from the Presidents of the United States - Complete Edition

“The premium so often put in schools upon external "discipline," and upon marks and rewards, upon promotion and keeping back, are the obverse of the lack of attention given to life situations in which the meaning of facts, ideas, principles, and problems is vitally brought home.”

Ideas Facts Problem Home School Given Attention Situation Principles Discipline Mark Rewards Promotion Premium

Book:The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education

Source: The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education

“The power of administrative bodies to make finding of fact which may be treated as conclusive, if there is evidence both ways, is a power of enormous consequence. An unscrupulous administrator might be tempted to say "Let me find the facts for the people of my country, and I care little who lays down the general principles."”

People Ifs Way May Littles Country Facts Body Might Care Principles Findings Evidence Consequence Let Me Lays Enormous Treated I Care Tempted Administrative Administrators

Author:Charles Evans Hughes

“The world is chiefly a mental fact. From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the principle of casuality[sic], color, warmth, and beauty. Were there no mind, there would be no world.”

World Mind Facts Would Be Form Space Principles Color Warmth Time And Space

Author:John Lancaster Spalding

“It is a noteworthy fact that not one of the women to whom I have spoken so far believes in abortion as a practice; but it is principle for which they are standing. They also believe that the complete abolition of the abortion law will shortly do away with abortions, as nothing else will.”

Believe Facts Law Principles Practice Standing Abortion Abolition Abortion Laws

Book:The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 4: Round the World for Birth Control, 1920-1966

Source: The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 4: Round the World for Birth Control, 1920-1966

“I find it expressed in various passages of Scripture that the fact that God knows things while in a state of possibility, when their existence belongs to the future, does not change the nature of the possible in any way; that nature remains unchanged; and the knowledge of the realisation of one of several possibilities does not yet effect that realisation. This is likewise one of the fundamental principles of the Law of Moses concerning which there is no doubt nor any dispute.”

“The fact that laws were given to man, both affirmative and negative, supports the principle, that God's knowledge of future events does not change their character. The great doubt that presents itself to our mind is the result of the insufficiency of our intellect.”

Men Mind Doe Character Facts Law Given Results Principles Support Doubt Events Negative Intellect Affirmative Insufficiency Future Events

Book:Guide for the perplexed

Source: Guide for the perplexed

“While the broad principles of democracy are universal, the fact remains that their application varies considerably ... We are at the beginning of the road, at the very beginning. We still have a long way to go.”

Way Long Stills Facts Principles Democracy Universal Remains Broads Application Long Way Vary Long Way To Go

Author:Boutros Boutros-Ghali

“Burton did not believe in miracles . Nothing happened that could not be explained by physical principles if you knew all the facts .”

Ifs Believe Facts Principles Happened Miracle Believe In Miracles

Book:Riverworld: Including To Your Scattered Bodies Go & The Fabulous Riverboat

Source: Riverworld: Including To Your Scattered Bodies Go & The Fabulous Riverboat

“Mathematics is a presuppositionless science. To found it I do not need God, as does Kronecker, or the assumption of a special faculty of our understanding attuned to the principle of mathematical induction, as does Poincaré, or the primal intuition of Brouwer, or, finally, as do Russell and Whitehead, axioms of infinity, reducibility, or completeness, which in fact are actual, contentual assumptions that cannot be compensated for by consistency proofs.”

Needs Doe Facts Found Understanding Principles Special Mathematics Intuition Proof Mathematical Assumption Faculty Infinity Consistency Primal Axioms Completeness Need God

Author:David Hilbert

“The beautiful is and remains beautiful though it arouse no emotion whatever, and though there be no one to look at it. In other words, although the beautiful exists for the gratification of an observer, it is independent of him. In this sense music, too, has no aim (object), and the mere fact that this particular art is so closely bound up with our feelings by no means justifies the assumption that its aesthetic principles depend on this union.”

Looks Mean Art Facts Feelings Beautiful Emotion Principles Objects Particular Depends Art Is Aim Independent Remains Unions Mere Bounds Assumption Justify Aesthetic Observers Gratification

Author:Eduard Hanslick

“International affairs must be completely permeated with scientific methodology and a democratic spirit, with a fearless weighing of all facts, views, and theories, with maximum publicity of ultimate and intermediate goals, and with a consistency of principles.”

