Examination Quotes - Page 3

• The critical principle demanded an examination, for instance, of the contribution of different periods, thus to some extent embarking on historical linguistics.

  Ferdinand de Saussure

  Historical, Principles, Different

  64 Copy quote

• I was originally going to be a lawyer, and the only thing I remember from the art of cross-examination is - you can see this one coming up Sixth Avenue - never ask a question the answer to which you do not know.

  James Lipton

  Art, Answers, Remember

  8 Copy quote

• To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of.

  Ronald Fisher

  Experiments, Posts, Died

  Presidential Address to the First Indian Statistical Congress, Sankhya 4, 14-17, 1938.

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits

  Ruth Benedict

  War, Bears, Merit

  Ruth Benedict (1973). “Patterns of Culture”, p.57, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Students should not feel as if they had missed the boat if they failed examinations and should be presented with more opportunities to further their studies.

  Joseph Muscat

  Opportunity, Students, Study

  6 Copy quote

• Now, it is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about.

  J. K. Rowling

  School, Views, Ministry

  4 Copy quote

• The modern mind will accept nothing on authority, but will accept anything on no authority. Say that the Bible or the Pope says so and it will be dismissed without further examination. But preface your remark with "I think I heard somewhere," or, try but fail to remember the name of some professor who might have said "such-and-such," and it will be immediately accepted as an unshakable fact.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Thinking, Names, Catholic

  7 Copy quote

• The price of these failures has been a loss of moral consensus, a greater sense of helplessness about the human condition. ... The intellectual solution to the first dilemma can be achieved by a deeper and more courageous examination of human nature that combines the findings of biology with those of the social sciences.

  E. O. Wilson

  Loss, Science, Intellectual

  7 Copy quote

• The achievement of happiness requires not the satisfaction of our needs but the examination and transformation of those needs.

  Stanley Cavell

  Happiness, Achievement, Satisfaction

  "Pursuits of Happiness". Book by Stanley Cavell, 1981.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Believe nothing on the faith of traditions, even though they have been held in honor for many generations and in diverse places. Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it. Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past. Do not believe what you yourself have imagined, persuading yourself that a God inspires you. Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests. After examination, believe what you yourself have tested and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Believe, Past

  64 Copy quote

• The criterion of true beauty is, that it increases in examination; of false, that it lessens. There is something, therefore, in true beauty that corresponds with the right reason, and it is not merely the creature of fancy.

  George Grenville

  Beauty, Art, Fancy

  29 Copy quote

• To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practices on others

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Practice, Mind

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.”, p.537

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

• Up to 10% of childhood cancers are caused by radiological examination during pregnancy.

  Richard Doll

  Cancer, Pregnancy, Childhood

  4 Copy quote

• I suggest that all who listen to my voice would benefit by an examination of the lives of those we sustain as general officers of the Church. You will find some important examples among them and come to know those who have "a perfect heart."

  Monte J. Brough

  Heart, Voice, Perfect

  4 Copy quote

• Some read for style, and some for argument: one has little care about the sentiment, he observes only how it is expressed; another regards not the conclusion, but is diligent to mark how it is inferred; they read for other purposes than the attainment of practical knowledge; and are no more likely to grow wise by an examination of a treatise of moral prudence, than an architect to inflame his devotion by considering attentively the proportions of a temple.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Reading, Style

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.292

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Among the Spartans all newly born children were subject to a careful examination or selection. All those that were weak, sickly, or affected with any bodily infirmity, were killed. Only the perfectly healthy and strong children were allowed to live, and they alone afterwards propagated the race.

  Ernst Haeckel

  Strong, Children, Race

  Ernst Haeckel, Sir Edwin Ray Lankester, L. Dora Schmitz (1906). “The History of Creation: Or The Development of the Earth and Its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes. A Popular Exposition of the Doctrine of Evolution in General, and of that of Darwin, Goethe, and Lamarck in Particular. From the 8th German Ed. of Ernst Haeckel ... The Translation Rev. by E. Ray Lankester”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The 'medical examination' to which abductees are said to be subjected, often accompanied by sadistic sexual manipulation, is reminiscient of the medieval tales of encounters with demons. It makes no sense in a sophisticated or technical framework: any intelligent being equipped with the scientific marvels that UFOs possess would be in a position to achieve any of these alleged scientific objectives in a shorter time and with fewer risks.

  Jacques Vallee

  Intelligent, Risk, Encounters

  "Confrontations: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact". Book by Jacques Vallee, 1990.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Previous to this time I had never even a balloon except from a distance. Being interested in their construction, I was about to institute a thorough examination of all its parts, when the aeronaut announced that all was ready. He inquired whether I desired to go up alone, or he should accompany me. My desire, if frankly expressed, would have been not to go up at all; but if I was to go, company was certainly desirable. With an attempt at indifference, I intimated that he might go along.

  George Armstrong Custer

  Distance, Desire, Might

  43 Copy quote

• Why do Britons keep stabbing each other in August? Why do seaside hotels burn down in August? Why do children disappear in August, examinations get easier and Heathrow become the world's worst airport? The answer lies not in reality but in appearance. News editors abhor a vacuum. Half an hour of airtime and 10 pages of news must be filled each day, whatever the weather.

  Simon Jenkins

  Children, Lying, Reality

  "The state has only aided our seasonal spates of thuggery" by Simon Jenkins, www.theguardian.com. August 21, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The best of ideas is hurt by uncritical acceptance and thrives on critical examination.

  George Polya

  Hurt, Acceptance, Ideas

  George Pólya (1957). “How to solve it: a new aspect of mathematical method”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Real, Men, Hands

  Diary entry. "Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes: Nineteenth President of the United States". Book edited by Charles Richard Williams, The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, March 11, 1888.

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• Strengthening the role the United Nations can play...will require serious examination of the need to extend into the international arena the rule of law and the principle of taxation to finance agreed actions which provide the basis for governance at the national level. But this will not come about easily. Resistance to such changes is deeply entrenched. They will come about not through the embrace of full blown world government, but as a careful and pragmatic response to compelling imperatives and the inadequacies of alternatives.

  Maurice Strong

  Law, Play, World Government

  25 Copy quote

• Though the academic authorities are actually proud of conducting everything by means of Examinations, they seldom indulge in what religious people used to descibe as Self-Examination. The consequence is that the modern State has educated its citizens in a series of ephemeral fads.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Religious, Mean, Self

  7 Copy quote

• A man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examinations, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not that which he thinks and says and does.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Lying, Greatness, Men

  466 Copy quote

• Self examination is the key to insight, which is the key to wisdom

  M. Scott Peck

  Healing, Keys, Self

  M. Scott Peck (2010). “The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace”, p.66, Simon and Schuster

  14 Copy quote

  Show source