quotations about theory and theories
How empty is theory in the presence of fact!
MARK TWAIN
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
The quickest way to kill a good theory is to put it into practice.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
All theories are worth exploring.
JOHN STOEHR
"Russia Is an Existential Threat", U.S. News & World Report, May 31, 2017
Some theories are good for nothing except to be argued about.
G. C. LICHTENBERG
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
We sometimes speak of stubborn facts. Nonsense! A fact is a mere babe when compared with a stubborn theory.
SAMUEL MCCHORD CROTHERS
"Quixotism", The Gentle Reader
Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough---as most wrong theories are!
H. G. WELLS
The Time Machine
It takes enormous effort to avoid all theories and just see.
MICHAEL CRICHTON
Travels
Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Jean-Christophe
Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.
DENIS DIDEROT
On the Interpretation of Nature
Experience arises together with theoretical assumptions not before them, and an experience without theory is just as incomprehensible as is (allegedly) a theory without experience.
PAUL FEYERABEND
Against Method
The final test of a theory is its capacity to solve the problems which originated it.
GEORGE DANTZIG
Linear Programming and Extensions
The ability to test a theory is an essential aspect of science. No real science is done by just wildly making and sticking by assumptions without testing them.
DOM GALEON
"Stephen Hawking Responds to Colleagues' Critical Article on the Origins of the Universe", Futurism, May 12, 2017
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Sherlock Holmes
It is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.
AGATHA CHRISTIE
Death on the Nile
A theorist in government is as dangerous as a theorist in medicine, or in agriculture, and for precisely the same reason--the subjects are too complicated and too obscure for simple and decisive experiments.
H. S. LEGARE
speech on a bill imposing additional duties as depositaries in certain cases on public officers, October 1837
Theories are very thin and unsubstantial; experience only is tangible.
HOSEA BALLOU
Treasury of Thought
No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.
ANDRE GIDE
Journals 1889-1949
Suppose we have two theories -- Theory A and Theory B -- both of which account for all observations, but Theory A postulates four kinds of fundamental force while Theory B postulates 15 kinds of fundamental force. Although both theories account for all the data of observation, Theory A is to be preferred as it offers a more parsimonious account of the data.
PHILIP GOFF
"Panpsychism is a crazy theory about consciousness -- and it's probably true", The Week, March 6, 2017
Not only are facts and theories in constant disharmony, they are never as neatly separated as everyone makes them out to be.
PAUL FEYERABEND
Against Method