Facts Spirit Goal Views Principles Theory Ultimate Democratic Affair International Fearless Consistency Maximum Publicity Methodology Weighing International Affairs

Book:Progress, coexistence, and intellectual freedom

Source: Progress, coexistence, and intellectual freedom

“In the early days the Cubism' method of grasping an object was to go round and round it. The Futurists declared that one had to get inside it. In my opinion the two views can be reconciled in a poetic cognition of the world. But to the very fact that they appealed to the creative depths in the painter by awakening in him hidden forces which were intuitive and vitalizing, the Futurist theories did more than the Cubist principles to open up unexplored and boundless horizons.”

World Two Facts Force Views Opinion Principles Creative Objects Theory Method Depth Rounds Awakening Painter Poetic Horizon Intuitive Boundless Cognition Grasping Unexplored Futurist

Author:Gino Severini

“It is possible to express the laws of thermodynamics in the form of independent principles , deduced by induction from the facts of observation and experiment, without reference to any hypothesis as to the occult molecular operations with which the sensible phenomena may be conceived to be connected; and that course will be followed in the body of the present treatise. But, in giving a brief historical sketch of the progress of thermodynamics, the progress of the hypothesis of thermic molecular motions cannot be wholly separated from that of the purely inductive theory.”

Source: A Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers by William John Macquorn Rankine

“Although the formulations of science now offer the most advanced knowledge of nature, men continue to use obsolete forms of thought long discarded by scientific theory. In so far as these obsolete forms are superfluous for science, the fact that they persist violated the principle of the economy of thought, that characteristic trait of the bourgeois temper.”

Men Long Facts Use Form Principles Economy Theory Offers Characteristics Temper Traits Persist Bourgeois Obsolete Superfluous Discarded Scientific Theory

Author:Max Horkheimer

“I feel myself always the patriot of all oppressed fatherlands. Nationality is a historic, local fact which, like all real and harmless facts, has the right to claim general acceptance. Every people, like every person, is involuntarily that which it is and therefore has a right to be itself. Nationality is not a principle; it is a legitimate fact, just as individuality is. Every nationality, great or small, has the incontestable right to be itself, to live according to its own nature. This right is simply the corollary of the general principal of freedom.”

People Feels Persons Real Facts Principles Acceptance Claims Individuality Locals Principal Patriot Oppressed Historic Nationality Fatherland

Author:Mikhail Bakunin

“It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am.”

States Facts United Principles United States Doubt Intention Spread Contrary Satisfied Doctrine

Author:George Washington

“No longer can we afford to stuff the brains of the young with facts. The time is too short, the necessity for results too pressing. The new education must be based on the elimination of facts except as they illustrate principles. How to use facts, not how to accumulate them, is the purpose of true education.”

Facts Use Young Purpose Stuff Results Brain Education Principles Too Short Elimination True Education

Author:Pearl S. Buck

“A great character, founded on the living rock of principle is, in fact, not a solitary phenomenon, to be at once perceived, limited, and described. It is a dispensation of Providence, designed to have not merely an immediate, but a continuous, progressive, and never-ending agency. It survives the man who possessed it; survives his age,--and perhaps, his country, his language.”

Men Country Character Facts Age Language Principles Rocks He Man Agency Phenomenon Progressive Possessed Solitary Providence Never Ending Great Character

Book:Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions

Source: Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions

“We've learned that women can and should do 'men's jobs,' for instance, and we've won the principle (if not the fact) of getting equal pay. But we haven't yet established the principle (much less the fact) that men can and should do 'women's jobs': that homemaking and child-rearing are as much a man's responsibility, too, and that those jobs in which women are concentrated outside the home would probably be better paid if more men became secretaries, file clerks, and nurses, too.”

Ifs Men Should Children Facts Home Jobs Pay Responsibility Principles Havens Equal Paid Equality Instance Nurse Secretary Files Clerks Equal Pay Child Rearing Homemaking

Author:Gloria Steinem

“A maxim is a conclusion upon observation of matters of fact, and is merely speculative; a "principle" carries knowledge within itself, and is prospective.”

