...it doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are-- if it doesn't agree with experiment it's wrong.

-- R.P. Feynman, Unknown , Unknown

...one of the reasons I like classes and structured learning is that they encourage --and contribute to--the belief that life is orderly, that things happen when they are supposed to happen, that actions have predictable results and that events are controllable.

-- Roby James, Commencement, p. 189, Unknown

90% of all statistics are made up.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

-- Martin Fischer, Unknown , born November 10, 1879

A conference is just an admission that you want somebody to join you in your troubles.

-- Will Rogers, Unknown , born November 4, 1879

A degree of chaos is essential to discover what we don't know we're looking for.

-- George ?, theater designer, Box Conspiracy play., Unknown , Unknown

A figure of speech can often get into a crack too small for logic.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

A fool must now and then be right by chance.

-- William Cowper, Conversation. Line 96., Unknown

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

-- William Blake, Unknown , Unknown

A good catchword can obscure analysis for 50 years.

-- Wendell Wilkie, Unknown , Unknown

A great oak is only a little nut that held its ground.

-- Anonymous, Unknown , Unknown

A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.

-- E-mail humor, Proverbs for the Millennium or Axioms for the Internet Age, Unknown

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are portals of discovery.

-- James Joyce, Unknown , Unknown

A mighty maze! But not without a plan.

-- Alexander Pope, Unknown , Unknown

A person's wound is where their passion is born.

-- Marilyn Hamilton, Unknown , Unknown

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

-- Duke Ellington, Unknown , Unknown

A problem well stated is a problem half solved.

-- Charles F. Kettering, Unknown , Unknown

A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discoverers are among them, as comets amongst the stars.

-- Carolus Linnaeus, Unknown , 1707-1778

A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation.

-- Max Gluckman, Unknown , Unknown

A Stanford research group advertised for participants in a study of obsessive-compulsive disorder. They were looking for therapy clients who had been diagnosed with this disorder. The response was gratifying; they got 3,000 responses about three days after the ad came out. All from the same person.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

A survey says that American workers work the first three hours every day just to pay their taxes. So that's why we can't get anything done in the morning: We're government workers!

-- Jay Leno, Unknown , Unknown

A tiny hole can empty a great big bucket.

-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

All great truths started out as blasphemies.

-- George Bernard Shaw, Unknown , Unknown

All logic texts are divided into two parts. In the first part, on deductible logic, the fallacies are explained; in the second part, on inductive logic, they are committed.

-- Morris Raphael Cohen, attributed in Meehl, P. E. Appraising and amending theories. Psychological Inquiry, 1, p. 110., 1990

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr., Unknown , Unknown

All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set to thought.

-- Edith Hamilton, Unknown , Unknown

All your hard work will soon pay off.

-- Fortune Cookie, Unknown , Unknown

Always assume that your assumption is invalid.

-- Robert F. Tatman, Unknown , Unknown

An approximate answer to the right question is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate question.

-- J. W. Tukey, Unknown , Unknown

An expert is a person who avoids small error as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy.

-- Benjamin Stolberg, Unknown , Unknown

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.

-- Niels Bohr, Unknown , Unknown

An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.

-- Albert Einstein, Unknown , 1879-1955

Aristotle noted that it was a mark of understanding to know what sorts of things can be proven and made precise, and what sorts, on the other hand, require our tolerance of vagueness and probable conclusions.

-- John Churchill, From the Secretary: Inspiring Conversations in The Key Reporter. Vol 67, Number 4. P. 2., Summer 2002

Art is I; science is we.

-- Claude Bernard, Unknown , 1813-1878

As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious.

-- Will Durant, Unknown , Unknown

Ask why until you understand.

-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

-- Bette Davis, Mother Goddamn, 1974

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

Basic Law of Construction: Cut it large and kick it into place.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

Be prepared.

-- Boy Scout Motto, Unknown , Unknown

Beauty is in the details.

-- German proverb, Unknown , Unknown

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

-- John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Unknown

Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.

-- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, Unknown

Before enlightenment, there is much carrying of water; after enlightenment, there is much carrying of water.

-- Buddhist saying, Unknown , Unknown

Before the curse of statistics fell upon mankind we lived a happy, innocent life, full of merriment and go and informed by fairly good judgment.

