Axioms Quotes - Page 5

• It may be assumed as an axiom that Providence has never gifted any political party with all of political wisdom or blinded it with all of political folly.

  John George Nicolay

  Wisdom, Party, Political

  John George Nicolay (2008). “A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln (Volume 1 of 2 ) (EasyRead Comfort Edition)”, p.81, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• We shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man.

  Lynn Townsend White, Jr.

  Christian, Mother, Nature

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• Every student of physics knows the axiom 'nature abhors a vacuum.' A little known corollary is that 'rowing coaches detest sending their crews in early.' Coaches will always find something to fill the end-of-practice vacuum.

  Brad Alan Lewis

  Practice, Vacuums, Littles

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• Simplicity design axiom: The complexity of the information appliance is that of the task, not the tool. The technology is invisible.

  Donald A. Norman

  Technology, Simplicity, Design

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• It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Hands, People

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way”, p.60, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Blaise Pascal used to mark with charcoal the walls of his playroom, seeking a means of making a circle perfectly round and a triangle whose sides and angle were all equal. He discovered these things for himself and then began to seek the relationship which existed between them. He did not know any mathematical terms and so he made up his own. Using these names he made axioms and finally developed perfect demonstrations, until he had come to the thirty-second proposition of Euclid.

  Catharine Cox Miles

  Fun, Wall, Mean

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• Can the difficulty of an exam be measured by how many bits of information a student would need to pass it? This may not be so absurd in the encyclopedic subjects but in mathematics it doesn't make any sense since things follow from each other and, in principle, whoever knows the bases knows everything. All of the results of a mathematical theorem are in the axioms of mathematics in embryonic form, aren't they?

  Alfred Renyi

  Information, Principles, Needs

  Alfréd Rényi (1984). “A diary on information theory”

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• We should never forget the two axioms: 'Jesus is with me' and whatever happens, happens by the will of God.

  Charles de Foucauld

  Jesus, Two, Never Forget

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• An axiomatic system comprises axioms and theorems and requires a certain amount of hand-eye coordination before it works. A formal system comprises an explicit list of symbols, an explicit set of rules governing their cohabitation, an explicit list of axioms, and, above all, an explicit list of rules explicitly governing the steps that the mathematician may take in going from assumptions to conclusions. No appeal to meaning nor to intuition. Symbols lose their referential powers; inferences become mechanical.

  David Berlinski

  Eye, Hands, Intuition

  David Berlinski (2000). “The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World”, Houghton Mifflin

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• The institution of taxation rests foursquare on the axiom that somebody must rule somebody else.

  Frank Chodorov

  Taxation, Institutions, Foursquare

  Frank Chodorov (1980). “Fugitive essays: selected writings of Frank Chodorov”, Liberty Fund Inc.

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• Art, to me is the interpretation of the impression which nature makes upon the eye and brain. The word 'Impressionism' as applied to art has been abused, and in the general acceptance of the term has become perverted. [...] The true impressionism is realism. So many people do not observe. They take the ready-made axioms laid down by others, and walk blindly in a rut without trying to see for themselves.

  Childe Hassam

  Art, Eye, Acceptance

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• The full impact of the Lobachevskian method of challenging axioms has probably yet to be felt. It is no exaggeration to call Lobachevsky the Copernicus of Geometry [as did Clifford], for geometry is only a part of the vaster domain which he renovated; it might even be just to designate him as a Copernicus of all thought.

  Eric Temple Bell

  Science, Impact, Challenges

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• The demand that we love our neighbor as ourselves contains as an axiom the demand that we shall love ourselves, shall accept ourselves as we were created.

  Max Frisch

  Demand, Neighbor, Accepting

  Max Frisch (1958). “I'm not Stiller”, Vintage

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• When a truth is necessary, the reason for it can be found by analysis, that is, by resolving it into simpler ideas and truths until the primary ones are reached. It is this way that in mathematics speculative theorems and practical canons are reduced by analysis to definitions, axioms and postulates.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Ideas, Words Of Wisdom, Analysis

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• As soon as science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement. Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms. We call such a system of thought a theory. The theory finds the justification for its existence in the fact that it correlates a large number of single observations, and it is just here that the 'truth' of the theory lies.

  Albert Einstein

  Lying, Data, Numbers

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• It's an old axiom of mine: marry your enemies and behead your friends.

  Robert N. Lee

  Friends, Enemy, Mines

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• The first axiom of the family vacation is that someone, possibly everyone, will get sick.

  Marni Jackson

  Family, Vacation, Sick

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• The Americans are the living refutation of the Cartesian axiom, "I think, therefore I am": Americans do not think, yet they are. The American 'mind,' puerile and primitive, lacks characteristic form and is therefore open to every kind of standardization.

  Julius Evola

  Thinking, Mind, Kind

  "American 'Civilization'". Essay by Julius Evola (1945), published in his posthumous anthology "Civiltà americana. Scritti sugli Stati Uniti (1930–1968)", 2010.

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• Those reliable axioms about the taste and expectations of the mass movie audience are not so much laws of nature as artifacts of corporate strategy. And the lessons derived from them conveniently serve to strengthen a status quo that increasingly marginalizes risk, originality and intelligence.

  A. O. Scott

  Law, Expectations, Risk

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• What government supports, government controls. This is an ancient axiom repeatedly ratified by experience. . . . Indeed, as is well known, acceptance of tax aid has led to the secularization of many church-related colleges and universities.

  Edd Doerr

  Acceptance, College, Government

  Edd Doerr, Albert J. Menendez (1991). “Church schools & public money: the politics of parochiaid”

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• It is an axiom nowadays that no bank fails for lack of capital; unprofitable lending is always the underlying cause.

  James Grant

  Banking, Causes, Failing

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• The basis of almost every argument or conclusion I can make is the axiom that the short story can be anything the author decides it shall be;...In that infinite flexibility, indeed lies the reason why the short story has never been adequately defined.

  H. E. Bates

  Lying, Reason Why, Stories

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• There is a just Latin axiom, that he who seeks a reason for everything subverts reason.

  Epes Sargent

  Latin, Reason, Reason For Everything

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• School is an institution built on the axiom that learning is the result of teaching. And institutional wisdom continues to accept this axiom, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

  Ivan Illich

  Education, Teaching, School

  Ivan Illich (1970). “The Dawn of Epimethean Man, and Other Essays”

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• Be guided by the axiom: There are no limits to the ability to contribute on the part of a properly selected, well-trained, appropriately supported, and, above all, committed person.

  Tom Peters

  Limits, Ability, Committed

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