Hunches Quotes - Page 5

• When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Ignorance, Order, Ignorant

  "The Value of Science". Richard P. Feynman's public address at the National Academy of Sciences, Autumn 1955.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• My hunch, for what it's worth, is that most of us probably find it much, much harder than we realize to really imagine what catastrophe is like. I have a hunch that we all labor under this rather convenient illusion that if we read about the Syrian refugee crisis, we can imagine what it feels like to set off from your home and your life with all your possessions in two bin liners. We all think that we can imagine that and my guess is that none of us have got a clue.

  Decca Aitkenhead

  Home, Thinking, Refugee Crisis

  "Decca Aitkenhead on Empathy and Memory". Interview with Emma Brown, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 15, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Irish readers, British readers, American readers: is it odd that I haven't a clue about how differently they react? Or better say, I cannot find the words to describe my hunch about them.

  Seamus Heaney

  Clue, Odd, British

  Source: harvardmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am excited about the next generation of leaders. I have a hunch there will be a whole group of people who will decide they will stand up; I know people 15 years old asking me how to get into politics. So we will have a steady stream of new blood.

  Newt Gingrich

  Blood, Years, People

  Source: patch.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• My mother worked on a whole bunch of those; she worked on What's My Line?, I've Got A Secret, Play Your Hunch... In my memory, she worked on To Tell The Truth. So it was her job to brief the imposters.

  Cynthia Nixon

  Mother, Jobs, Memories

  Source: www.avclub.com

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I was at home, I wasn't shy. I was the clown at home, because I was loved. It was in the outside world that I was judged and I wasn't loved. That was very clear to me, that I wasn't loved. So I became very quiet. You know, those little girls you see in those pictures that look like they want to hunch, I was trying to disappear into my shoulder blades. The quietest person in the classroom, that was me. But that wasn't me at home.

  Sandra Cisneros

  Girl, Home, Trying

  "Talking in Our Pajamas". Interview with Ruth Behar, quod.lib.umich.edu. Summer, 2008.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• It isn't a hunch but the subconscious mind, which is the creative mind, at work. That is the mind which makes artists do things without their knowing how they came to do them. Perhaps with me it was the cumulative effect of a lot of little things individually insignificant but collectively powerful.

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Powerful, Artist, Knowing

  22 Copy quote

• When you are doing a lot of hard fast field work, it's a physical necessity to forget every day. You can't try to remember it in any continuity. You get so burdened if you try to do it the other way. You can't dictate to your material... We found our way in, slid in on the edges. We used our hunches. And it was hard, hard living.

  Dorothea Lange

  Trying, Way, Fields

  4 Copy quote

• If you've got no responsibility and don't have to generate a certain amount of cash each month, and can live on a shoestring, and are ambitious enough, then you might have a chance. You can be dedicated but that is no guarantee that you'll make it. I rely on a hunch, a little luck, and some cunning.

  Elliott Erwitt

  Responsibility, Guarantees That, Luck

  Sean Callahan, Elliott Erwitt (1974). “The private experience, Elliott Erwitt”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Bishop has a skin, God knows,
  Wrinkled like the foot of a goose,
  (All find safety in the tomb.)
  Nor can he hide in holy black
  The heron's hunch upon his back,
  But a birch-tree stood my Jack.

  William Butler Yeats

  Feet, Hypocrisy, Safety

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.260, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Then you've a hunch what the music meant . . . hunger and night
  and the stars.

  Robert W. Service

  Music, Stars, Night

  Robert W. Service (2012). “Robert W. Service: Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.39, Dundurn

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The idea of safety had shrunk into particles - one snug moment, then the next. Meanwhile, the brain piped fugues of worry and staged mind-theaters full of tragedies and triumphs, because unfortunately, the fear of death does wonders to focus the mind, inspire creativity, and heightens the senses. Trusting one's hunches only seems gamble if one has time for seem; otherwise the brain goes on autopilot and trades the elite craft of analysis for the best rapid insights that float up from its danger files and ancient bag of tricks.