-- Hilaire Belloc, Unknown , Unknown

Believing in the Tooth Fairy is easier than trying to figure out how else the money gets under your pillow.

-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Both teaching and rational inquiry, at their creative and inspired best, thus lead us to the very threshold of ultimate mystery and induce in us a sense of profound humility and awe.

-- Theodore Meyer Greene, Unknown , Unknown

By ignorance the truth is known.

-- Henry Suso, The Little Book of Truth, 1300-1365

Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.

-- Plutarch, Life of Marcus Cato, Unknown

Conference: A place where conversation is substituted for the dreariness of labor and the loneliness of thought.

-- Anonymous, Unknown , Unknown

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.

-- John Billings, Unknown , 1818-1885

Consistency is a paste jewel that only cheap men cherish.

-- William Allen White, Unknown , Unknown

Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.

-- Berenson Bernard, Unknown , Unknown

Context is always as relevant as concept.

-- Terry Olson, Focus on Faculty, Vol 15(2), Brigham Young University Faculty Center, 2005

Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.

-- Wilson Mizner, Unknown , 1876-1933

Cover less, uncover more.

-- possibly Bland Tomkinson, Unknown , Unknown

Crawling still gets you there.

-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Deans can count but they can't read.

-- Old Saying, Unknown , Unknown

Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it, establish your priorities and go to work.

-- Hunt, Unknown , Unknown

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

-- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Unknown , Unknown

Do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

-- Bob Rivera & Peter Yates, janitors, Kingswood Regional High., Unknown , 1991

Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead.

-- Roger Bannister, Unknown , Unknown

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

-- Howard Aiken., Unknown , Unknown

Don’t know much about history. Don’t know much biology. Don’t know science books. Don’t know about the French I took. But I do know I love you And I do know if you love me too, what a wonderful world this would be. Don’t know much about geography. Don’t know much trigonometry. Don’t know much about algebra. Don’t know what a slide ruler is for. But I do know one and one is two And if this one could be with you, what a wonderful world this would be. Now I don’t claim to be an A student. But I’m trying to be. Maybe by being an A student, baby, You’ll give your love to me.

-- Joel Landry, song "What a Wonderful World", Unknown

Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Even a professor soon discovers how little he knows when a child begins asking questions.

-- Anonymous, Unknown , Unknown

Even when all the experts agree, they may well be mistaken.

-- Bertrand (Arthur William) Russell), Unknown , born May 18, 1872

Every fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it doesn't stop a wise man from trying.

-- Harry Anderson, Unknown , Unknown

Every piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit gets you closer to the answer.

-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

Every problem contains the seed of its own solution.

-- Norman Vincent Peale, Unknown , Unknown

Every scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next they say it had been discovered before. Lastly they say they always believed in it.

-- Louis Agassiz, Unknown , Unknown

Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge.

-- Erwin Knoll, Unknown , born July 17, 1931

Excellence can be attained if you -Care more often than others think wise. -Risk more often than others think is safe. -Dream more often than others think is practical. -Expect more than others think is possible.

-- Janet Cagery, Unknown , Unknown

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again.

-- F. P. Jones, Unknown , Unknown

Facing up to your mistakes keeps you from repeating them. Successful people make plenty of mistakes but hardly ever the same one twice.

-- Debra A. Benton, Lions Don't Need to Roar. Warner Books, 1993

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

-- John Wood, Unknown , Unknown

Failures are divided into 2 classes those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

-- John Charles Salak, Unknown , Unknown

Find out who you are and do it on purpose.

-- Dolly Parton, Unknown , Unknown

Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song.

-- Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet. NY: Henry Holt & Co., P. 13, 1999

For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

For every complex question there is a simple answer -- and it's wrong.

-- H.L. Mencken, Unknown , Unknown

For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong.

-- H. L. Mencken, Unknown , Unknown

For original ideas to come about, you have to let them percolate under the level of consciousness in a place where we have no way to make them obey our own desires or our own direction. Their random combinations are driven by forces we don't know about.

-- Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, Unknown , Unknown

Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt

-- Dorothy Parker, "Inventory," Enough Rope, 1927

Freedom of inquiry, freedom of discussion, and freedom of teaching - without these a university cannot exist.

-- Robert Maynard Hutchins, Unknown , Unknown

General notions are generally wrong.

-- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, letter, March 1710

Genius is only a form of sustained patience.

