#conjecture

Most areas of intellectual life have discovered the virtues of speculation, and have embraced them wildly. In academia, speculation is usually dignified as theory. ↗

— Michael Crichton

#guessing #scenario #scenarios #speculation #theories

From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#eloquent #language #fact

You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world. ↗

— William Hazlitt

#conjectures #descriptions #having #know #more

In politics a capable ruler must be guided by circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions. ↗

— Catherine II

#circumstances #conjectures #guided #must #politics

We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things. ↗

— John Wesley Powell

#beset #channel #conjecture #distance #explore

A wonderful area for speculative academic work is the unknowable. These days religious subjects are in disfavor, but there are still plenty of good topics. The nature of consciousness, the workings of the brain, the origin of aggression, the origin of language, the origin of life on earth, SETI and life on other worlds...this is all great stuff. Wonderful stuff. You can argue it interminably. But it can't be contradicted, because nobody knows the answer to any of these topics. ↗

— Michael Crichton

#brain #conjecture #consciousness #darwinism #evolution

Everybody liked better to conjecture how the thing was, than simply to know it; for conjecture soon became more confident than knowledge, and had a more liberal allowance for the incompatible. ↗

— George Eliot

#knowledge #life

We have to learn again that science without contact with experiments is an enterprise which is likely to go completely astray into imaginary conjecture. ↗

— Hannes Alfven

#astray #completely #conjecture #contact #enterprise

I think now I'm being taken a little more seriously. That's pure conjecture on my part. ↗

— Tom Wopat

#conjecture #i #i think #little #more

The Temple of Diana is in the vicinity of the fountain, which has given rise to the conjecture that it originally constituted a portion of the ancient baths. ↗

— Marguerite Gardiner

#baths #conjecture #constituted #diana #fountain