Matter Facts Principles Conclusion Observation Carrie Maxims Matter Of Fact

Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Cops never took anything on faith, and disbelieved every story that was told them on principle until and unless they could confirm that the story was fact in all its essentials, and even then remained wary and unconvinced. Cop shops bred skeptics. Skeptics cherished few illusions about human nature, and therefore were seldom disappointed.”

Humans Facts Stories Principles Human Nature Essentials Illusion Shops Disappointed Cop Law Enforcement Skeptic

Author:Dana Stabenow

“Examining love is like examining a stocking: if you hold it up to the light and stretch it to search for snags, any snags there are may well run and ruin the stocking. In fact, if I may fashion Coudert's law from Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy, it is this: Love is not only changed by observation; it is changed for the worse.”

Ifs Wells May Facts Light Running Law Love Is Principles Fashion Changed Observation Ruins Examining Love Is Like Stockings

Book:Advice from a Failure

Source: Advice from a Failure

“The Perennial Philosophy is expressed most succinctly in the Sanskrit formula, tat tvam asi ('That art thou'); the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman, the Absolute Principle of all existence; and the last end of every human being, is to discover the fact for himself, to find out who he really is.”

Humans Art Ends Self Philosophy Facts Lasts Human Beings Existence Principles Eternal Absolutes Formulas Brahman Atman Sanskrit

Book:The Perennial Philosophy: An Interpretation of the Great Mystics, East and West

Source: The Perennial Philosophy: An Interpretation of the Great Mystics, East and West

“Happiness is a thing honored and perfect. This seems to be borne out by the fact that it is a first principle or starting-point, since all other things that all men do are done for its sake; and that which is the first principle and cause of things good we agree to be something honorable and divine.”

Men Firsts Done Facts Seems Happiness Causes Perfect Principles Divine Agree Starting Sake Honorable Honored Starting Point

Author:Aristotle

“The idea of direct action against the evil that you want to overcome is a kind of common denominator for anarchist ideas and anarchist movements. I think one of the most important principles of anarchism is that you cannot separate means and ends. Anarchism requires means and ends to be in line with one another. I think this is in fact one of the distinguishing characteristics of anarchism.”

Thinking Want Kind Mean Important Ideas Ends Facts Action Evil Lines Common Principles Movement Direct Overcoming Characteristics Anarchism Anarchist Common Denominator Direct Action

Author:Howard Zinn

“we have complaints that institutional dominance of the stock market has put 'the small investor at a disadvantage because he can't compete with the trust companies' huge resources, etc. The facts are quite the opposite. It may be that the institutions are better equipped than the individual to speculate in the market.But I am convinced that an individual investor with sound principles, and soundly advised, can do distinctly better over the long pull than large institutions.”

May Long Facts Individual Sound Can Do Company Principles Huge Resources Opposites Institutions Convinced Etc Investors Complaints Disadvantages Dominance

Author:Benjamin Graham

“The most obvious purpose of college education is to help students acquire information and knowledge by acquainting them with facts, theories, generalizations, principles, and the like. This purpose scarcely requires justification.”

Facts Helping Purpose Principles Information Students College Theory Obvious Acquire Justification College Education Generalization

Author:Derek Bok

“The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. The superficial explanation is that a government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect and who obey their governors are educated. Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can be created only by education.”

Source: Democracy and Education: Top American Authors

“I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please.”

Facts Body Principles Please Suspects Fallacy Deductions

Author:Charles Darwin

“Sociological method as we practice it rests wholly on the basic principle that social facts must be studied as things, that is, as realities external to the individual. There is no principle for which we have received more criticism; but none is more fundamental. Indubitably for sociology to be possible, it must above all have an object all its own. It must take cognizance of a reality which is not in the domain of other sciences... there can be no sociology unless societies exist, and that societies cannot exist if there are only individuals.”

Ifs Facts Reality Individual Social Principles Practice Objects Criticism Method Fundamentals Sociology Domain Basic Principles Sociological

Author:Emile Durkheim

“We do not know how to formulate string theory nor do we know its underlying principles. Surprisingly, this fact does not stop us from making progress.”