-- Donald Murray, Unknown , Unknown

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

-- Mark Twain, Unknown , born November 30, 1835

Give a person a fiche, and they'll research for a day, but teach them to use the Net, and they'll research for a lifetime…

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

God is in the details.

-- Mies Van Der Rohe, Unknown , Unknown

Good questions work on us, we don't work on them. They are not a project to be completed but a doorway opening onto greater depth of understanding.

-- Peter Block, Unknown , Unknown

Great discoveries and achievements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.

-- Alexander Graham Bell, Unknown , Unknown

Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical questions?

-- Geroge E. Bradley, print media column, "Ever Wonder?", Unknown

He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.

-- Winston Churchill, on Stanley Baldwin, Unknown , Unknown

He sought advice readily, always a good quality in an administrator, and did his own Xeroxing.

-- Jane Smiley, Moo. New York: Fawcett Columbine. P. 62, 1995

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator.

-- Francis Bacon, Unknown , Unknown

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts-- for support rather than illumination.

-- Andrew Lang, Unknown , Unknown

He who influences the thought of his times, influences all the times that follow. He has made his impress on eternity.

-- Hypatia, in Elbert Hubbard, (1908) Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers, c. 370-415

He [Hercule Poirot] tapped his forehead. "These little grey cells. It is 'up to them.'"

-- Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920

Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God.

-- Job 37:14, Unknown , Unknown

Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!

-- Bullwinkle, Jay Ward & Bill Scott, Rocky and His Friends, aka The Bullwinkle Show cartoon, 1959

How does it feel To have you on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone.

-- Bob Dylan, "Like a rolling stone", 196?

Human beings do not carry civilization in their genes. All that we do carry in our genes are certain capacities-- the capacity to learn to walk upright, to use our brains, to speak, to relate to our fellow men, to construct and use tools, to explore the universe, and to express that exploration in religion, in art, in science, in philosophy.

-- Margaret Mead, 1901-1978, "Human Nature Will Flower If--" in the New York Times Magazine, April 19, 1964

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

-- Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See, Unknown

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

-- Stephen Leacock, Unknown , Unknown

I believe five out of four people have trouble with fractions.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.

-- John Cage, Unknown , Unknown

I don't have a solution, but I admire your problem.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention--invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.

-- Agatha Christie, An Autobiography, 1977

I found your essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.

-- Samuel Johnson, Unknown , born September 18, 1779

I fully realize that I have not succeeded in answering all of your questions…Indeed, I feel I have not answered any of them completely. The answers I have found only serve to raise a whole new set of questions, which only lead to more problems, some of which we weren’t even aware were problems. To sum it all up…In some ways I feel we are confused as ever, but I believe we are confused on a higher level, and about more important things.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

I get up every morning determined both to change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult.

-- E.B. White, Unknown , Unknown

I got 99 problems, but the truth ain't one.

-- Steven Colbert, humorist, Unknown , Unknown

I have come to realize that an early symptom of approaching mental illness is the belief that one's work is terribly important. If you consider your work very important you should take a day off.

-- B. Russell, Unknown , Unknown

I have come to the conclusion, after many years of sometimes sad experience, that you cannot come to any conclusion at all.

-- Vita Sackville-West, Unknown , Unknown

I have great belief in the fact that whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift.

-- Septima Clark, in Brian Lanker (1989). I Dream a World., 1898-1987

I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest of caution.

-- Werner Von Braun, Unknown , Unknown

I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year.

-- editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, Unknown , 1957

I keep six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.

-- Rudyard Kipling, Unknown , Unknown

I know of no rule that holds so true as that we are paid for our suspicions by discovering that which we suspect.

-- Henry David Thoreau, Unknown , Unknown

I know of nothing more inspiring than that of making discoveries for ones self.

-- George Washington Carver, Unknown , Unknown

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

-- Albert Einstein, Unknown , Unknown

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.

-- Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962,, Today's Health, October 1966

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

-- Bertrand Russell, Unknown , Unknown

I'm glad this question came up, in a way, because there are so many different ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right.

-- Robert Benchley, Unknown , born September 15, 1889

Ideas without precedent are generally looked upon with disfavor and men are shocked if their conceptions of an orderly world challenged.

-- J. Harlen Bretz., Unknown , Unknown

If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

-- Anonymous, Unknown , Unknown

If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders.

