quotations about theory and theories
No matter how good a theory is, people will almost always take what is practical (ie working now) over a better design.
DAEMONPENGUIN
"Is Linux kernel design outdated?", InfoWorld, May 8, 2017
A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue.
JOHN RAWLS
A Theory of Justice
If you refuse to take account of theory, then you have forgotten that practice is often an offspring of theory.
FAUSTO CERCIGNANI
Simply Transcribed: Quotations from Writings by Fausto Cercignani
Could it be that their mind-bending theories are untestable pipe dreams guaranteed to keep scientists in work and the rest of us in the dark?
ROBERT MATTHEWS
"Hot air theory about the Big Bang", The National, May 27, 2017
The ultimate goal of science is to understand the natural world in terms of scientific theories, which are concepts that join together well-supported and related hypotheses. In ordinary speech, the word theory refers to a speculative idea. In contrast, a scientific theory is supported by a broad range of observations, experiments, and data often from a variety of disciplines.
SYLVIA S. MADER
"Chapter 1: A View of Life", Biology
Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
"The Theory of Legal Interpretation", Harvard Law Review, 1899
There is such a thing, too, as the love of simplicity and system--a prejudice of the understanding, which disposes it to include all phenomena of nature under a few sweeping generalities--an indolence which loves to repose on the beauties of a theory, rather than encounter the fatiguing detail of its evidences--a painful reluctance to the admission of facts which, however true, break in upon the majestic simplicity which we would fain ascribe to the laws and operations of the universe.
THOMAS CHALMERS
"On the Internal Evidence, and the Objections of Deistical Infidels", The Works of Thomas Chalmers
Great theories are expansive; failures mire us in dogmatism and tunnel vision.
STEPHEN JAY GOULD
"More Light on Leaves", Eight Little Piggies
We need useless theory more than ever today.
SLAVOJ ZIZEK
"Slavoj Zizek: I am not the world's hippest philosopher!", Salon, December 29, 2012
Theories often excite more interest than real discoveries.
R. A. PROCTOR
attributed, Day's Collacon
The stupidity of a theory has never impeded its influence.
OSWALD SPENGLER
attributed, Doing Life: A Pragmatist Manifesto
I am using the word theory as a scientist means it: a set of ideas so well established by observations and physical models that it is essentially indistinguishable from fact. That is different from the colloquial use that means "guess." To a scientist, you can bet your life on a theory. Remember, gravity is "just a theory" too.
PHILIP PLAIT
Death from the Skies!
Things and events explain themselves, and the business of thought is to brush aside the verbal and conceptual impediments which prevent them from doing so. Start with the notion that it is you who explain the Object, and not the Object that explains itself, and you are bound to end in explaining it away. It ceases to exist, its place being taken by a parcel of concepts, a string of symbols, a form of words, and you find yourself contemplating, not the thing, but your theory of the thing.
L. P. JACKS
The Usurpation of Language
Theory is worth but little, unless it can explain its own phenomena, and it must effect this without contradicting itself; therefore, the facts are sometimes assimilated to the theory, rather than the theory to the facts.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
It is with theories as with wells; you may see to the bottom of the deepest if there be any water there, while another shall pass for wondrous profound when it is merely shallow, dark, and empty.
JONATHAN SWIFT
attributed, A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World
Let us work without theorizing, 'tis the only way to make life endurable.
VOLTAIRE
Candide
Before I got married I had six theories about raising children; now, I have six children and no theories.
JOHN WILMOT
"30 Quotes on Parenting", Psychology Today, September 25, 2012
For theories and schools, like microbes and corpuscles, devour one another and by their strife ensure the continuity of life.
MARCEL PROUST
Sodom and Gomorrah
No single theory ever agrees with all the facts in its domain.
PAUL FEYERABEND
Against Method
I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
The Story of the Malakand Field Force