Best theory & useless Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Conjecture as to things useful, is good; but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.”

Knows Would Be Theory Useless Idle Conjecture

Book:Dr. Johnson's Table Talk: Containing Aphorisms on Literature, Life, and Manners; with Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Selected and Arranged from Dr. Boswell's Life of Johnson

Source: Dr. Johnson's Table Talk: Containing Aphorisms on Literature, Life, and Manners; with Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Selected and Arranged from Dr. Boswell's Life of Johnson

“The economic and social theories used by those who take part in the social struggle ought to be judged not by their objective value but primarily for their effectiveness in arousing emotions. The scientific refutation of them which can be made is useless, however correct it may be objectively.”

May Made Used Values Social Emotion Struggle Economic Theory Ought Objectives Useless Judged Effectiveness Refutation Social Theory

Book:Manual of political economy

Source: Manual of political economy

“We need useless theory more than ever today.”

Needs Today Theory Useless

Author:Slavoj Žižek

“The history of science should not be an instrument to defend any kind of social or philosophic theory; it should be used only for its own purpose, to illustrate impartially the working of reason against unreason, the gradual unfolding of truth, in all its forms, whether pleasant or unpleasant, useful of useless, welcome or unwelcome.”

Should Kind Reason Form Used Purpose Social Theory Instruments Welcome Useless Pleasant Unfolding Philosophic History Of Science Unwelcome

Book:Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece

Source: Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece

“The simplest case, where one is informed that a cat is black because it is black, may be harmless, though irritating and useless; but the actual cases [in statements of evolutionary theory] are always harder to detect than this, and may darken counsel for a long time.”

May Long Black Cases Theory Long Time Cat Harder Statements Useless Simplest Irritating

Author:Norman Macbeth

“It is useless saying that we do not accept the gods of the primitive world. In form, no; in essence, yes. The fact before us is that all ideas of gods can be traced to the earliest stages of human history.... There is an unbroken line of descent linking the gods of the most primitive peoples to those of modern man. We reject the world of the savage; but we still, in our churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, perpetuate the theories he built upon that world.”

“American society has tried so hard and so ably to defend the practice and theory of production for profit and not primarily for use that now it has succeeded in making its jobs and products profitable and useless.”

Hard Use Jobs Practice Products Theory Profit Productions Useless Profitable American Society

Book:Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society

Source: Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society

“It is rational to choose the right means to your ends to develop very elegant abstract formal theories of rational choice, and then turn these into what look like moral theories. Philosophers tend to be ravished by the formal beauty of such theories, and they don't pay much attention to the fact that our human limitations make them pretty useless in practice, while the simple point about instrumental reasoning is too shallow to be of much real moral interest.”

Humans Looks Mean Real Ends Facts Turns Choices Interest Simple Pay Attention Moral Practice Theory Philosopher Rational Limitation Useless Abstract Reasoning Formal Shallow Elegant

Author:Allen W. Wood

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