-- Hal Abelson, Unknown , Unknown

If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.

-- Isaac Newton, Unknown , Unknown

If the brain were simple enough for us to understand it, we would be too simple to understand it.

-- Ken Hill, Unknown , Unknown

If the horse you're drawing looks more like a dog, make it a dog.

-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called Research.

-- A. Einstein, Unknown , Unknown

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? 5? no, 4. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

-- Abraham Lincoln, Unknown , Unknown

If you do not expect it, you will not find the unexpected, for it is hard to find and difficult.

-- Heraclitus, Unknown , Unknown

If you have lost something, it will be in the last place you look for it.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

If you keep missing, get closer to the basket.

-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything.

-- Fred Menger, Chemistry professor, (1937- )

If you're looking to find the key to the Universe, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is - there is no key to the Universe. The good news is - the universe has been left unlocked.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

If you're not scared to death, you haven't collected enough information.

-- Eileen Mason, Unknown , Unknown

Imagination is more powerful even than knowledge.

-- Albert Einstein, Unknown , Unknown

In assessment, "the perfect is the enemy of the good." Let's keep striving for the good.

-- Tom Angelo, Unknown , Unknown

In computer science, we stand on each other's feet.

-- Brian K. Reid, Unknown , Unknown

In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side-by-side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.

-- Gerald Holton, Unknown , Unknown

Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories--those that don't work, those that break down, and those that get lost.

-- Russell Baker, Unknown , born August 14, 1925

Information can’t be put in any container that isn’t leaky.

-- Spider Robinson, Unknown , Unknown

Instruction does not prevent waste of time or mistakes; and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.

-- Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects. Education, Unknown

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.

-- J. R. R. Tolkien, Unknown , Unknown

It is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a historical work. He would then realize that the human race is in quite a jam about truth.

-- Rebecca West, Unknown , 1892-1983

It is absurd to think that germs causing fermentation and putrefaction come from the air; the atmosphere would have to be as thick as pea soup for that.

-- Dr. Nicolas Joly, on Louis Pasteur's theory of germs, Unknown , Unknown

It is better to know some of the questions than all the answers.

-- J. Thurber, Unknown , Unknown

It is completely unimportant. That is why it is so interesting.

-- Agatha Christie, Unknown , born September 15, 1890

It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.

-- Johann von Goethe, Unknown , Unknown

It is not certain that everything is uncertain.

-- Blaise Pascal, Unknown , born June 19, 1623

It isn't what you know but the simple things you don't overlook.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

It's better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

It's easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you're a winner, when you're number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you're not a winner.

-- Vince Lombardi, Unknown , Unknown

It's no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.

-- George Bush, Sr., U.S. President, Unknown , Unknown

Knowledge is a treasure but practice is the key to it.

-- Proverb, Unknown , Unknown

Knowledge is power.

-- Hobbs or Sir Francis Bacon, Unknown , Unknown

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

-- C.G. Jung, Unknown , Unknown

Let us learn how to dream, gentlemen, and then perhaps we will discover the truth.

-- Friedrich Kekule, speech upon receiving prize for discovery of structure of benzene, Unknown

Librarians are the secret masters of the universe. They control information. Don't ever piss one off.

-- Spider Robinson, Unknown , Unknown

Life forms illogical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows whether any of them will ever return?

-- Margot Fonteyn, Unknown , Unknown

Life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, words and deeds return to us--sooner or later--with astounding accuracy.

-- Florence Shinn, Unknown , Unknown

Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove.

-- Ashleigh Brilliant, Unknown , Unknown

Life requires thorough preparation. Veneer isn't worth anything.

-- George Washington Carver, Unknown , Unknown

Logic is like the sword: those who appeal to it shall perish by it.

-- Samuel Butler, Unknown , Unknown

Look about you, take hold of the things that are here. Let them talk to you, and you will learn to talk to them.

-- George Washington Carver, Unknown , Unknown

Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

-- Jonathan Swift., Dialogue ii. Ibid., Unknown

Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Unknown , Unknown

Mathematics is the door and the key to the sciences.

-- Roger Bacon, Unknown , Unknown

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Unknown , Unknown

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

-- Winston Churchill, Unknown , Unknown

My commitment is to truth, not consistency.

-- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Unknown , Unknown

My evil genius Procrastination has whispered me to tarry 'til a more convenient season.

