Quote from Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle)

edit history

Source

Context

Similar quotes

A conjecture can be dressed up as a dead certainty with enough rhetoric and protected against dissent with enough threatening language, but finally it has to meet the only test of science, which is that any theory must fit the facts, and the facts can't be altered to suit the theory.

—Clive James (23/10/2009)
Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.

—Thomas Huxley
Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, "with both eyes open."

—Nicolaus Copernicus
Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables.

—Werner Heisenberg (1971)
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

—Aldous Huxley
The fundamentalists deny that evolution has taken place; they deny that the earth and the universe as a whole are more than a few thousand years old, and so on. There is ample scientific evidence that the fundamentalists are wrong in these matters, and that their notions of cosmogony have about as much basis in fact as the Tooth Fairy has.

—Isaac Asimov
He recognized with absolute certainty the empty fragility of even the noblest theorizings as compared with the definitive plenitude of the smallest fact grasped in its total, concrete reality.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1961)
We often choose to refuse the facts which proofs the wrongs in our beliefs.

—Anne Frank (1934)
What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money ... but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth ... In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are "coins" for real things.

—Alan Watts
'No comment' is a comment.

—George Carlin
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

—Isaac Asimov
But I try not to think with my gut. Really it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in.

—Carl Sagan
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.

—Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut
The Copenhagen Interpretation is sometimes called "model agnosticism" and holds that any grid we use to organize our experience of the world is a model of the world and should not be confused with the world itself. Alfred Korzybski, the semanticist, tried to popularize this outside physics with the slogan, "The map is not the territory." Alan Watts, a talented exegete of Oriental philosophy, restated it more vividly as "The menu is not the meal."

—Robert Anton Wilson
The philosophical quest became obscured in the modern West by the linear succession of schools, each resulting from a violent reaction to its predecessors, each claiming to possess the Truth more or less exclusively, and often insisting upon the sole validity of its method of proceeding. The slavish concern with academic respectability and the fear of anathemization resulted in the increasing alienation of thought from being, of cognition from conduct, and philosophical disputation from the problems of daily life.

—Raghavan Iyer
The existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite.

—Werner Heisenberg
You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.

—Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome.

—Stephen Jay Gould (1981)
We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

—Niels Bohr (1920)
Let's make clear what the facts are: I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible. I pledge allegiance [to the American flag] and lead the pledge of allegiance sometimes in the United States Senate when I'm presiding.

—Barack Obama

Users who like this quote

Comments

Quote of the day

Show a random quote

About Quotiki

Quotiki is a social quotes wiki that lets you quickly find and enjoy quotes. As a member of the community, you can start tagging, rating, submitting and collecting quotes.

Find famous people and your friends in speeches, dialogs, chat logs, quotations, sayings, jokes and more! Tag yourself and other people in your favorite quotes and easily share them with friends.

15791 total quotes.
prestigioplaza is our newest user. Welcome!

Quotiki! Quotes and Quotations

Quotes