Guesswork Quotes

• Mathematics is not a deductive science - that's a cliché... What you do is trial and error, experimentation, guesswork.

  Paul Halmos

  Math, Errors, Trial And Error

  "I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography". Book by Paul Halmos, 1985.

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• I remembered Nahadoth's lips on my throat and fought to suppress a shudder, only half succeeding. Death as a consequence of lying with a god wasn't something I had considered, but it did not surprise me. A mortal man's strength had its limits. He spent himself and slept. He could be a good lover, but even his best skills were only guesswork - for every caress that sent a woman's head into the clouds, he might try ten that brought her back to earth.

  N.K. Jemisin

  Lying, Men, Clouds

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• Computers are like bikinis. They save people a lot of guesswork.

  Sam Ewing

  Technology, People, Bikinis

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• You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that evey sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.

  George Orwell

  Darkness, Sound, Assumption

  "1984". Book by George Orwell, June 8, 1949.

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• Mathematicians use intuition, conjecture and guesswork all the time except when they are in the classroom.

  Joseph Warren

  Time, Intuition, Use

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• A mathematician's work is mostly a tangle of guesswork, analogy, wishful thinking and frustration, and proof, far from being the core of discovery, is more often than not a way of making sure that our minds are not playing tricks.

  Gian-Carlo Rota

  Hard Work, Science, Frustration

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• The brain has a good error rate. But, the point is, you can function with that error rate. Animals do a lot of guesswork.

  Usama Fayyad

  Animal, Errors, Brain

  Interview with Joshuah Bearman, believermag.com. September 1, 2003.

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• No other human activity is so continuously or universally bound up with chance. And through the element of chance, guesswork and luck come to play a great part in war.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  War, Play, Luck

  Carl von Clausewitz (2008). “On War”, p.85, Princeton University Press

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• The computer saves man a lot of guesswork, but so does the bikini.

  Evan Esar

  Men, Doe, Bikinis

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• From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork.

  J. K. Rowling

  Memories, Leaving, Together

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• Mathematics is not a deductive science - that's a cliché. When you try to prove a theorem, you don't just list the hypotheses, and then start to reason. What you do is trial and error, experimentation, guesswork.

  Paul Halmos

  Math, Science, Errors

  "I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography". Book by Paul Halmos, 1985.

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• ... those who are absolutely certain that the rise in temperatures is due solely to carbon dioxide have no scientific justification. It's pure guesswork.

  Henrik Svensmark

  Temperature, Global Warming, Carbon

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• We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.

  Terry Pratchett

  Way, Small Gods

  "Small Gods". Book by ‎Terry Pratchett, 1992.

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• The theory that gravitational attraction is inversely proportional to the square of the distance leads by remorseless logic to the conclusion that the path of a planet should be an ellipse .... It is this logical thinking that is the real meat of the physical sciences. The social scientist keeps the skin and throws away the meat.... His theorems no more follow from his postulates than the hunches of a horse player follow logically from the latest racing news. The result is guesswork clad in long flowing robes of gobbledygook.

  Anthony Standen

  Horse, Real, Distance

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• My great-grandfather Melvin had been a carpenter - so was my father - and they taught me the value of tools: saws, hammers, chisels, files and rulers. It all dealt with conciseness and precision. It eliminated guesswork. One has to know his tools, so he doesn't work against himself.

  Yusef Komunyakaa

  Father, Hammers, Tools

  Yusef Komunyakaa, Radiclani Clytus (2000). “Blue notes: essays, interviews, and commentaries”, Univ of Michigan Pr

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• Fiction is not a dream. Nor is it guesswork. It is imagining based on facts, and the facts must be accurate or the work of imagining will not stand up.

  Margaret Culkin Banning

  Dream, Fiction, Facts

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• The Moon and Mars were the two most likely candidates for life in the solar system; what exists beyond our solar system is mere guesswork.

  Walter Lang

  Moon, Two, Mars

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• There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live-did live, from habit that became instinct-in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

  George Orwell

  Knowing, Police, Darkness

  George Orwell (2003). “1984”, Plume Books

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• The fact is that everybody around a college basketball game - the coaches, the announcers, even the referees at a lower level - calculates when the game is really over. They calculate it with intuition and guesswork.

  Bill James

  Inspirational, Basketball, College

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• The spirit of Christianity proclaims the brotherhood of the race and the meaning of that strong word has not been left to guesswork, but made tremendously definite - the Christian must forgive his brother man all crimes he can imagine and commit, and all insults he can conceive and utter - forgive these injuries how many times? - seventy times seven - another way of saying there shall be no limit to this forgiveness. That is the spirit and the law of Christianity.

  Mark Twain

  Christian, Strong, Brother

  Mark Twain (1973). “Mark Twain and the three R's: race, religion, revolution--and related matters”, Bobbs-Merrill Company

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• As for geoengineering, there have been serious general critiques that I think cannot be ignored, like Clive Hamilton's, along with many positive assessments. It is not a matter for subjective judgment based on guesswork and intuition. Rather, these are matters that have to be considered seriously, relying on the best scientific understanding available, without abandoning sensible precautionary principles.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Assessment, Understanding

  "Global Warming and the Future of Humanity: An Interview With Noam Chomsky and Graciela Chichilnisky". Interview with C.J. Polychroniou, www.truth-out.org. September 17, 2016.

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• But God!Who could live like this , anyway, with the kind of guesswork that was enough to make a person crazy, just sailing along, taking bumps here and there, no course navigated whatsoever, with any big wave capable of just tipping and sinking you entirely. IT was madness, stipidity, and- (then I saw him)

  Sarah Dessen

  Crazy, Sailing, Here And There

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• A love story - your own, or anyone else's - is interior, hidden. It can never be accurately reported, only imagined. It is all dreams and invention. It's guesswork.

  Joan Wickersham

  Dream, Stories, Love Story

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• C++ is a language strongly optimized for liars and people who go by guesswork and ignorance.

  Erik Naggum

  Liars, Ignorance, People

  "Is CLOS reall OO?". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. May 5, 1998.

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• The ultimate judgment of a work of art, whether it be a masterpiece or a lesser event, must be solely in terms of its artistic success and not on Freudian guesswork.

  Edward Albee

  Art, Events, Judgment

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.53, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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