-- Mary Todd Lincoln, Unknown , Unknown

Natasha: You have plan, dahlink? Boris: Of course I have plan. It never works, but I always have one!

-- Natasha Fatale & Boris Badenov, Jay Ward & Bill Scott cartoon, 1959

Never accept the initial premise of the opposition.

-- John W. Campbell, Unknown , Unknown

Never get so fascinated by the extraordinary that you forget the ordinary.

-- Magdalen Nabb, Unknown , Unknown

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

-- Albert Einstein, Unknown , Unknown

No experiment is ever a complete failure. It can always be used as a bad example.

-- Paul Dickson, Unknown , Unknown

No experiment is ever a complete failure. It can always serve as a negative example.

-- Arthur Bloch, Unknown , Unknown

No matter how often you use the same brushes and paints, each canvas will be different.

-- Greg Henry Quinn, 365 Meditations for Teachers, March 19., 1995

No snowflake falls in an inappropriate place.

-- Zen saying, Unknown , Unknown

Not a shred of evidence exists that life is serious.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Unknown , Unknown

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.

-- G. C. Lichtenberg, Unknown , Unknown

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.

-- Dr. Samuel Johnson, Unknown , Unknown

On those who overanalyze his music: When you tear the wings off a butterfly, it is no longer a butterfly

-- Claude Debussy, Unknown , Unknown

One of the things that Ivar knew about Mrs. Walker was that she would only tell him what she knew if he asked the right question, so he spent a portion of his time meditating over what he might ask Mrs. Walker and how he might phrase the question.

-- Jane Smiley, Moo. New York: Fawcett Columbine. P. 20., 1995

One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.

-- Alexander Fleming, Unknown , Unknown

One who has imagination without learning, has wings without feet.

-- Joseph Joubert, Unknown , Unknown

Only people who do things make mistakes.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

Ordinary people know little of the time and effort it takes to learn to read. I have been 80 years at it, and have not reached my goal.

-- Johann von Goethe, Unknown , Unknown

Original thinking migrates each day in search of nourishment.

-- Maya Angelou, Unknown , Unknown

Originality is the art of concealing your sources.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Originality usually amounts only to plagiarizing something unfamiliar.

-- Katherine Fullerton Gerould, Modes and Morals, 1920

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

-- Robert Browning, Unknown , Unknown

Our problems are mostly behind us-- what we have to do now is fight the solutions.

-- Allen P. Stults, Unknown , born June 13, 1913

Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.

-- Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC, Unknown , Unknown

People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.

-- Anne Sullivan, letter in 'Helen Keller, The Story of My Life', Oct. 30, 1887

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.

-- Walter Bagehot, Unknown , Unknown

Plato used the dialogue format because the exchange of views, the posing and answering of questions, showed that understanding is a living, dynamic process. He distrusted writing because the settled character of the written word makes it look as if truth can be fixed and made to stand still. It is worth remembering that this greatest advocate of the objective reality of truth also believed that our access to that truth was sustained in reasoned discussion.

-- John Churchill, From the Secretary: Inspiring Conversations in The Key Reporter. Vol 67, Number 4. P. 2., Summer 2002

Please provide the date of your death.

-- from an IRS letter, Unknown , Unknown

Quantum mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Rely on your own good judgment.

-- Fortune Cookie, Unknown , Unknown

Remember, any jackass can kick over the barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.

-- Tip O'Neil quoting Sam Rayburn, former Speaker of the House, Unknown , Unknown

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

-- William O. Douglas, Unknown , Unknown

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.

-- Thomas A. Edison, Unknown , Unknown

Rocket science is child's play compared to understanding child's play.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Rules and models destroy genius and art

-- William Hazlitt, "On Taste", 1778-1830

Scientific discovery is not a one way transfer of information from unambiguous nature to minds that are always open. It is the reciprocal interaction between a multifarious and confusing nature and a mind sufficiently receptive (as many are not) to extract a weak but sensible pattern from the prevailing noise.

-- Gould, Unknown , 1981

Scientists are the easiest to fool. They think in straight, predictable, directable, and therefore misdirectable, lines. The only world they know is the one where everything has a logical explanation and things are what they appear to be.

-- James P. Hogan, Code of the Lifemaker, Unknown

Seek and ye shall find; find and ye shall want to seek a whole lot more.

