Black Boxes Quotes

• If black boxes survive air crashes - why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?

  George Carlin

  Funny, Travel, Airplane

  35 Copy quote

• The trick generally is to break programs into pieces and have those pieces be individually testable and so then when you move on to the other pieces you treat it as a black box knowing that it either works or doesn't work.

  Bill Gates

  Moving, Knowing, Black

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• As for breaking up, once the relationship is over, you never really know what went wrong; you just feel nauseous whenever the subject comes to mind. After a plane crash there's the black box that tells the FAA what caused the crack-up. Too bad there's no black box of relationships.

  Linda Sunshine

  Divorce, Over You, Black

  4 Copy quote

• The Democrats were crushed in the midterm elections. The Republican juggernaut pounded the Democrats, and the pundits say they will not really know what happened to the Democrats until they find the black box.

  David Letterman

  Black, Juggernaut, Election

  4 Copy quote

• Liberal economists conceive of societies as black boxes connected by exchange rates; as long as exchange rates are correct, what goes on inside the black box is regarded as not very important.

  Robert Gilpin

  Long, Black, Important

  "The Political Economy of International Relations". Book by Robert Gilpin, 1987.

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• A convincing demonstration of correctness being impossible as long as the mechanism is regarded as a black box, our only hope lies in not regarding the mechanism as a black box.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Lying, Long, Black

  "Notes On Structured Programming" by Edsger Dijkstra, April 1970.

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• In Darwin's time all of biology was a black box: not only the cell, or the eye, or digestion, or immunity, but every biological structure and function because, ultimately, no one could explain how biological processes occurred.

  Michael Behe

  Eye, Cells, Black

  13 Copy quote

• If the Holocaust that you talk about was real, why don't you allow the subject to be studied? One can freely research any issue, except for this issue, which is sealed. It is a black box, which they do not allow to be opened or reexamined. They do this in order to exploit it.

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

  Real, Order, Issues

  75 Copy quote

• Any effects created before 1975 were done with either tape or echo chambers or some kind of acoustic treatment. No magic black boxes!

  Alan Parsons

  Echoes, Magic, Black

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• What does the perfect elevator look like, the one that will deliver us from the cities we suffer now, these stunted shacks? We don't know because we can't see inside it, it's something we cannot imagine, like the shape of angels' teeth. It's a black box.

  Colson Whitehead

  Angel, Cities, Perfect

  Colson Whitehead (2012). “The Intuitionist: A Novel”, p.61, Anchor

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• Biology has progressed tremendously due to the model that Darwin put forth. But the black boxes Darwin accepted are now being opened, and our view of the world is again being shaken.

  Michael Behe

  Views, Black, World

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• I look for a sense of reality with everything I did. I didn't work in a studio, I didn't light anything. I found a way of working which pleased me because I didn't have to frighten people with heavy equipment. It was that little black box and me and £5 worth of film in my pocket or maybe it was only £2 in those days.

  Eve Arnold

  Reality, Light, People

  13 Copy quote

• School is at its best when it gives students the expectation that they will not only
  dream big, but dream dreams that they can work on every day until they accomplish
  them-not because they were chosen by a black-box process, but because
  they worked hard enough to reach them.

  Seth Godin

  Dream, School, Giving

  4 Copy quote

• I don't mind doing the green-screen stuff at all, and in fact it's a lot like black-box theater, which I did plenty of in New York.

  Gabriel Macht

  New York, Black, Mind

  Personal Quote, www.imdb.com.

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• We are not inferring design to account for a black box, but to account for an open box.

  Michael Behe

  Design, Black, Boxes

  9 Copy quote

• The records are black boxes for me. Like, if you want to know who I am, my views, my perspective, things I love, things I hate, my convictions, my anthems. I've never let people's opinions affect the way I write.

  Katy Perry

  Hate, Writing, Views

  "Katy Perry: 'You have to bust your ass at this'". Interview with Tom Shone, www.theguardian.com. August 6, 2010.

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• In theory, cars are fairly simple. If they don't start, it's either the fuel system or the electrical system. Teach yourself about the path of each in your engine and tracing it is fairly straightforward. But at the beginning, mastering each new system seems like an unreachable shore. The car is effectively a black box.

  Adam Savage

  Simple, Car, Black

  "Potentially awesome outcomes: Adam Savage on the courage to try". www.wired.com. October 30, 2012.

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• Why don't they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff.

  Steven Wright

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  13 Copy quote

• Normally Connor would walk away from a conversation like this. His life is about tangibles: things you can see, hear and touch. God, souls, and all that has always been like a secret in a black box he couldn't see into, so it was easier just to leave it alone. Only now, he's inside the black box.

  Neal Shusterman

  Soul, Black, Secret

  Neal Shusterman (2009). “Unwind”, p.171, Simon and Schuster

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• If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn’t the whole airplane made out of that stuff?

  George Carlin

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  180 Copy quote

• Now I began to understand art as a kind of black box the reader enters. He enters in one state of mind and exits in another. The writer gets no points just because what's inside the box bears some linear resemblance to "real life" -- he can put whatever he wants in there. What's important is that something undeniable and nontrivial happens to the reader between entry and exit.

  George Saunders

  Art, Real, Black

  George Saunders (2012). “The Brain-Dead Megaphone”, p.78, A&C Black

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• Look, it's a monster. He's walking alone. Look, he's pulling something out of his pocket. He threw it on the ground. Let's go see what it is. It's a black box. You open it... ok... Look, it's sorrow, misery and pain. It's loneliness and longing. Boy, he'll be sorry he lost these.

  Henry Rollins

  Sorry, Pain, Loneliness

  5 Copy quote

• I open the door to the fear landscape room and flip open the small black box that was in my back pocket to see the syringes inside. This is the box I have always used, padded around the needles; it is a sign of something sick inside me, or something brave.

  Veronica Roth

  Doors, Sick, Brave

  4 Copy quote

• Evolutionary biologists have been able to pretend to know how complex biological systems originated only because they treated them as black boxes. Now that biochemists have opened the black boxes and seen what is inside, they know the Darwinian theory is just a story, not a scientific explanation.

  Phillip E. Johnson

  Black, Stories, Able

  Phillip E. Johnson (1997). “Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds”, p.77, InterVarsity Press

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• I found a way of working which pleased me because I didn’t have to frighten people with heavy equipment. It was that little black box and me.

  Eve Arnold

  People, Black, Littles

  12 Copy quote