  Diane Ackerman

  Creativity, Ideas, Worry

  4 Copy quote

• Become a good noticer. Pay attention to the feelings, hunches, and intuitions that flood your life each day. If you do, you will see that premonitions are not rare, but a natural part of our lives.

  Larry Dossey

  Feelings, Intuition, Attention

  Larry Dossey (2010). “The Science of Premonitions: How Knowing the Future Can Help Us Avoid Danger, Maximize Opportunities, and Cre ate a Better Life”, p.10, Penguin

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• No memoirists writes for long without experiencing an unsettling disbelief about the reliability of memory, a hunch that memory is not, after all, just memory.

  Patricia Hampl

  Memories, Writing, Long

  8 Copy quote

• My hunch is that if we allow ourselves to give who we really are to the children in our care, we will in some way inspire cartwheels in their hearts.

  Fred Rogers

  Children, Heart, Giving

  23 Copy quote

• Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting.

  Frederick Buechner

  Waiting, Movement, Homesickness

  Frederick Buechner (1992). “The Clown in the Belfry: Writings on Faith and Fiction”, Harpercollins

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sudden hunch, the creative leap of mind that "sees" in a flash how to solve a problem in a simple way, is something quite different from general intelligence.

  Martin Gardner

  Simple, Design, Creative

  Martin Gardner (2006). “Aha! A Two Volume Collection: Aha! Gotcha Aha! Insight”, p.176, MAA

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.

  Laozi

  Powerful, Heart, Understanding

  12 Copy quote

• Keeping a slow hunch alive poses challenges on multiple scales. For starters, you have to preserve the hunch in your own memory, in the dense network of your neurons. Most slow hunches pass in and out of our memory too quickly, precisely because they possess a certain murkiness. You get a feeling that there's an interesting avenue to explore, a problem that might lead you to a solution, but then you get distracted by more pressing matters and the hunch disappears. So part of the secret of hunch cultivation is simple: write everything down.

  Steven Johnson

  Memories, Writing, Simple

  13 Copy quote

• It is very difficult to make a vigorous, plausible, and job-risking defense of an estimate that is derived by no quantitative method, supported by little data, and certified chiefly by the hunches of the managers

  Fred Brooks

  Jobs, Data, Defense

  10 Copy quote

• I have a hunch the most important reason we're going to space is not known now.

  Burt Rutan

  Space, Important, Reason

  8 Copy quote

• We would never call inexplicable little insights hunches, for fear of drawing the universe's attention. But they happened, and you knew you had been in the proximity of one that had come through if you saw a detective kiss his or her fingers and touch his or her chest where a pendant to Warsha, patron saint of inexplicable inspirations, would, theoretically, hang.

  China Mieville

  Life, Inspiration, Kissing

  8 Copy quote

• At some time in the history of the universe, there were no human minds, and at some time later, there were. Within the blink of a cosmic eye, a universe in which all was chaos and void came to include hunches, beliefs, sentiments, raw sensations, pains, emotions, wishes, ideas, images, inferences, the feel of rubber, Schadenfreude, and the taste of banana ice cream.

  David Berlinski

  Pain, Eye, Ideas

  59 Copy quote

• When your mind is functioning correctly, there is an out streaming of light from within in the form of inspiration, hunches, leadings, and intuitive flashes - trust this process of inspiration. “In the twinkling of an eye” ideas and plans may flow into your mind.

  Eric Butterworth

  Inspiration, Eye, Light

  43 Copy quote

• We want to be known for having original ideas, inspired hunches, and gut feelings that make a difference. Indeed, a "well-honed sixth sense"' is considered a measure of the good clinician. But being a good doctor also requires sticking with the best medical evidence, even if it contradicts your personal experience. We need to distinguish between gut feeling and testable knowledge, between hunches and empirically tested evidence.

  Robert A. Burton

  Doctors, Ideas, Differences

  Robert A. Burton, M.D., M.D. (2008). “On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not”, p.164, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

  Show source