Knows Doe Facts Science Principles Know How Progress Theory Mathematics Strings String Theory

Author:Nathan Seiberg

“A small knowledge of human nature will convince us, that, with far the greatest part of mankind, interest is the governing principle... Few men are capable of making a continual sacrifice of all views of private interest, or advantage, to the common good. It is vain to exclaim against the depravity of human nature on this account; the fact is so, the experience of every age and nation has proved it and we must in a great measure, change the constitution of man, before we can make it otherwise. No institution, not built on the presumptive truth of these maxims can succeed.”

“The fact is that pictures which are unlike reality ought not be approved, and even if they are technically fine, this is no reason why they should offhand be judged to be correct, if their subject is lacking in the principles of reality carried out with no violations.”

Ifs Should Reason Facts Reality Principles Subjects Fine Ought Reason Why No Reason Judged Lacking Violation Approved

Author:Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

“Astrology ... makes vague predictions that can always be adapted after the fact to fit observations, as we'll see. Astrologers don't seek causes at all, for a good reason: There isn't any cause to astrology. If you look for some underlying reason, some connection between the stars and planets and our lives, you won't find any. For astrology to sell, buyers must not seek out the fundamental principles behind it, because if they do they'll see that there is none.”

“That education is not an affair of "telling" and being told, but an active and constructive process, is a principle almost as generally violated in practice as conceded in theory. Is not this deplorable situation due to the fact that the doctrine is itself merely told? It is preached; it is lectured; it is written about.”

Facts Process Situation Principles Practice Teacher Written Teaching Theory Affair Active Dues Doctrine Constructive Conceded

Book:Democracy and Education: Top American Authors

Source: Democracy and Education: Top American Authors

“I would inquire of reasonable persons whether this principle: Matter is naturally wholly incapable of thought, and this other: I think, therefore I am, are in fact the same in the mind of Descartes, and in that of St. Augustine, who said the same thing twelve hundred years before.”

Thinking Years Mind Persons Said Matter Facts Principles Hundred Reasonable Twelve Incapable Augustine

Book:The Thoughts, Letters and Opuscules of Blaise Pascal

Source: The Thoughts, Letters and Opuscules of Blaise Pascal

“The method of differences is, in fact, a method of additions; and as it includes within its means a larger number of results attainable by addition simply, than any other mathematical principle, it was very appropriately selected as the basis on which to construct an Adding Machine, so as to give to the powers of such a machine the widest possible range.”

Giving Mean Facts Differences Results Numbers Principles Machines Bases Method Mathematical Range Constructs Selected

Author:Ada Lovelace

“People think of art and science as being fundamentally opposed to each other, because art is about celebrating individual human creativity, and science is about discovering general principles, not about individual people. But in fact, the two have a lot in common, and the creative spirit is similar in both.”

People Thinking Humans Art Two Facts Spirit Individual Common Principles Creativity Creative Art Is Celebrate Discovering Art And Science Creative Spirit

Author:Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

“The basis of self-ownership is the fact that each person has direct control over the scarce resource of his body and therefore has a better claim to it than any third party (and any third party seeking to dispute my self-ownership must presuppose the principle of self-ownership in the first place since he is acting as a self-owner).”

Firsts Persons Self Facts Body Party Acting Principles Resources Direct Thirds Bases Claims Seeking Owners Ownership Disputes Scarce Third Parties Scarce Resources Self Ownership

Author:Stephan Kinsella

“I don't fear death. I'm not obsessed with it the way everybody else seems to be. It's wrong to say "everybody," but in literature I see it all the time - preoccupation with it, philosophical preoccupation, in fact. That's a principle element of literature and philosophy, often cited as the main element, the only real element. I say give it up.”

Way Giving Real Philosophy Facts Seems Literature Principles Elements Philosophical Obsessed Fear Of Death Preoccupation

Author:James Salter

“The whole machinery of our intelligence, our general ideas and laws, fixed and external objects, principles, persons, and gods, are so many symbolic, algebraic expressions. They stand for experience; experience which we are incapable of retaining and surveying in its multitudinous immediacy. We should flounder hopelessly, like the animals, did we not keep ourselves afloat and direct our course by these intellectual devices. Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of fact.”

Source: The Works of George Santayana

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