Finite Quotes - Page 2

• We should like Nature to go no further; we should like it to be finite, like our mind; but this is to ignore the greatness and majesty of the Author of things.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  God, Nature, Science

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• Although computer memory is no longer expensive, there's always a finite size buffer somewhere. When a big piece of news arrives, everybody sends a message to everybody else, and the buffer fills

  Benoit Mandelbrot

  Memories, News, Pieces

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• I don't want to think that the stories are finite; I want to feel that they can go on forever.

  Steven Moffat

  Thinking, Forever, Stories

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• We know then the existence and nature of the finite, because we also are finite and have extension. We know the existence of the infinite and are ignorant of its nature, because it has extension like us, but not limits like us. But we know neither the existence nor the nature of God, because he has neither extension nor limits.

  Blaise Pascal

  God, Ignorant, Limits

  Blaise Pascal (2013). “Pensées”, p.66, Courier Corporation

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• Major Greene this evening fell into some conversation with me about the Divinity and satisfaction of Jesus Christ. All the argument he advanced was, "that a mere creature or finite being could not make satisfaction to infinite justice for any crimes," and that "these things are very mysterious." Thus mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity.

  John Adams

  Wisdom, Jesus, Justice

  John Adams (1961). “Diary and Autobiography of John Adams: Diary, 1755-1770”, Belknap Pr

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• It is the infinite alone that cannot be attained, for if it could it would become finite.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Infinite, Ifs

  Leonardo da Vinci (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Leonardo da Vinci (Illustrated)”, p.959, Delphi Classics

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• The moment the doctrine of the immortality is separately taught, man is already fallen. In the flowing of love, in the adoration of humility, there is no question of continuance. No inspired man ever asks this question, or condescends to these evidences. For the soul is true to itself, and the man in whom it is shed abroad cannot wander from the present, which is infinite, to a future which would be finite.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Humility, Men, Soul

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.303, Modern Library

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• Death is as casual and often as unexpected as birth. It is as difficult to define grief as joy. Each is finite. Each will fade.

  Jim Bishop

  Grief, Joy, Unexpected

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• The transfinite numbers are in a certain sense themselves new irrationalities and in fact in my opinion the best method of defining the finite irrational numbers is wholly disimilar to, and I might even say in priciple the same as, my method described above of introducing trasfinite numbers. One can say unconditionally: the transfinite numbers stand or fall with the finite irrational numbers; they are like each other in their innermost being; for the former like the latter are definite delimited forms or modifications of the actual infinite.

  Georg Cantor

  Fall, Numbers, Finite Number

  "Understanding the Infinite". Book by Shaughan Lavine, 1994.

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• We come no nearer the infinitude of the creative power of God, if we enclose the space of its revelation within a sphere described with the radius of the Milky Way, than if we were to limit it to a ball an inch in diameter. All that is finite, whatever has limits and a definite relation to unity, is equally far removed from the infinite... Eternity is not sufficient to embrace the manifestations of the Supreme Being, if it is not combined with the infinitude of space.

  Immanuel Kant

  God, Science, Space

  Immanuel Kant (1900). “Kant's cosmogony as in his essay on the retardation of the rotation of the earth and his Natural history and theory of the heavens: With introduction, appendices, and a portrait of Thomas Wright of Durham”

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• We know that there is an infinite, and we know not its nature. As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore true that there is a numerical infinity. But we know not of what kind; it is untrue that it is even, untrue that it is odd; for the addition of a unit does not change its nature; yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even (this certainly holds of every finite number). Thus we may quite well know that there is a God without knowing what He is.

  Blaise Pascal

  Change, God, Knowledge

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• Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and impoverish it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mind, Dimensions, Infinite

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1849). “Nature”, p.42

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• It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

  Douglas Adams

  Love, Life, Relationship

  Douglas Adams (2009). “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, p.93, Pan Macmillan

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• Internet TV and the move to the digital approach is quite revolutionary. TV has historically has been a broadcast medium with everybody picking from a very finite number of channels.

  Bill Gates

  Moving, Finite Number, Numbers

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• It is going to be necessary that everything that happens in a finite volume of space and time would have to be analyzable with a finite number of logical operations. The present theory of physics is not that way, apparently. It allows space to go down into infinitesimal distances, wavelengths to get infinitely great, terms to be summed in infinite order, and so forth; and therefore, if this proposition [that physics is computer-simulatable] is right, physical law is wrong.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Distance, Science, Finite Number

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• What is the shape of space? Is it flat, or is it bent? Is it nicely laid out, or is it warped and shrunken? Is it finite, or is it infinite? Which of the following does space resemble more: (a) a sheet of paper, (b) an endless desert, (c) a soap bubble, (d) a doughnut, (e) an Escher drawing, (f) an ice cream cone, (g) the branches of a tree, or (h) a human body?

  Rudy Rucker

  Science, Drawing, Space

  Rudy von Bitter Rucker, Rudy Rucker (1985). “The Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour of the Higher Universes”, p.91, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Just as fossil fuels from conventional sources are finite and are becoming depleted, those from difficult sources will also run out. If we put all our energy and resources into continued fossil fuel extraction, we will have lost an opportunity to have invested in renewable energy.

  David Suzuki

  Running, Opportunity, Energy

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• Until now the theory of infinite series in general has been very badly grounded. One applies all the operations to infinite series as if they were finite; but is that permissible? I think not. Where is it demonstrated that one obtains the differential of an infinite series by taking the differential of each term? Nothing is easier than to give instances where this is not so.

  Niels Henrik Abel

  Thinking, Giving, Abel

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• How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world, given my waist and shirt size?

  Woody Allen

  Funny, Humor, World

  Woody Allen (2007). “The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose”, Random House Incorporated

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• Culture' is a finite segment of the meaningless infinity of the world process, a segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance.

  Max Weber

  Culture, World, Infinity

  Max Weber (2015). “On the Methodology of the Social Sciences”, p.115, Lulu Press, Inc

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• A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.

  James P. Carse

  Winning, Games, Play

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• Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in eternal awareness or pure consciousness.

  Sivananda

  Yoga, Meditation Practice, Mind

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• Wind is God's way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it's hotter to areas where it's cooler. That's what wind is.

  Joe Barton

  Wind, Way, Heat

  "House Republicans bring strange theories and wacky witnesses to climate hearings" by Kate Sheppard, grist.org. April 20, 2009.

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• What I assert and believe to have demonstrated in this and earlier works is that following the finite there is a transfinite (which one could also call the supra-finite), that is an unbounded ascending lader of definite modes, which by their nature are not finite but infinite, but which just like the finite can be determined by well-defined and distinguishable numbers.

  Georg Cantor

  Believe, Numbers, Finite Number

  "Understanding the Infinite". Book by Shaughan Lavine, 1994.

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• No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Infinite

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