Layman Quotes

• A simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it

  Martin Luther

  Simple, Scripture, Pope

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• The experienced physician, mechanic, or physiologist looking at a wound, an engine, a microscopic preparation, "sees" things the novice does not see. If both, experts and laymen, were asked to make exact copies of what they see, their drawings would be quite different.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Drawing, Preparation, Novices

  Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Visual Thinking”, p.302, Univ of California Press

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• I am no theologian. I am a layman. I am among those who are preached to, and who listen. It is not for me to preach. I should not willingly forego being a listener, a man who reads the Gospels and then listens to what others say that our Lord meant. But sometimes a listener speaks out, and listens to his own voice.

  Haniel Long

  Men, Speaks Out, Voice

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• The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland, but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.

  Alan Perlis

  Book, Wonderland, Programming

  "Epigrams on Programming". ACM "SIGPLAN" Notices 17 (9), (pp. 7-13), September 1982.

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• Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Sex, Technology, Computer

  Robert A. Heinlein (2014). “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, p.89, Hachette UK

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• If the layman cannot participate in decision making, he will have to turn himself over, essentially blind, to a hermetic elite. ... [The fundamental question becomes] are we still capable of self-government and therefore freedom? Margaret Mead wrote in a 1959 issue of Daedalus about scientists elevated to the status of priests. Now there is a name for this elevation, when you are in the hands of-one hopes-a benevolent elite, when you have no control over your political decisions. From the point of view of John Locke, the name for this is slavery.

  Gerald Holton

  Freedom, Self, Views

  "Where is Science Taking Us? Gerald Holton Maps the Possible Routes". The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 18, 1981.

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• In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt reminded us that the Constitution is, and I quote, "a layman's document, not a lawyer's contract."

  Mike DeWine

  President, Constitution, Lawyer

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• The layman always means, when he says "reality" that he is speaking of something self-evidently known; whereas to me it seems the most important and exceedingly difficult task of our time is to work on the construction of a new idea of reality.

  Wolfgang Pauli

  Mean, Reality, Ideas

  "The Innermost Kernel : Depth Psychology and Quantum Physics : Wolfgang Pauli's Dialogue with C. G. Jung". Book by Suzanne Gieser, 2005.

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• There was on section in First Corinthians 13 that talks about (showing) patience, kindness, politeness, how can I demonstrate forgiveness to my children and more fully enjoy them as they're growing up and vice versa. And so, each of those has a day's journey. There are 40 days that people will go through in applying these biblical principles for their kids. We spell them out in layman's terms so it's really easy to grasp a principle.

  Alex Kendrick

  Children, Growing Up, Kindness

  "'Courageous' filmmaker Alex Kendrick branches out with a new book, a new Erwin Brothers comedy and a new production company". Interview with John W. Kennedy, www.beliefnet.com. July 2013.

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• BERTRAND RUSSELL, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism We've associated that word philosophy with academic study that in its own way has gotten so far beyond the layman that if you read contemporary philosophy you've no clue, because it's almost become math. And it's odd that if you don't do that and you call yourself a philosopher that you always get 'homespun' attached to it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Math, Way

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• In Western lands there is a distinct division between the religious and the secular life. There is one rule of conduct for laymen and another for clergymen. This distinction has never found its place in the life of the people of India. There, all of life is included in the word 'religion.'

  Virchand Gandhi

  Religious, Land, People

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• Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.

  Rachel Carson

  Inspirational, Peace, Nature

  Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sense of Wonder”, p.41, Open Road Media

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• Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must believe?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Book, Believe

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.340

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• That I am a monk and you are a layman is of no importance ... rather that we are both in the light of the Holy Spirit ... Acquire peace, and thousands around you will be saved.

  Seraphim of Sarov

  Christian, Light, Spirit

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• I'm not the guy who will sit in a room with somebody who's using a bunch of big words and just act like I know what they're talking about, or sit on set with somebody and they'll be trying to explain something and not using layman's terms and I'll just say, "Hey, excuse me, what do you mean by that? Explain to me so I just understand."

  Mark Wahlberg

  Mean, Talking, Guy

  "Mark Wahlberg Talks THE GAMBLER, Shedding Sixty Pounds For The Role, THE SIX BILLION DOLLAR MAN, DEEPWATER HORIZON, and More". Interview, collider.com. December 23, 2014.

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• If you are not a psychiatrist, stay away from idiots. They are too stupid to pay a layman for his company.

  Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

  Stupid, Pay, Idiot

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• Making mathematics accessible to the educated layman, while keeping high scientific standards, has always been considered a treacherous navigation between the Scylla of professional contempt and the Charybdis of public misunderstanding.

  Gian-Carlo Rota

  Scylla, Navigation, Mathematics

  Mark Kac, Gian-Carlo Rota, Jacob T. Schwartz (2009). “Discrete Thoughts: Essays on Mathematics, Science and Philosophy”, p.155, Springer Science & Business Media

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• By dividing the people of God as clergy and laymen, we have made the latter a majority of lame men.

  Richard P. Stanley

  Men, People, Church

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• An odd contradiction, if the layman were correct in his unconscious assumption that an artist begins with reality and ends with art: the converse is true - to the degree that this dichotomy has any truth - the artist begins with art, and through it arrives at reality.

  Robert Motherwell

  Art, Reality, Degrees

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• Most magicians are nothing more than laymen with rabbits on their business cards

  Darwin Ortiz

  Rabbits, Cards, Business Card

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• Congress is, after all, not a body of laymen unfamiliar with the commonplaces of our law. This legislation was the formulation of the two Judiciary Committees, all of whom are lawyers, and the Congress is predominately a lawyers' body.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Law, Two, Body

  "Callanan v. United States, 364 U.S. 587". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. January 9, 1961.

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• Laymen learn to read photographs the way they do headlines, skipping over them quickly to get the gist of what is being said. Photographers, on the other hand, study them with the care and attention to detail one might give to a difficult scientific paper or a complicated poem.

  Howard S. Becker

  Hands, Giving, Details

  Creative Camera, №№ 163 - 174, 1978.

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• The mathematic, then, is an art. As such it has its styles and style periods. It is not, as the layman and the philosopher (who is in this matter a layman too) imagine, substantially unalterable, but subject like every art to unnoticed changes form epoch to epoch. The development of the great arts ought never to be treated without an (assuredly not unprofitable) side-glance at contemporary mathematics.

  Oswald Spengler

  Art, Math, Imagination

  Oswald Spengler, Charles Francis Atkinson (1950). “Form and actuality”

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• The entire force of the Conciliar revolt comes from the fact that it has apparently been imposed by the authority of the Church. How many bishops, priests, religious, and laymen, would have swallowed the lies of the heretics if they had not believed themselves bound to do so by the voice of Christ's Vicar on earth? Questioning the authority of these men renders their revolution of doubtful authenticity.

  John Lane

  Religious, Powerful, Lying

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• About medications that are drunk or applied to wounds it is worth learning from everyone; for people do not discover these by reasoning but by chance, and experts not more than laymen.

  Hippocrates

  Medicine, People, Drunk

  Hippocrates (1988). “Hippocrates”, Loeb Classical Library

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