Proof Quotes - Page 32

• That's the problem with false proofs of true theorems; it's not easy to produce a counterexample.

  Jeffrey Shallit

  Problem, Easy, Produce

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• Dark windows are often a very clear proof.

  Bill Vaughan

  Dark, Window, Crime

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• There is presumably a calendar date a moment when the onus of proof passed from the atheist to the believer, when, quite suddenly, secretly, the noes had it.

  Tom Stoppard

  Atheist, Calendars, Moments

  Tom Stoppard (2013). “Jumpers”, p.14, Faber & Faber

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• In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Christian, Country, Religious

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2015). “Democracy in America: Book One”, p.575, eKitap Projesi via PublishDrive

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• It has been observed before that images, however beautiful, though faithfully copied from nature, and as accurately represented in words, do not of themselves characterize the poet. They become proofs of original genius only as far as they are modified by a predominant passion; or by associated thoughts or images awakened by that passion; or when they have the effect of reducing multitude to unity, or succession to an instant; or lastly, when a human and intellectual life is transferred to them from the poet's spirit.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Beautiful, Passion, Unity

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1834). “Biographia Literaria: Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions”, p.183, Classic Books Company

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• Literary criticism has about it neither rigour nor proof. Where it is honest, it is passionate, private experience seeking to persuade.

  George Steiner

  Criticism, Passionate, Honest

  George Steiner (1987). “George Steiner: A Reader”, p.165, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• I have not seen proven proof that [climate change] is entirely man-made.

  Joni Ernst

  Men, Climate, Made

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• Heaven begun is the living proof that makes the heaven to come credible. Christ in you is "the hope of glory." It is the eagle eye of faith which penetrates the grave, and sees far into the tranquil things of death. He alone can believe in immortality who feels the resurrection in him already.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Believe, Eye, Eagles

  Frederick William Robertson (1873). “ser. 1 God's revelation of heaven [and other sermons]. ser. 2 Christ's judgement respecting inheritance [and other sermons]. ser. 3 The tongue [and other sermons”, p.364

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• Those who have racked their brains to discover new proofs have perhaps been induced to do so by a compulsion they could not quite explain to themselves. Instead of giving us their new proofs they should have explained to us the motivation that constrained them to search for them.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Motivation, Should Have, Giving

  "Aphorisms" by Georg C. Lichtenberg, ("Notebook L", L 24), (1793-1796).

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• Few intellectual tyrannies can be more recalcitrant than the truths that everybody knows and nearly no one can defend with any decent data (for who needs proof of anything so obvious). And few intellectual activities can be more salutary than attempts to find out whether these rocks of ages might crumble at the slightest tap of an informational hammer.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Data, Rocks, Intellectual

  Stephen Jay Gould (2011). “Life's Grandeur: The Spread of Excellence From Plato to Darwin”, p.280, Random House

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• No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Color, America

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.128, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The real jewel of my disease-ridden woodlot is the prothonotary warbler. ... The flash of his gold-and-blue plumage amid the dank decay of the June woods is in itself proof that dead trees are transmuted into living animals, and vice versa.

  Aldo Leopold

  Real, Animal, Jewels

  Aldo Leopold (2013). “Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: (Library of America #238)”, p.104, Library of America

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• On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend.

  Thucydides

  Believe, Historical Value, Crafts

  Thucydides, Ruth Finnegan “History of Greece”, Lulu.com

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• Ah, my brother, it is a far harder thing, and it is afar higher proof of a thorough-going, persistent, Christian principle woven into the very texture of my soul, to go on plodding and patient, never taken by surprise by any small temptation, than to gather into myself the strength which God has given me, and, expecting some great storm to come down upon me, to stand fast, and let it rage. It is a great deal easier to die once for Christ than to live always for Him.

  Alexander MacLaren

  Christian, Brother, Taken

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 109), 1895.

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• Human mercy is proof of having received divine mercy.

  Alistair Begg

  Mercy, Divine, Humans

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• Spirits...Ghosts...Angels...whichever yo wish to call them - Reader, they do exist. I've seem them all my life, but I've learned to say nothing. And for all you cynics out there, just remember, there is no proof either way. So I choose to believe. In my opinion, it's much the best option.

  Lucinda Riley

  Believe, Angel, Wish

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• Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it - especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Faith, Intellectual, Negative

  "Stranger in a Strange Land " by Robert A. Heinlein, (p. 233), 1991.

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• The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it:; once you can honestly say, "I don't know", then it becomes possible to get at the truth.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Ideas, Long, Niche

  "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, chapter 18, p. 230, 1985.

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• Perhaps no philosopher is more correct than the cynic. The happiness of the animal, that thorough cynic, is the living proof of cynicism.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Animal, Philosopher, Cynicism

  "Untimely Meditations". Book by Friedrich Nietzsche, cited in Peter Sloterdijk, "Critique of Cynical Reason" (1987) p.9, 1876.

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• Bravery is a mean state concerned with things that inspire confidence and with things fearful ... and leading us to choose danger and to face it, either because to do so is noble, or because not to do so is base. But to court death as an escape from poverty, or from love, or from some grievous pain, is no proof of bravery, but rather of cowardice.

  Aristotle

  Pain, Mean, Bravery

  Aristotle (1869). “The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle”, p.84

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• Now all orators effect their demonstrative proofs by allegation either of enthymems or examples, and, besides these, in no other way whatever.

  Aristotle

  Example, Way, Allegations

  Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes (1833). “Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric”, p.14

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• There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature. They are like gigantic trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream; which, by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the ever-flowing current, and hold up many a neighboring plant, and perhaps worthless weed, to perpetuity.

  Washington Irving

  Weed, Roots, Tree

  Washington Irving (2015). “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. – The Complete Collection: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, The Voyage, Roscoe, A Royal Poet, A Sunday in London and many more (Illustrated)”, p.133, e-artnow

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• The heart must be kept tender and pliable; otherwise agnosticism converts to skepticism. In such a case, the value of apologetics is voided, for apologetics is aimed at persuading doubters, not at refuting the defiant. He who demands a kind of proof that the nature of the case renders impossible, is determined that no possible evidence shall convince him.

  Edward John Carnell

  Heart, Demand, Doubters

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• The Socratic demonstration of the ultimate unity of tragic and comic drama is forever lost. But the proof is in the art of Chekhov.

  George Steiner

  Art, Drama, Forever

  George Steiner (1980). “The death of tragedy”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Knowledge forbidden? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord Envy them that? Can it be sin to know, Can it be death? And do they only stand By ignorance? Is that their happy state, The proof of their obedience and their faith? O fair foundation laid whereon to build Their ruin!

  John Milton

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Envy

  John Milton, Elijah Fenton (1795). “Paradise Lost: A Poem, in Twelve Books”, p.103

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