![The mathematician is in much more direct contact with reality. ... [Whereas] the physicist's reality, whatever it may be, has few or none of the attributes which common sense ascribes instinctively to reality. A chair may be a collection of whirling electrons.](/assets/img/quote-photos/the-mathematician-is-in-much-more-direct-contact-with-reality-whereas-the.jpg)
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science opportunity thinking
I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar. Richard P. Feynman
science measurement momentum
Unless a thing can be defined by measurement, it has no place in a theory. And since an accurate value of the momentum of a localized particle cannot be defined by measurement it therefore has no place in the theory.
science play theoretical-physics
It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.
science thinking doubt
Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.
science tourists philosopher
Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.
science reflection desire
The difficulty really is psychological and exists in the perpetual torment that results from your saying to yourself, "But how can it be like that?" which is a reflection of uncontrolled but utterly vain desire to see it in terms of something familiar. ... If you will simply admit that maybe [Nature] does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possible avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.
science errors certain
If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.
science camels world
Cheetah genes cooperate with cheetah genes but not with camel genes, and vice versa. This is not because cheetah genes, even in the most poetic sense, see any virtue in the preservation of the cheetah species. They are not working to save the cheetah from extinction like some molecular World Wildlife Fund. Richard Dawkins
science curiosity fields
To teach one who has no curiosity to learn, is to sow a field without ploughing it. Richard Whately
reality shadow substance
Christianity, contrasted with the Jewish system of emblems, is truth in the sense of reality, as substance is opposed to shadows, and, contrasted with heathen mythology, is truth as opposed to falsehood.
reality doors stage
If reality had a stage door I'd hang around there to see what comes out after the show. Russell Hoban
reality years solitude
It's hard to spend years at a time working in total solitude with no reality-check. Russell Banks
reality people action
The Orgasmic Death Gimmick is rather complicated. It could be called the whole birth-death cycle of action, persuading people that birth and death are realities. William S. Burroughs
reality way faces
The best way to keep something bad from happening is to see it ahead of time... and you can't see it if you refuse to face the possibility.
reality men world
If we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women... Virginia Woolf
reality giving actors
General improvisations often give actors an insight beyond their words by helping them to 'see the word' and achieve a reality for the scene. Viola Spolin
reality people different
People are very surprised when they come to Hong Kong after seeing my films, because my version of it is quite different than Hong Kong in reality. Wong Kar-wai
reality cynicism spelling
Cynicism is reality with an alternate spelling. Woody Allen
common-sense may sound
We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra. William Kingdon Clifford
common-sense prejudice common
The rule for traveling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind. William Hazlitt
common-sense novelists belief
A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence. W. Somerset Maugham
common-sense autism too-much
Sometimes we forget about common sense. Autism is used too much as an excuse for bad behavior. Temple Grandin
common-sense found grain
I have never seen either a drop of piety or a grain of truth or ingenuousness - nay, I have never found common sense in any Jew. John Calvin
common-sense imagine mathematics
Do not imagine that mathematics is harsh and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealisation of common sense. Lord Kelvin
common-sense sticks reason
Every foreign policy of every major nation involves reason, common sense, carrots and sticks. You can't have all carrots and no sticks. Fred Thompson
common-sense car alternatives
And I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense-I tell you it is an act of patriotism. Jimmy Carter
common-sense substitutes resorts
We cannot resort to simplistic or extreme solutions which substitute myths for common sense.