Analogies Quotes

• If genius has any common denominator, I would propose breadth of interest and the ability to construct fruitful analogies between fields.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Genius, Fields, Common

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History”, p.66, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

  George Eliot

  Beauty, Eggs, Hopeful

  George Eliot (1910). “Works of George Eliot”

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• The human mind delights in finding pattern—so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning. No other habit of thought lies so deeply within the soul of a small creature trying to make sense of a complex world not constructed for it.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Mistake, Lying, Profound

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History”, p.199, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Imagination is an almost divine faculty which, without recourse to any philosophical method, immediately perceives everything: the secret and intimate connections between things, correspondences and analogies.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Art, Philosophical, Imagination

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• Analogy pervades all our thinking, our everyday speech and our trivial conclusions as well as artistic ways of expression and the highest scientific achievements.

  George Polya

  Thinking, Expression, Achievement

  George Pólya (1945). “How to Solve it: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method”

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• Mathematics compares the most diverse phenomena and discovers the secret analogies that unite them.

  Joseph Fourier

  Math, Science, Secret

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• We know nothing of what will happen in future, but by the analogy of experience.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Future, Drug

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 1: 1832-1858: Library of America #45”, p.50, Library of America

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• Science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remote parts.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Identity, Findings

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.45, Modern Library

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• Mathematical analysis is as extensive as nature itself; it defines all perceptible relations, measures times, spaces, forces, temperatures:;; this difficult science is formed slowly, but it preserves every principle which it has once acquired; it grows and strengthens itself incessantly in the midst of the many variations and errors of the human mind. It's chief attribute is clearness; it has no marks to express confused notations. It brings together phenomena the most diverse, and discovers the hidden analogies which unite them.

  Joseph Fourier

  Confused, Errors, Space

  Joseph Fourier (2007). “The Analytical Theory of Heat”, p.7, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Many people tend to look at programming styles and languages like religions: if you belong to one, you cannot belong to others. But this analogy is another fallacy.

  Niklaus Wirth

  People, Style, Looks

  "The Awakening of Global Consciousness: A Guide to Self-Realization and Spirituality". Book by Jawara D. King, 2010.

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• If one looks at the different problems of the integral calculus which arise naturally when one wishes to go deep into the different parts of physics, it is impossible not to be struck by the analogies existing.

  Henri Poincare

  Wish, Different, Looks

  Popular Science Vol. 82, No. 15 (p. 215), March 1913.

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• We know that attention acts as a lightning rod. Merely by concentrating on something one causes endless analogies to collect around it, even penetrate the boundaries of the subject itself: an experience that we call coincidence, serendipity – the terminology is extensive. My experience has been that in these circular travels what is really significant surrounds a central absence, an absence that, paradoxically, is the text being written or to be written.

  Julio Cortazar

  Serendipity, Lightning, Attention

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• Life is like an analogy.

  Aaron Allston

  Life Is Like, Life Is

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• Beanie and Cecil was the first cartoon I remember watching and I think there are analogies.

  Joel Hodgson

  Thinking, Cartoon, Firsts

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• The principle of equity first came into evidence in Roman jurisprudence and was derived by analogy from the physical meaning of the word.

  Herbert Read

  Principles, Jurisprudence, Redemption

  Herbert Read (1963). “Selected Writings: Poetry and Criticism”

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• I take the walk to be the externalization of an interior seeking so that the analogy is first of all between the external and the internal.

  A. R. Ammons

  Firsts, Walks, Internals

  A. R. Ammons (1996). “Set in motion: essays, interviews, and dialogues”, Univ of Michigan Pr

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• One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they think about memes is they try to extend on the analogy with genes. That's not how it works. It works by realizing the concept of a replicator.

  Susan Blackmore

  Mistake, Thinking, People

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• We often attribute 'understanding' and other cognitive predicates by metaphor and analogy to cars, adding machines, and other artifacts, but nothing is proved by such attributions.

  John Searle

  Umpires, Car, Understanding

  "Minds, Brains and Programs". Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 1980.

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• By bringing together what we know and what we don't know through analogy, metaphorical thinking strikes the spark that ignites discovery.

  James Geary

  Thinking, Discovery, Together

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• In early times every sort of advantage tends to become a military advantage; such is the best way, then, to keep it alive. But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious.

  Walter Bagehot

  Religious, Military, Alive

  Walter Bagehot (1873). “Physics and Politics: Or, Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of "natural Selection" and "inheritance" to Political Society”, p.63

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• I see the origin of the irresistible attraction of metaphor and analogy, the explanation of our strange and permanent need to find similarities in things. I can scarcely refrain from suspecting some ancient, diffused magnetism; a call from the center of things; a dim, almost lost memory, or perhaps a presentiment, pointless in so puny a being, of a universal syntax.

  Roger Caillois

  Memories, Needs, Syntax

  Roger Caillois (1985). “The writing of stones”, Univ of Virginia Pr

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• Analogies, it is true, decide nothing, but they can make one feel more at home.

  Sigmund Freud

  Peace, Home, Writing

  Sigmund Freud, James Strachey (1953). “The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud”

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• While analogies are useful, however, they can also be misleading. They smuggle in assumptions that can be wrong.

  Michael Mandelbaum

  Assumption, Mislead

  "The Great Game Then and Now". Address to the Conference on Oil and Gas in the Caspian Sea Region: Geopolitical and Regional Security, March 12, 1998.

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• After all, the past is our only real guide to the future, and historical analogies are instruments for distilling and organizing the past and converting it to a map by which we can navigate.

  Michael Mandelbaum

  Real, Past, Historical

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• Music and politics are in essence about communication. Without over-stretching the analogy I do feel a sense of rhythm is important in getting your message across.

  Charles Kennedy

  Communication, Essence, Important

  Interview with Will Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. April 15, 2005.

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