Propositions Quotes

• It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Truth, Interesting, Important

  Adventures of Ideas pt. 4, ch. 16 (1933)

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• A truthmaker is an entity in virtue of which the proposition it makes true is true. And it is a necessary condition of being a truthmaker (though not a sufficient one) that a truthmaker necessitates the proposition it makes true.

  Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

  Virtue, Entity, Conditions

  "Truthmaking". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com.

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• Law is justice. In this proposition a simple and enduring government can be conceived. And I defy anyone to say how even the thought of revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest uprising could arise against a government whose organized force was confined only to suppressing injustice.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Simple, Government, Law

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.55, Cosimo, Inc.

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• A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.

  G. Gordon Liddy

  Inspirational, Funny, Money

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• The power of the people pervading the proposed system, together with the strong confederation of the states, will form an adequate security against every danger that has been apprehended.

  John Dickinson

  Strong, Power, Usa

  John Dickinson (1801). “The Political Writings of John Dickinson, Esquire: Late President of the State of Delaware, and of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania”, p.89

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• Reality is devoid of any intrinsic identity that can be captured by any one single proposition - that is what Buddha meant by "voidness."

  Dalai Lama

  Reality, Identity, Captured

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• Whenever a new discovery is reported to the world, they say first, It is probably not true, Then after, when the truth of the new proposition has been demonstrated beyond question, they say, Yes, it may be true, but it is not important. Finally, when sufficient time has elapsed to fully evidence its importance, they say, Yes, surely it is important, but it is no longer new.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Discovery, Important, World

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• History offers no evidence for the proposition that the assignment of women to military combat jobs is the way to win wars, improve combat readiness, or promote national security.

  Phyllis Schlafly

  Jobs, Military, War

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• We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express.

  A.J. Ayer

  Ifs And, Significant, Given

  'Language, Truth, and Logic' (2nd ed., 1946) p. 35

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• I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds me in a bad soil to penetrate and take deep root in. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Roots, Mind, Ease

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• [In many circumstances,] the most important thing about a proposition is not that it be true, but that it be interesting.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Interesting, Important, Circumstances

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• I am arguing that faith as such, faith as an alleged method of acquiring knowledge, is totally invalid and as a consequence, all propositions of faith, because they lack rational demonstration, must conflict with reason.

  George H. Smith

  Religion, Atheism, Acquiring Knowledge

  George H. Smith (2010). “Atheism: The Case Against God”, p.120, Prometheus Books

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• Once you attach your personality to a proposition, people start reacting to the personality and stop reacting to the proposition.

  Harvey Mackay

  People, Personality, Reacting

  FaceBook post by Harvey Mackay from Feb 15, 2013

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• I was not an atheist. Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere.

  Bill W.

  Atheist, Mean, People

  Bill W. (1976). “Alcoholics Anonymous: the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism”

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• Indeed, that the Second Amendment poses no barrier to strong gun laws is perhaps the most well-settled proposition in American constitutional law.

  Erwin Griswold

  Strong, Gun, Law

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• Courage is freedom, and freedom is joy. Be fully who you are, letting the world get used to you - it will! Find a loving community of friends who support your ever-flowering growth, which is a lifetime proposition.

  Doris "Granny D" Haddock

  Change, Support, Community

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• When the mathematician says that such and such a proposition is true of one thing, it may be interesting, and it is surely safe. But when he tries to extend his proposition to everything, though it is much more interesting, it is also much more dangerous. In the transition from one to all, from the specific to the general, mathematics has made its greatest progress, and suffered its most serious setbacks, of which the logical paradoxes constitute the most important part. For, if mathematics is to advance securely and confidently, it must first set its affairs in order at home.

  Edward Kasner

  Home, Order, Interesting

  "Mathematics and the Imagination".

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• Mathematics is a logical method. . . . Mathematical propositions express no thoughts. In life it is never a mathematical proposition which we need, but we use mathematical propositions only in order to infer from propositions which do not belong to mathematics to others which equally do not belong to mathematics.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Life, Math, Order

  Ludwig Wittgenstein, Charles Kay Ogden (1998). “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”, p.98, Courier Corporation

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• Analytic It is clear that the definition of "logic" or "mathematics" must be sought by trying to give a new definition of the old notion of "analytic" propositions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Giving, Trying, Definitions

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.155, Routledge

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• Man is full of desires: he loves only those who can satisfy them all. "This man is a good mathematician," someone will say. But I have no concern for mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a good soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, that is to say, a decent man who can accommodate himself to all my desires in a general sort of way.

  Blaise Pascal

  Love, Math, Men

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• Among the minor, yet striking characteristics of mathematics, may be mentioned the fleshless and skeletal build of its propositions; the peculiar difficulty, complication, and stress of its reasonings; the perfect exactitude of its results; their broad universality; their practical infallibility.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Stress, Math, Perfect

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1931). “Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce”

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• To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.

  Jon Jones

  Theory Of Evolution, Facts, Alternatives

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• There are different interpretations of the problem of universals. I understand it as the problem of giving the truthmakers of propositions to the effect that a certain particular is such and such, e.g. propositions like 'this rose is red'. Others have interpreted it as a problem about the ontological commitments of such propositions or a problem about what those propositions mean.

  Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

  Mean, Commitment, Giving

  "Truthmaking". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com.

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• It is impossible to build sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of Constitutional history... The establishment clause has been expressly freighted with Jefferson's misleading metaphor for nearly forty years... There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the framers intended to build a wall of separation... The recent court decisions are in no way based on either the language or intent of the framers.

  William Rehnquist

  Wall, Years, Decision

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• All democracies are based on the proposition that power is very dangerous and that it is extremely important not to let any one person or small group have too much power for too long a time

  Aldous Huxley

  Long, Democracy, Important

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