Instance Quotes - Page 33

We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.

Antoine Lavoisier

Nature, Science, Deception

1789 Traiteele mentaire de la chimie ('Elements of Chemistr y', translated by Robert Kerr).

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Good and bad luck is a synonym in the great majority of instances, for good and bad judgment.

John Lyman Chatfield

Luck, Majority, Judgment

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With respect to those points, on which the declaration of Scripture is positive and decisive, as, for instance, in asserting the low antiquity of the human race; the evidence of all facts that have yet been established in Geology coincides with the records of Sacred History and Profane Tradition to confirm the conclusion that the existence of mankind can on no account be supposed to have taken its beginning before that time which is assigned to it in the Mosaic writings.

William Buckland

Taken, Writing, Science

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The big idea we start with is: "How is the genome interpreted, and how are stable decisions that affect gene expression inherited from one cell to the next?" This is one of the most competitive areas of molecular biology at the moment, and the students are reading papers that in some instances were published this past year. As a consequence, one of the most common answers I have to give to their questions is, "We just don't know."

Shirley M. Tilghman

Reading, Knowledge, Past

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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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This incomparable Author having at length been prevailed upon to appear in public, has in this Treatise given a most notable instance of the extent of the powers of the Mind; and has at once shown what are the Principles of Natural Philosophy, and so far derived from them their consequences, that he seems to have exhausted his Argument, and left little to be done by those that shall succeed him.a

Edmond Halley

Philosophy, Science, Mind

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...the source of all great mathematics is the special case, the concrete example. It is frequent in mathematics that every instance of a concept of seemingly generality is, in essence, the same as a small and concrete special case.

Paul Halmos

Science, Essence, Special

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How did Biot arrive at the partial differential equation? [the heat conduction equation] . . . Perhaps Laplace gave Biot the equation and left him to sink or swim for a few years in trying to derive it. That would have been merely an instance of the way great mathematicians since the very beginnings of mathematical research have effortlessly maintained their superiority over ordinary mortals.

Clifford Truesdell

Science, Years, Swim

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Scientists tend to resist interdisciplinary inquiries into their own territory. In many instances, such parochialism is founded on the fear that intrusion from other disciplines would compete unfairly for limited financial resources and thus diminish their own opportunity for research.

Hannes Alfven

Science, Opportunity, Discipline

"Hannes Alfvén: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents". Book by Anthony L. Peratt, p. 192, 1998.

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I endeavor to make a picture, for instance, exert a positive influence on the observer by its coloring, mood, and compositional idea, encouraging, say, activation, tranquilization, concentration, or harmony.

Max Bill

Art, Ideas, Influence

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A growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp.....moreover, for the most part these "experts" have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on strictly scientific grounds, and in some instances, regretfully.

Wolfgang Smith

Religious, Biblical, Numbers

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Within the period of human history we do not know of a single instance of the transformation of one species into another one. It may be claimed that the theory of descent is lacking, therefore, in the most essential feature that it needs to place the theory on a scientific basis, this must be admitted.

Thomas Hunt Morgan

May, Essentials, Needs

Thomas Hunt Morgan (1903). “Evolution and adaptation”

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A great deal of the universe does not need any explanation. Elephants, for instance. Once molecules have learnt to compete and to create other molecules in their own image, elephants, and things resembling elephants, will in due course be found roaming around the countryside ... Some of the things resembling elephants will be men.

Peter Atkins

Men, Roaming Around, Elephants

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In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.

Susan Sontag

Art, Real, Criticism

Evergreen Review Dec. 1964

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Not only did he teach by accomplishment, but he taught by the inspiration of a marvelous imagination that refused to accept the permanence of what appeared to others to be insuperable difficulties: an imagination of the goals of which, in a number of instances, are still in the realms of speculation.

Edwin Howard Armstrong

Inspiration, Science, Numbers

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It is remarkable how liberating it feels to be able to see that your thoughts are just thoughts and that they are not 'you' or 'reality.' For instance, if you have the thought that you have to get a certain number of things done today and you don't recognize it as a thought but act as if it's the 'the truth,' then you have created a reality in that moment in which you really believe that those things must all be done today.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Life Changing, Believe, Reality

Jon Kabat-Zinn (2013). “Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness”, p.134, Bantam

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The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.

William Shakespeare

Marriage, Moving, Thrift

William Shakespeare (2008). “Hamlet”, p.86, Palgrave Macmillan

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When it comes to your life's work, you can't take yourself too seriously. Even Jesus had an occasional joke with the boys, take walking on water, for instance - but there's a time and place for fun. Jesus never faltered when it came time to tip over the money stalls or to take his hard walk up the mountain.

Deacon Jones

Football, Jesus, Fun

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It is true that many creative people fail to make mature personal relationships, and some are extremely isolated. It is also true that, in some instances, trauma, in the shape of early separation or bereavement, has steered the potentially creative person toward developing aspects of his personality which can find fulfillment in comparative isolation. But this does not mean that solitary, creative pursuits are themselves pathological.

Anthony Storr

Mean, People, Personality

Anthony Storr (2005). “Solitude: A Return to the Self”, p.75, Simon and Schuster

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In descriptions of Nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture. For instance, you'll have a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball.

Anton Chekhov

Dog, Stars, Eye

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1987). “The Unknown Chekhov: Stories and Other Writings”

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With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions...

Charles Caleb Colton

Book, Writing, Companion

"Lacon, Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think". Book by Charles Caleb Colton, 1820.

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To improve at chess you should in the first instance study the endgame.

Jose Raul Capablanca

Chess, Firsts, Study

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I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism.

James Madison

Believe, Rights, Government

James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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Sometimes animals may suffer more because of their more limited understanding. If, for instance, we are taking prisoners in wartime we can explain to them that although they must submit to capture, search, and confinement, they will not otherwise be harmed and will be set free at the conclusion of hostilities. If we capture wild animals, however, we cannot explain that we are not threatening their lives. A wild animal cannot distinguish an attempt to overpower and confine from an attempt to kill; the one causes as much terror as the other.

Peter Singer

Animal, Understanding, Suffering

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...stories about [the German composer Johannes] Brahms's rudeness and wit amused me in particular. For instance, I loved the one about how a great wine connoisseur invited the composer to dinner. 'This is the Brahms of my cellar,' he said to his guests, producing a dust-covered bottle and pouring some into the master's glass. Brahms looked first at the color of the wine, then sniffed its bouquet, finally took a sip, and put the glass down without saying a word. 'Don't you like it?' asked the host. 'Hmm,' Brahms muttered. 'Better bring your Beethoven!'

Arthur Rubinstein

Wine, Glasses, Dust

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