#theory

that man is a reality, mankind an abstraction; that men cannot be treated as units in operations of political arithmetic because they behave like the symbols for zero and the infinite, which dislocate all mathematical operations; that the end justifies the means only within very narrow limits; that ethics is not a function of social utility, and charity not a petty bourgeois sentiment but the gravitational force which keeps civilization in its orbit. ↗

— Arthur Koestler

#men

Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime. ↗

— Imre Lakatos

#commitment #crime #intellectual #theory #virtue

Of thousands of others, nearer the centre of the explosion, there was no trace. They vanished. The theory in Hiroshima is that the atomic heat was so great that they burned instantly to ashes - except that there were no ashes. ↗

— Wilfred Burchett

#atomic #burned #centre #except #explosion

Scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate. ↗

— Richard P. Feynman

#arranged #awe #deep #edge #end

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. ↗

— Richard P. Feynman

#beautiful #experiment #how #matter #smart

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#element #happiness #indestructible #perfect #possibility

Believing that the power to destroy belongs to the Creator alone I affirm... that any theory which, when carried out, demands the annihilation of force, is necessarily erroneous. ↗

— James Prescott Joule

#alone #annihilation #any #believing #belongs

We don't see very far in the future, we are very focused on one idea at a time, one problem at a time, and all these are incompatible with rationality as economic theory assumes it. ↗

— Daniel Kahneman

#economic #economic theory #far #focused #future

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory. ↗

— Mark Knopfler

#always #i #i always #rebelled #respond

On the spiritual theory, man consists essentially of a spiritual nature or mind intimately associated with a spiritual body or soul, both of which are developed in and by means of a material organism. ↗

— Alfred Russel Wallace

#body #both #consists #developed #essentially