-- Greg Henry Quinn, 365 Meditations for Teachers, March 17, 1995

Seek knowledge, even if it be in China.

-- Muhammad, Unknown , Unknown

Seek not, my soul, the life of the immortals; but enjoy to the full the resources that are within thy reach.

-- Pindar, Unknown , 518-438 B.C.

Since the most important element of any concept is that its originating question be appropriately framed, any theory demanding an explanation for homosexuality is a problematic one because it maintains our existence as a category of deviance. I mean, noone is running around trying to figure out why some people like sports, for example.

-- Sarah Schulman, Unknown , 1958-

Societies that don't eat people are fascinated by those that do.

-- Ronald Wright, Unknown , Unknown

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

-- Henry David thoreau, Unknown , Unknown

Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can do.

-- Lin Yutang, Unknown , Unknown

Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.

-- Lord Byron, Unknown , Unknown

Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.

-- Unknown , Job. XII. 8., Unknown

Speed, quality, price. Pick any two.

-- James M. Wallace, Unknown , Unknown

State a moral case to a plowman and a professor. The former will decide it well and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

-- Thomas Jefferson, Unknown , Unknown

Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at.

-- Carlos Urbizo, Unknown , Unknown

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.

-- Fortune Cookie, Unknown , Unknown

Study men, not historians.

-- Harry S. Truman, Unknown , Unknown

Take away black studies, women's studies, ethnic studies, Jewish studies, labor history, Chicano studies, Native American studies: what is left is what as passed for "history" with no qualifying adjective, the story of those whose belonging we never disputed.

-- Susanna Sturgis, Unknown , Unknown

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.

-- Alfred North Whitehead, Unknown , Unknown

The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from one graveyard to another.

-- Florence King, The Portable Curmudgeon Redux., Unknown

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward.

-- John Maynard Keynes, Unknown , Unknown

The best programmers, designers, and architects are lazy.

-- Dick Munroe, Unknown , Unknown

The best teachers and researchers are all "intellectual entrepreneurs." They're in the business of creating new information, new ways of thinking, new ways of seeing their particular discipline.

-- David L. Hildebrand, AACU: Peer Review, Vol. 7, No. 3 (cited in Tomorrow's Professor, Msg. # 687), Spring 2005

The chief cause of problems is solutions.

-- Eric Sevareid, Unknown , born November 26, 1912

The color of truth is gray.

-- Andre' Gide, Unknown , Unknown

The common condition of things that did not happen is that you cannot disprove them.

-- Morimer Zuckerman, USNews & World Report, 1998, January 12

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

-- Ellen Parr, Unknown , Unknown

The difference between perception and fact is that fact changes.

-- Ron Krouch, Unknown , Unknown

The distance is nothing; it's only the first step that is difficult.

-- Mme. du Deffand, Unknown , Unknown

The elevator to success is out of order. You'll have to use the stairs…one step at a time.

-- Joe Girard, Unknown , Unknown

The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.

-- Gloria Steinem, Unknown , 1934

The full area of ignorance is not yet mapped. We are at present only exploring its fringes.

-- John Desmond Bernal, Unknown , born 1901

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

-- Eleanor Roosevelt, Unknown , Unknown

The grandest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Unknown , Unknown

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

-- Winston Churchill, Sir, Unknown , 1874-1965

The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.

-- D. Boorstin, Unknown , Unknown

The hardness of butter is directly proportional to the softness of the bread.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

The heart is deceitful above all things ... who can understand it?

-- Jeremiah 17:9, Unknown , Unknown

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

-- Albert Einstein, Unknown , Unknown

The library is a valuable institution, satisfying our thirst for knowledge and some peace and quiet.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.

-- Bishop W. C. Mager, Unknown , Unknown

The most important questions in life are unanswerable--but approachable.

-- Jamie McKenzie, Unknown , Unknown

The number of external friends the text comes with is a good indication of its strength, but there is a surer sign: references to other documents. The presence or the absence of references, quotations, and footnotes is so much a sign that a document is serious or not that you can transform a fact into fiction or fiction into fact just by adding references. The effect of references on persuasion is not limited to that of 'prestige' or 'bluff'. Again, it is a question of NUMBERS. A paper that does not have references is like a child without an escort walking at night in a big city it does not know: isolated, lost, anything may happen to it. On the contrary, attacking a paper heavy with footnotes means that the dissenter has to weaken each of the other papers, or will at least be threatened with having to do so, whereas attacking a naked paper means that the reader and the author are of the same weight: face to face.

