Top 100 In Theory Quotes
#1. Man can be an atheist only in theory, not in practice, because the universe is too frightening and too chaotic to be too independent!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#2. The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and practice.
Mikhail Bakunin
#3. Light-minded society mercilessly persecutes in reality what it allows in theory
Alexander Pushkin
#4. Ahimsa in theory no one knows. It is as indefinable as God.
Mahatma Gandhi
#5. In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life.
Marcel Proust
#6. In theory I rather admire the Spaniards for not sharing our Northern time-neurosis; but unfortunately I share it myself.
George Orwell
#8. Bread is a staple article of diet in theory, rather than in practice. There are few who are truly fond of bread in its simplest, most pure, and most healthful state ... Is there one person in a thousand who would truly enjoy a meal of simple bread of two days old?
William Alcott
#9. The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.
Kwame Nkrumah
#10. My experience has been that times always ends. In theory, you are right, the quantum physicists are right, the religious and romantics are right. Time without end. In practice we both wear a watch.
Jeanette Winterson
#11. Economists are people who wonder if what works in reality can also work in theory.
Ronald Reagan
#12. The perfect society to which we aspire in theory may become a powerful enemy of the good society we can become in fact.
Mark Sagoff
#13. In theory, food writing is an aid or a prelude to actual meals: you read a recipe, and then you cook. In practice - in a 'paradox' that Michael Pollan, among others, has identified - our current gastronomic fantasies, particularly on TV, have coincided with a decline in home cooking.
Bee Wilson
#14. Do you play cards?"
Her lips tingled from the light kiss, "In theory. Why? Do you have a hankering for Old Maid?" She teased, flashing him a smile.
He placed his glass down and reached for an intricate metal crafted box. "Not even close. How about a little strip poker?
Beth Mikell
#15. In theory, I'd like to work in a group. But the group I'd like to work in, all the musicians in them are long since dead.
Robert Wyatt
#16. In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.
Anonymous
#17. To create a community where faith matters not just in theory but in reality, faith has to be a public value, not just a private one.
Donna Freitas
#18. Sanabalis never seemed to eat, and he deflected most of her questions about Dragon cuisine. Then again, he deflected most of her questions about Dragons, period. Which was annoying because he was one, and could in theory be authorative.
Michelle Sagara West
#19. Cantor's discovery that lines, planes, cubes, and polytopes were all equivalent as sets of points goes a long way toward explaining why set theory was such a revolutionary development for math-revolutionary in theory and practice both.
David Foster Wallace
#20. I can only say with deeper sincerity and fuller significance what I have always said in theory Wait God's will.
Charlotte Bronte
#21. Sometimes things that seem like good ideas in theory, in practice turn out to be the worst kinds of boneheaded blunders.
Jean Ferris
#22. I have nothing against 3-D in theory. But I've also never run to the movies because something's in 3-D.
J.J. Abrams
#23. In theory it is still possible to be an orthodox religious believer without being intellectually crippled in the process.
George Orwell
#24. In theory, the Internet should bring us all closer together and slowly eliminate our differences.
Jon Evans
#25. The power of Christianity lies in its revelation in act, of that which Plato divined in theory.
Alfred North Whitehead
#26. Capitalism sounds good in theory but it just doesn't work.
Edward Abbey
#28. In theory, practice should work like theory. In practice, it doesn't.
Yogi Berra
#29. Although I know a lot of the previous shuttle flights, in theory, had their tasks laid out; but there were still some changes that came along for them.
Linda M. Godwin
#30. The difference between theory and practice is larger in practice than the difference between theory and practice in theory.
Jan L.A. Van De Snepscheut
#31. In theory, it makes a lot of sense to combine the two operations, especially on the back end. But merging the two actual portal consumer experiences into a unified site will be a nightmare.
Charlene Li
#32. It is also in theory, conceivable that some universal empire some day might cover the whole globe, leaving no external "barbarians" to serve as invaders.
Carroll Quigley
#33. [T]he true natural sciences lock together in theory and evidence to form the ineradicable technical base of modern civilization. The pseudosciences satisfy personal psychological needs ... but lack the ideas or the means to contribute to the technical base.
E. O. Wilson
#34. In theory, practice and theory are the same, but in practice they are different.
Larry McVoy
#35. A sure sign of a crisis is the prevalence of cranks. It is characteristic of a crisis in theory that cranks get a hearing from the public which orthodoxy is failing to satisfy.
Joan Robinson
#36. All the time in the world may sound nice in theory, but in practice it can become a swift kick to the balls. CHAPTER 7 Harper's is the local convenience store around here, only it's nothing like the Wawas and 7-Elevens I frequented when I lived in the Philadelphia area.
Matthew Quick
#37. Personally, I don't deal much in theory. I have to deal with the facts. And on the basis of facts, I don't see much difference in the behavior of men and women.
Michael Crichton
#38. Regarding homophobia in general, the good news is that there is a lot less of it than there used to be. The bad news is that it ever existed in the first place, and the worse news is that it remains far stronger than is healthy for a society dedicated in theory to equality under the law.
