Theoretical Quotes - Page 7

• Judicial execution can never cancel or remove the atrocity it seeks to punish; it can only add a second atrocity to the original one ... So long as one sees killing as wrong there is no need to waste time with the deterrent argument, since it would be nonsense to try to prevent a theoretical evil in the future by perpetrating an actual one in the present.

  Auberon Waugh

  Long, Evil, Trying

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• However, the fact that an economist offers a theoretical analysis does not and should not automatically command respect. What is needed is some assurance that the analysis is actually relevant.

  Paul Krugman

  Doe, Analysis, Facts

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• Page after page of professional economic journals are filled with mathematical formulas leading the reader from sets of more or less plausible but entirely arbitrary assumptions to precisely stated but irrelevant theoretical conclusions.

  Wassily Leontief

  Arbitrary, Pages, Assumption

  Wassily Leontief (1966). “Essays in Economics: Theories, Theorizing, Facts, and Policies”, p.10, Transaction Publishers

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• America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  America, Independence, Pieces

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• This kind of overall way of thinking is not only a fertile source of new theoretical ideas: it is needed for the human mind to function in a generally harmonious way, which could in turn help to make possible an orderly and stable society.

  David Bohm

  Thinking, Ideas, Mind

  David Bohm (2005). “Wholeness and the Implicate Order”, p.16, Routledge

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• That which Steinitz gave to the theoretical aspect of the game when he was at his best is very remote to all out home-bred chess philosophers, but with his views on Morphy, whom he tries to discredit completely, it is of course impossible to agree.

  Alexander Alekhine

  Home, Views, Games

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• Existing economics is a theoretical system which floats in the air and which bears little relation to what happens in the real world.

  Ronald Coase

  Real, Air, World

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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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• My relationship to the desecration of the earth was very theoretical and intellectual until I got sick. I could never watch anything about polar bears dying or the death of bees. There were certain things I knew I couldn't go near because they were too devastating. But I don't think until I got cancer did I get it in my body, what was happening to the earth. I finally went: "Oh! Earth! Organism!"

  Eve Ensler

  Cancer, Thinking, Sick

  "The Big Idea: Eve Ensler". Interview with Suzanne Koven, therumpus.net. June 12, 2013.

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• Can the vast technology beneath our gaze be anything but a representation? Any optical artifact... The city panorama is a theoretical (ie visual) simulacrum: in short, a picture, of which the preconditions for feasibility are forgetfulness and a misunderstanding of processes.

  Michel de Certeau

  Technology, Cities, Process

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• I have an abiding interest in how ordinary people produce knowledge, and what it means for individuals to know the world. I thought I'd be a theoretical physicist because I love physicists' views of the world - I find general relativity and quantum theory thrilling - but I have always felt uneasy with the idea of an Ultimate Truth. One of the functions of science is to help us instrumentally; it helps us to build things like microchips and GPS satellites. But another function of science in the modern world is to help us feel "at home in the universe".

  Margaret Wertheim

  Mean, Home, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The most important tool of the theoretical physicist is his wastebasket.

  Albert Einstein

  Important, Tools, Physicist

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• What then is the purpose of national education? Rather than devise complex theoretical interpretations, it is better to start by looking to the lovely child who sits on your knee and ask yourself: What can I do to assure this child will be able to lead the happiest life possible?

  Tsunesaburo Makiguchi

  Children, Lovely, Purpose

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• In Fischer's hands, a slight theoretical advantage is as good a being a Queen ahead

  Isaac Kashdan

  Queens, Hands, Chess Game

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• The university is one of various funding structures by which people who want to do theoretical work stay alive, the same way that people go to grad school, not because they think it's going to change the world but because there's no patron system anymore, and they need some scaffolding of support while they're trying to figure out how they can proceed in their lives. I think that's utterly legit. A lot of our better theorists and thinkers, that's what the university is for them.

  Joshua Clover

  School, Thinking, People

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• Since the beginning of physics, symmetry considerations have provided us with an extremely powerful and useful tool in our effort to understand nature. Gradually they have become the backbone of our theoretical formulation of physical laws.

  Tsung-Dao Lee

  Nature, Powerful, Science

  "Particle Physics and Introduction to Field Theory: Revised and Updated First Edition". Book by Tsung-Dao Lee, 1981.

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• In my own research, teaching and consulting experience I have to combine lessons from the field in a relatively inductive and open fashion with theoretical frameworks and conceptual arguments. The skills to deal with theory and conceptualization are a direct result of my formal education - reading, learning and conversations with other PhD students.

  Yves Doz

  Fashion, Teaching, Reading

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• But, contrary to the lady's prejudices about the engineering profession, the fact is that quite some time ago the tables were turned between theory and applications in the physical sciences. Since World War II the discoveries that have changed the world are not made so much in lofty halls of theoretical physics as in the less-noticed labs of engineering and experimental physics. The roles of pure and applied science have been reversed; they are no longer what they were in the golden age of physics, in the age of Einstein, Schrödinger, Fermi and Dirac.

  Nicholas Metropolis

  War, Science, Engineering

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• If the aim of physical theories is to explain experimental laws, theoretical physics is not an autonomous science; it is subordinate to metaphysics.

  Pierre Duhem

  Science, Law, Theoretical Physics

  "The aim and structure of physical theory". Book by Pierre Duhem, p. 10, 1991.

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• I am certainly influenced by certain post-structuralist traditions but also a number of other theoretical archives as well - including the brilliant work of Paulo Freire, Zygmunt Bauman, Loic Wacquant, Nancy Fraser, Tony Judt, and others.

  Henry Giroux

  Numbers, Archives, Brilliant

  "Higher Education Under Attack: An Interview With Henry A. Giroux". Interview with C. Cryn Johannsen, www.truth-out.org. April 22, 2011.

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• Theoretical principals must sometimes give way for the sake of practical advantages.

  William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

  Giving, Sake, Way

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• There is not some glorious theoretical synthesis of capitalism that you can write down in a book and follow. You have to grope your way

  Robert Solow

  Book, Writing, Ignorance

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• If you want to find out anything from the theoretical physicists about the methods they use, I advise you to stick closely to one principle: don't listen to their words, fix your attention on their deeds. To him who is a discoverer in this field the products of his imagination appear so necessary and natural that he regards them, and would like to have them regarded by others, not as creations of thought but as given realities.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, Reality, Imagination

  Albert Einstein (2011). “Essays in Science”, p.17, Open Road Media

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• Medicine is the science by which we learn the various states of the human body in health and when not in health, and the means by which health is likely to be lost and, when lost, is likely to be restored back to health. In other words, it is the art whereby health is conserved and the art whereby it is restored after being lost. While some divide medicine into a theoretical and a practical [applied] science, others may assume that it is only theoretical because they see it as a pure science. But, in truth, every science has both a theoretical and a practical side.

  Avicenna

  Art, Health, Mean

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• The science behind Interstellar is interesting, because some of it is absolutely real astrophysics and orbital mechanics, some of it is theoretical physics, and some of it is completely Hollywood. When a science fiction movie is based on plausible science, it's really good.

  Julie Payette

  Real, Interesting, Physics

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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