-- Bruno Latour, p. 33, Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard University Press, 1987

The object of statistics is to discover methods of condensing information concerning large groups of allied facts into brief and compendious expressions suitable for discussions.

-- Francis Galton, Unknown , Unknown

The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions.

-- Susan Sontag, Unknown , Unknown

The only protection against injustice in man is power--physical, financial, and scientific.

-- Marcus Garvey, Unknown , Unknown

The past sharpens perspective, warns against pitfalls, and helps to point the way.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, Unknown , Unknown

The path you're on looks different when you turn around.

-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

The power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations, is the only acquirement, for an immortal being, that really deserves the name of knowledge.

-- Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792

The pursuit of the truth shall set you free--even if you never catch up with it.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

The road to success is always under construction.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery.

-- Seymour Papert, Unknown , Unknown

The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.

-- Mark Russell, Unknown , Unknown

The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the ability to reach it.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

The specialism and visible success of the sciences have impressed some minds to such a degree that they have virtually identified the possibilities of human knowledge with the possibilities of science.

-- W.E. Abraham, Unknown , Unknown

The splendid discontent of God With chaos, made the world. And from the discontent of man The world’s best progress springs

-- Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "Discontent", n.d.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.

-- Robert Benchley, Unknown , born September 15, 1889

The things we sweep under the rug have a disconcerting habit of creeping out on the other side.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them.

-- Samuel McChord Crothers, Unknown , born June 7, 1857

The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers.

-- Ruth Benedict, 1887-1948, in Margaret Mead, An Anthropologist at Work (1959), 1913

The truth is not a crystal that can be slipped into one's pocket, but an endless current into which one falls headlong.

-- Robert Musil, Unknown , Unknown

The way a question is asked limits and disposes the ways in which any answer to it--right or wrong--may be given.

-- Susanne K. Langer, Unknown , Unknown

The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.

-- Linus Pauling, Unknown , Unknown

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

-- Albert Einstein, Unknown , Unknown

The whole world of thought lay unexplored before me, -- a world of which I had already caught large and tempting glimpses…

-- Lucy Larcom, A New England Girlhood, 1889

The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe. One moment they make us despair of our kind,and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image.

-- Charles W. Chesnutt, he Marrow of Tradition, 1901

The worst kind of poverty is ignorance.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

The written word endures. Litera scripta manet.

-- unknown, Unknown , Unknown

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.

-- Benjamin Disraeli (NOT Mark Twain who was quoting Disraeli), Unknown , Unknown

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

-- Joseph Brodsky, Unknown , 1991, May 19

There is a great difference between information and inspiration. You can get information by the cartful and the wagonful and the libraryful and the Sunday newspaperful, or in any other chunks or lumps that you choose. ..It is cheap; it is common; and it is worth about as much as it costs. But inspiration which comes from touching the life of truth itself is a priceless gem which comes only from close, devoted and continuous toil. A man knows when he has touched red-hot truth. He feels the shock…

-- Martin Grove Brumbaugh, Unknown , 1898

There is always something larger or smaller.

-- Anaxagoras, Unknown , Unknown

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

-- Maya Angelou, Unknown , 1928

There is very little wrong with the rat that cannot be overcome by the education of the experimenter.

-- Harlow, Unknown , 1953

There's a difference between a mystery and a question. Questions demand answers, but a mystery demands something more valuable--explanation.

-- Robert Cialdini, quoted in Jaffe, E. "Those who can, teach." APS Observer, 17(9), p. 22, 2004

There's an idea going about that the human race basically understands how the universe works. Not you and me, obviously, but scientists perhaps, or experts. Regrettably, this is not the case. In the words of Thomas Edison, the man who didn't invent the lightbulb, "We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."

-- John Lloyd, Introduction to "The Book of General Ignorance", 2006

They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.

-- Thomas Reed, Speaker of the House, on congressmen, Unknown , Unknown

They said it couldn't be done, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

-- Casey Stengel, Unknown , Unknown

They said it couldn't be done, but that doesn't always work.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream

-- Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, Unknown , Unknown

This must be an era when the soul catches up with the brain, when soul directs science, when motives master machines, when how men feel becomes as important as what men know.

