Propositions Quotes - Page 10

• In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions.

  Isaac Newton

  Philosophy, Science, Liable

  Isaac Newton, I. Bernard Cohen, Anne Whitman (1999). “The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, p.796, Univ of California Press

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• On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.

  H. Allen Smith

  Monday, Morning, 4th Of July

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• Our dreams disturb us because they refuse to pander to our fondest notions of ourselves. The closer one looks, the more they seem to insist upon a challenging proposition: You must live truthfully. Right now. And always. Few forces in life present, with an equal sense of inevitability, the bare-knuckle facts of who we are, and the demands of what we might become.

  Marc Ian Barasch

  Dream, Challenges, Looks

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• And here we come to the vital distinction between the advocacy of temperance and the advocacy of prohibition. Temperance and self-control are convertible terms. Prohibition, or that which it implies, is the direct negation of the term self-control. In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, it aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike. And if this is proper in one respect, why not in all respects? Yet, what would one think of a proposition to keep all men locked up because a certain number have a propensity to steal?

  Felix Mendelssohn

  Strong, War, Animal

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• Well, because I have twin seven-year-old boys, I enjoy the gift giving stuff a great deal. We do both Hanukkah and Christmas, so it is a costly, though extremely pleasing proposition.

  Fred Melamed

  Christmas, Boys, Years

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• While 'Buddhism' suggests another belief system, 'dharma practice' suggests a course of action. The four ennobling truths are not propositions to believe; they are challenges to act.

  Stephen Batchelor

  Believe, Buddhism, Practice

  Stephen Batchelor (1998). “Buddhism without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening”, p.12, Penguin

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• The evidence is overwhelming that Planet Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft. In other words, SOME UFOs are alien spacecraft. Most are not. It's clear from the Opinion Polls and my own experience, that indeed most people accept the notion that SOME UFOs are alien spacecraft. The greater the education, the MORE likely to accept this proposition

  Stanton T. Friedman

  People, Earth, Opinion

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• The ends of scientific classification are best answered, when the objects are formed into groups respecting which a greater number of general propositions can be made, and those propositions more important, than could be made respecting any other groups into which the same things could be distributed. ... A classification thus formed is properly scientific or philosophical, and is commonly called a Natural, in contradistinction to a Technical or Artificial, classification or arrangement.

  John Stuart Mill

  Philosophical, Science, Numbers

  "The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill".

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• Fifteen years ago, if you said business will help save the environment people would have laughed at you. Today, I believe that is a serious proposition.

  Tony Blair

  Business, Believe, Years

  "Tony Blair: 'A new coalition for the environment'" by Tony Blair, www.theguardian.com. October 24, 2000.

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• There are some men who in a fifty-fifty proposition insist on getting the hyphen too.

  Laurence J. Peter

  Men, Fifty, Hyphens

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• According to the International Institute for Environment and Development, the annual amount spent globally on advertising aimed at increasing consumption topped $430 billion in 1998.Consumer capitalism is dedicated to the proposition that production is good in itself, no matter what is produced. The net effect is the massive production of absurd, empty and useless items which are nevertheless utterly serious since we earn our living from them, and dedicate our leisure time to them.

  Jacques Ellul

  Development, Useless, Matter

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• It goes without saying that the Jewish people can have no other goal than Palestine and that, whatever the fate of the proposition may be, our attitude toward the land of our fathers is and shall remain unchangeable

  Theodor Herzl

  Attitude, Father, Fate

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• The book, as it stands, seems to me to be one of the most frightful muddles I have ever read, with scarcely a sound proposition in it beginning with page 45 [Hayek provided historical background up to page 45; after that came his theoretical model], and yet it remains a book of some interest, which is likely to leave its mark on the mind of the reader. It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in bedlam.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Mistake, Book, Historical

  John Maynard Keynes, Royal Economic Society (Great Britain) (1971). “The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: The general theory and after: pt. 1, Preparation”

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• The danger of tautological propositions is considerable in discussions of the concept of normal profits. Because supernormal profits seem to invite newcomers to an industry and sub-normal profits seem to drive away those who are in an industry, some writers are inclined to define normal profits as the earnings of the fixed resources in an industry which neither grows nor declines in size or number of firms. It should be clear that such a definition is useless: it muddles together attractiveness and actual afflux, desirbility of entry and ease of entry, zero profits and monopoly rents.

  Fritz Machlup

  Zero, Numbers, Together

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• The proposition that the principal articles of the Apostles' Creed did not have the same meaning for the Christians of the earliest times as they have for Christians of our time is hereby condemned and proscribed as erroneous.

  Pope Pius X

  Christian, Salvation, Creeds

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• We should be evolving into a new age of business with a worldview that maintains one simple proposition - that all of nature: humans, animals, earth, are interconnected and interdependent.

  Anita Roddick

  Animal, Simple, Age

  "Business as Unusual, continued: deck here, too" by Anita Roddick, www.motherjones.com. January 19, 2001.

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• Over the Christmas period, I spent time with both Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, and you listen to stories and tales of how hard it can be when it's really hard, and I think we easily all talk ourselves into the proposition that it's never been as hard as this. Well it's been hard in the past. It's been really hard. So you keep doing it and, the more you do it, the more you gain strength and confidence that you can do it.

  Julia Gillard

  Leadership, Past, Thinking

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• Football is a very short-term proposition. Football really prepares you for nothing. The only thing I got out of football was the ability to work hard, and that's it.

  Gale Sayers

  Football, Hard Work, Ability

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• The proposition that Muslims are welcome in Britain if, and only if, they stop behaving like Muslims is a doctrine which is incompatible with the principles that guide a free society.

  Roy Hattersley

  Wisdom, Islamic, Ifs And

  The Independent, July 21, 1989.

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• The first effect of the mind growing cultivated is that processes once multiple get to be performed in a single act. Lazarus has called this the progressive "condensation" of thought. ... Steps really sink from sight. An advanced thinker sees the relations of his topics is such masses and so instantaneously that when he comes to explain to younger minds it is often hard ... Bowditch, who translated and annotated Laplace's Méchanique Céleste, said that whenever his author prefaced a proposition by the words "it is evident," he knew that many hours of hard study lay before him.

  William James

  Science, Sight, Mind

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• Deduction, which takes us from the general proposition to facts again-teaches us, if I may so say, to anticipate from the ticket what is inside the bundle.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, May, Facts

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1872). “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews”, p.83

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• It is surprising that people do not believe that there is imagination in science. It is a very interesting kind of imagination, unlike that of the artist. The great difficulty is in trying to imagine something that you have never seen, that is consistent in every detail with what has already been seen, and that is different from what has been thought of; furthermore, it must be definite and not a vague proposition. That is indeed difficult.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Believe, Artist, People

  "The Quotable Feynman".

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• The proposition that the meek (that is the adaptable and serviceable), inherit the earth is not merely a wishful sentiment of religion, but an iron law of evolution.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Science, Law, Iron

  KENNETH E. BOULDING (1953). “THE ORGANIZATIONAL REVOLUTION”

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• The California proposition [Prop. 187] is one I would agree with. That's the easiest way to put it.

  Bob Dole

  California, Immigration, Way

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• Communism is a proposition to structure the world more reasonably, a proposition for changing the world. As such, we have to analyze it and, if we deem it reasonable, act upon it.

  Friedrich Durrenmatt

  Literature, World, Communism

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