Axioms Quotes

• The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

  Albert Einstein

  Education, Science, Numbers

  1970 Quoted in Life Magazine, 9 Jan.

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• We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.

  John Keats

  Book, Experience, Gone

  Letter to J. H. Reynolds, 3 May 1818, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 279

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• Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.

  Albert Einstein

  Truth, Honesty, Understanding

  Albert Einstein, Stephen W. Hawking (2007). “A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein”, p.452, Running Press

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• For axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses.

  John Keats

  Philosophy, Experience, Pulse

  Letter to J. H. Reynolds, 3 May 1818, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 279

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• You can "prove" anything on the verbal level, just be accepting the necessary axioms at the beginning.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Levels, Accepting, Prove

  Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

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• To choose one sock from each of infinitely many pairs of socks requires the Axiom of Choice, but for shoes the Axiom is not needed.

  Bertrand Russell

  Shoes, Choices, Pairs

  "Weighing the Odds: A Course in Probability and Statistics". Book by David Williams, p. 498, 2001.

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• A science is something which is constructed from truth on workable axioms. There are 55 axioms in scientology which are very demonstrably true, and on these can be constructed a great deal.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Deals, Scientology

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• Axioms are delightful in theory, but impossible in practice.

  Antoine Rivarol

  Practice, Impossible, Theory

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• Many successful people are no more talented than unsuccessful people. The difference between them lies in the old axiom that successful people do those things that unsuccessful people don't like to do.

  Harvey Mackay

  Work, Lying, Successful

  Harvey Mackay (1999). “Pushing the Envelope: All the Way to the Top”

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• The eye of understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or levels, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.

  Francis Bacon

  Nature, Eye, Understanding

  Francis Bacon (1854). “The Works of Lord Bacon: Philosophical works”, p.96

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• The fundamental axiom, then, for the study of man is the existence of individual consciousness

  Murray Rothbard

  Men, Liberty, Study

  Murray N. Rothbard (2011). “Economic Controversies”, p.17, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• Be willing to dream, and imagine yourself becoming all that you wish to be. Keep in mind the basic axiom -- all that now exists was once imagined. It follows then that what you want to exist for you in the future must now be imagined.

  Wayne Dyer

  Dream, Mind, Wish

  FaceBook post by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer from Mar 26, 2012

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• Natura nihil agit frustra [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only indisputible axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesques in nature; not any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unncecessary spaces.

  Thomas Browne

  Nature, Philosophy, Philosophical

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• What are your Axioms, and Categories, and Systems, and Aphorisms? Words, words.... Be not the slave of Words.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Language, Slave, Aphorism

  Thomas Carlyle (1831). “Sartor Resartus: The life and opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in three books: By Thomas Carlyle”, p.36

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• Summation of Leviathan: "The axiom, fear; the method, logic; the conclusion, despotism."

  Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper

  History, Leviathan, Logic

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• This truth must be recognized as a dogma and assume the validity of an axiom in the general understanding of painting

  Fernand Leger

  Understanding, Assuming, Painting

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• In a conquered country benevolence is not humanitarianism. It is a general political axiom that a conqueror must not inspire a good opinion of his benevolence until he has demonstrated that he can be severe with malefactors.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Country, Political, Inspire

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• It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Independent, Government, Should

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.379, Cambridge University Press

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• My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live.

  Ayn Rand

  Choices, Morality, Reason

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.961, Penguin

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• Fanon calls his ideology a new humanism, not only in contrast to the elite humanism of the West, but also on the axiom that the wretched of the earth, understood socially, think and thus must be a basis of a new politics. This, of course, is not achieved immediately, but it must become an explicit element of the struggle for liberation.

  Nigel Gibson

  Struggle, Thinking, Elements

  "Frantz Fanon and the Arab Uprisings: An Interview with Nigel Gibson". Interview with Yasser Munif, www.middleeastdigest.com. August 17, 2012.

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• The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics. Thus, "the whole is greater than its part;" "reaction is equal to action;" "the smallest weight may be made to lift the greatest, the difference of weight being compensated by time;" and many the like propositions, which have an ethical as well as physical sense. These propositions have a much more extensive and universal sense when applied to human life, than when confined to technical use.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Law, Differences

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.153

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• You want at least 5% of the population being serious. That five, 6% of the population carries the rest of the people. You've heard that old axiom: 5% of the people pull the wagon; 95% are in it.

  Rush Limbaugh

  People, Population, Want

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• An Italian proverb says, In men every mortal sin is venial; in woman every venial sin is mortal. And a German axiom, that There are only two good women in the world: one of them is dead, and the other is not to be found.

  George Augustus Henry Sala

  Italian, Men, Two

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• Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms.

  Will Durant

  Philosophy, Doubt, Belief

  Will Durant (2012). “Story of Philosophy”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• If nature leads us to mathematical forms of great simplicity and beauty - by forms I am referring to coherent systems of hypothesis, axioms, etc. - to forms that no one has previously encountered, we cannot help thinking that they are "true," that they reveal a genuine feature of nature... You must have felt this too: The almost frightening simplicity and wholeness of relationships which nature suddenly spreads out before us and for which none of us was in the least prepared.

  Werner Heisenberg

  Thinking, Simplicity, Etc

  "Bittersweet Destiny: The Stormy Evolution of Human Behavior". Book by Del Thiessen, 1995.

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