-- Rev. Louis Hadley Evans, Unknown , 1952

This road has been paved with the best mistakes I ever made.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Thus, the task is, not so much to see what no one has seen yet, but to think what nobody has thought yet, about that which everybody sees.

-- Schopenhauer cited in Bertalanffy, Unknown , 1952

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Tradition is what you resort to when you don't have the time or the money to do it right.

-- Kurt Herber Adler, Unknown , born 1834

Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.

-- Giordano Bruno, Unknown , Unknown

Truth fears no questions.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.

-- Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886, letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, August 1870

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

-- Gerald Ford, Unknown , Unknown

Two people go into an empty room and later three people come out. A biologist says, "They reproduced." A physicist says, "Measurement error." A mathematician says, "Now if someone goes into the room, it'll be empty."

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

Two wrongs are only the beginning.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

We grow in time to trust the future for our answers.

-- Ruth Benedict, Unknown , Unknown

We must not contradict, but instruct him that contradicts us; for a madman is not cured by another running mad also.

-- Antisthenes, Unknown , Unknown

We must reinforce argument with results.

-- Booker T. Washington, Unknown , Unknown

We should so live and labor in our time that what comes to us as seed may go to the next generation as blossom, And what came to us as blossom may go to them as fruit.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?

-- Lee Iacocca, Unknown , Unknown

Wethern's Law: Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

What if the Hokey Pokey is really what it's all about.

-- Bob Levey's Washington column "Best T-shirts of the summer", Washington Post, Unknown

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.

-- James Buchanan, Unknown , Unknown

What may be done at any time will be done at no time.

-- Scottish proverb, Unknown , Unknown

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.

-- Cynthia Heimel, "Lower Manhattan Survival Tactics" in Village Voice, Unknown

When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.

-- J. Lubbock, Unknown , Unknown

When you dance with a bear, you can't quit just because you're tired.

-- Russian Proverb, Unknown , Unknown

When you do not know what you are doing, do it neatly.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to die.

-- Lillian Smith, Unknown , 1897-1966

While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.

-- Henry C. Link, Unknown , Unknown

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsch., Unknown , Unknown

Why do we insist on measuring it with a micrometer when we mark it with chalk and cut it with an ax?

-- Peter Ewell, Unknown , Unknown

Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them.

-- Samuel Palmer, Unknown , 1805-1880

With all your science, can you tell me how it is that light comes into the soul?

-- Henry David Thoreau, Unknown , Unknown

Words are not truth. Truth is like the moon, and words are like my finger. I can point to the moon with my finger, but my finger is not the moon. Do you need my finger to see the moon?

-- Huineng, the 6th Patriarch, Treasure of the Law Sutra, A.D. 638-713

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

-- C. Northcote Parkinson, Unknown , Unknown

Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.

-- Aldous Huxley, Unknown , Unknown

You always admire what you really don't understand.

-- Eleanor Roosevelt, Meet the Press, September 16, 1956

You can ask a question and look stupid, or not ask a question and be stupid.

-- Unknown, Unknown , Unknown

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

-- Misattributed to Abraham Lincoln, Unknown , c 1900

You can observe a lot just by watching.

-- Yogi Berra, Unknown , Unknown

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

-- Steven Wright, Unknown , Unknown

You cannot win a battle in any arena merely by defending yourself.

-- Richard M. Nixon, Unknown , Unknown

You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.

-- Unknown , Unknown , Unknown

You will travel far and wide for both pleasure and business.

-- Fortune Cookie, Unknown , Unknown

You'll have a lot more respect for a bird after you try making a nest.

-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, Really important stuff my kids have taught me, 1994

…"the life of the mind"--a phrase elastic enough to cover both the study of Goethe and the instruction of seventeen-year-olds on their comma faults, not to speak of squash games and attendance at interminable committee meetings…

-- Robin W. Winks, Cloak and Gown, Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961, Unknown

…Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.

-- 1 Corinthians 8:1-2, Unknown , Unknown

…when I was a graduate student one of my profs conducted research in an area called "discrimination learning." When I asked him how "discrimination learning" differs from other kinds of learning, he said "It doesn't because all learning is discrimination learning."

-- Richard Tiberius, Professor, Centre For Research in Education and Department of Psychiatry, reported on POD@listserv.nd.edu by Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Unknown

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