Rigour Quotes

• The rigour of science requires that we distinguish well the undraped figure of Nature itself from the gay-coloured vesture with which we clothe her at our pleasure.

  Heinrich Hertz

  Gay, Pleasure, Figures

  "Nature", Vol. 51, Nature Publishing Group, letter by Ludwig Boltzmann, 1895.

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• A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game.

  Charles Lamb

  Fire, Gambling, Games

  Charles Lamb (2008). “The Life, Letters, and Writings of Charles Lamb”, p.181, Cosimo, Inc.

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• If Courtezans and Strumpets were to be prosecuted with as much Rigour as some silly People would have it, what Locks or Bars would be sufficient to preserve the Honour of our Wives and Daughters?

  Bernard de Mandeville

  Daughter, Silly, Wife

  Bernard de Mandeville (1723). “The Fable of the Bees”, p.48, Jazzybee Verlag

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• In football as in watchmaking, talent and elegance mean nothing without rigour and precision.

  Lionel Messi

  Football, Motivational Sports, Mean

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• If one must choose between rigour and meaning, I shall unhesitatingly choose the latter.

  Rene Thom

  Math, Latter, Ifs

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• Rigour is to the mathematician what morality is to men.

  Andre Weil

  Math, Men, Morality

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• Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?

  Charlotte Bronte

  Law, Temptation, Soul

  Charlotte Bronte (2009). “Jane Eyre: Easyread Edition”, p.149, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Besides it is an error to believe that rigour is the enemy of simplicity. On the contrary we find it confirmed by numerous examples that the rigorous method is at the same time the simpler and the more easily comprehended. The very effort for rigor forces us to find out simpler methods of proof.

  David Hilbert

  Believe, Math, Errors

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• I've grown so much, not just as an actor, but as a human being.

  Aaron Paul

  Actors, Humans, Decipher

  "Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul discuss their cutthroat relationship on 'Breaking Bad'". Interview with Glenn Whipp, articles.latimes.com. June 10, 2010.

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• Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.

  Edward Gibbon

  Government, Law, Punishment

  Edward Gibbon (1846). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.444

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• If this were so; if the desert were 'home'; if our instincts were forged in the desert; to survive the rigours of the desert - then it is easier to understand why greener pastures pall on us; why possessions exhaust us, and why Pascal's imaginary man found his comfortable lodgings a prison.

  Bruce Chatwin

  Home, Men, Desert

  Bruce Chatwin (2012). “The Songlines”, p.162, Random House

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• In the broad light of day mathematicians check their equations and their proofs, leaving no stone unturned in their search for rigour. But, at night, under the full moon, they dream, they float among the stars and wonder at the miracle of the heavens. They are inspired. Without dreams there is no art, no mathematics, no life.

  Michael Atiyah

  Inspirational, Life, Dream

  Michael Atiyah (2014). “Michael Atiyah Collected Works: 2002-2013”, p.267, Oxford University Press, USA

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• I'm constantly intimidated by Shakespeare's work. Trying to decipher what he's saying and holding on to that thought - not just as an actor, but as a human being - is a rigour.

  Zoe Wanamaker

  Trying, Actors, Holding On

  "Shakespeare and me: Zoe Wanamaker". Interview with Shahesta Shaitly, www.theguardian.com. June 30, 2012.

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• A hot bath! How exquisite a vespertine pleasure, how luxurious, fervid and flagrant a consolation for the rigours, the austerities, the renunciations of the day.

  Rose Macaulay

  Freedom, Hot, Austerity

  Rose Macaulay (2011). “Personal Pleasures”, p.101, A&C Black

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• As for methods I have sought to give them all the rigour that one requires in geometry, so as never to have recourse to the reasons drawn from the generality of algebra.

  Augustin-Louis Cauchy

  Science, Giving, Reason

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• In a sense these are questions that most people ask themselves to some extent. They become philosophical when asked with a persistence and rigour that pushes past conventional or evasive answers. It's nothing to do with acquiring a technical facility in an academic discipline.

  George Pattison

  Philosophical, Persistence, Past

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• In a government framed for durable liberty, not less regard must be paid to giving the magistrate a proper degree of authority, to make and execute the laws with rigour, than to guarding against encroachments upon the rights of the community. As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Law, Rights, Government

  Alexander Hamilton (1961). “1779-1781”

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• As a child I was really into fantasy books with elves and goblins and swords, and I went through a phase for a few years when I was reading endless series. But in the end I became totally fed-up with all these sub-Tolkien rip-offs because they all end up doing the same old things and there's no rigour to it.

  Jonathan Stroud

  Children, Rip, Book

  "A kind of magic". Interview with Michelle Pauli, www.theguardian.com. October 7, 2010.

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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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• Eric Schlosser's book on the economy and strategies of the fast-food business should be read by anyone who likes to take their children to fast-food restaurants. I shall certainly never do that again. He employs a long, cold burn, a quiet and impassioned accumulation of detail, with calm, wit and clarity. (...) Fast Food Nation is witness to the rigour and seriousness of the best American journalism, readable, reliable and extremely carefully done.

  Adam Nicolson

  Children, Book, Long

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• I relieve myself from the rigours of directing by casting the movie correctly.

  John Huston

  Casting

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• [O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country.

  Fisher Ames

  Country, Government, Essence

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• The great trick of regarding small departures from the truth as the truth itself - on which is founded the entire integral calculus - is also the basis of our witty speculations, where the whole thing would often collapse if we considered the departures with philosophical rigour.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Witty, Truth, Philosophical

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• It takes character to withstand the rigours of indolence.

  Tom Stoppard

  Character, Indolence

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• I am beginning to believe that nothing can ever be proved. These are honest hypotheses which take the facts into account: but I sense so definitely that they come from me, and that they are simply a way of unifying my own knowledge. Not a glimmer comes from Rollebon's side. Slow, lazy, sulky, the facts adapt themselves to the rigour of the order I wish to give them; but it remains outside of them. I have the feeling of doing a work of pure imagination.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Believe, Order, Giving

  Jean Paul Sartre (1949). “The diary of Antoine Roquentin”

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