Barney Frank
#39. A symptom of the revolution: When we state something is impossible in theory, but then change our minds when we discover that it is possible in practice.
Seth Godin
#40. Axioms are delightful in theory, but impossible in practice.
Antoine Rivarol
#41. I got sunburnt which is obviously a drag for me because in theory the sun is supposed to kill me.
Gerard Way
#42. I am a misanthropic humanist ... Do I like people? They're great, IN THEORY.
Bill Hicks
#43. In theory it is easy to convince an ignorant person; in actual life, men not only object to offer themselves to be convinced, but hate the man who has convinced them.
Epictetus
#44. The market always, in theory at least, looks ahead. And it's always trying to take in every bit of information that it can as quickly as it can. You don't really care so much if the company made a dollar last year; you want to know what it's going to make this year.
Alex Berenson
#45. Nobility and self-sacrifice sound wonderful in theory, but now he's seen how it feels. A dead hero is still dead at the end of the day, and you're still alone.
Ann Aguirre
#46. If a minister wants to be a man among men he need only to stop creating devotion to abstract ideals which every one accepts in theory and denies in practice, and to agonize about their validity and practicability in the social issues which he and others face in our present civilization.
Reinhold Niebuhr
#47. Filibusters should require 35 senators to ... make a commitment to continually debate an issue in reality, not just in theory. The number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster should be reduced to 55 from 60.
Evan Bayh
#48. Parkinson's Law is a purely scientific discovery, inapplicable except in theory to the politics of the day. It is not the business of the botanist to eradicate the weeds. Enough for him if he can tell us just how fast they grow.
C. Northcote Parkinson
#49. In theory, the idea of eternity in heaven singing God's praises sounds really good, but when I realize I have to go through the death part to get there, I'm not quite so enamored with the idea.
Kim Hunt Harris
#50. By its nature, government was either small and personal, something on the level of a town hall meeting, or it was tyranny, with the few ruling the many for their own benefit, no matter how representational that government might be in theory.
William H. Keith Jr.
#51. In theory we are all equal before the law. In practice, there are overwhelming privileges that come with winning the birth lottery.
Arianna Huffington
#52. ...a "proletarian" world, with no variety, no "quality", nothing noble, ancient, memorial in it, but in theory simply a gigantic sty of evenly-fed swine, in practice a den of fratricidal and cannibalic monsters.
George Saintsbury
#53. I think in theory, Donald Trump could be a formidable candidate, right? The theory of him is, if he ignites working class white voters, he can put Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, states like Ohio in play for the Republicans.
Joy-Ann Reid
#54. It seems, in theory, that I should be able to control at least a few of my bad habits. The problem is that my habits make me depressed, and the depression makes me want to indulge my habits and so I do. There isn't any solution to this.
John S. Hall
#55. It had seemed simple in theory to persuade one of them to allow a male into her bed and heart. The reality of it was anything but easy.
Laurann Dohner
#56. In theory man is put at the center of everything but in practice he is barely allowed to sit on the sidelines
Bangambiki Habyarimana
#57. I actually plan to mess up my life and start over every seven years. That way, I'll never get in a rut. I read somewhere that most of your cells only live about seven years anyway, so in theory you literally are a new person; I figure that's the best time to start over.
Jody Gehrman
#59. I heartedly approve, in theory," said Ibelius, "but in practice I believe I shall ... absent myself.
Scott Lynch
#60. I am a terrorist and nihilist in theory as the others are with their weapons. Theoretical violence, not truth, is the only resource left us.
Jean Baudrillard
#61. The smell of the nail polish made me think of Amber and the rest of my friends. I missed them, but in theory. It wasn't them I missed, but friendship. QUITE YET.
David Levithan
#62. We frequently applaud failure in theory, but the dirty little secret is that it makes all of us feel at least a little ashamed.
Whitney Johnson
#63. The trouble with words is that no matter how much sense they make in theory, they can't change what you feel inside.
Rebecca James
#64. Being spiritual-but-nonreligious sounds good in theory - at least it's better than attending antiquated religious institutions. We can do that. And we have. A growing number of us identify as spiritual-but-nonreligious.
Gudjon Bergmann
#65. Though I admire republican principles in theory, yet I am afraid the practice may be too perfect for human nature. We tried a republic last century, and it failed. Let our enemies try next. I hate political experiments.
Robert Walpole
#66. One of the big parts of my decision-making process is knowing that when you're signing up for something, you're signing up for multiple seasons, should it be successful, and in theory, you want it to be successful, but you also want to be doing something that you're enjoying.
Tom Ellis
#67. In theory momentos serve to bring back the moment. In fact they serve only to make clear how inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here. How inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here is something else I could never afford to see.
Joan Didion
#68. Isn't that what intimacy so often is? Supposing you understand, conveying that you do, because you feel in theory that you could understand, and you want to, and yet secretly you don't?
Rachel Kushner
#69. Things just seem so much better in theory than in practice.
Chris Wooding
#70. Ideals are great in theory ... but they don't work too well in real life.
Laurell K. Hamilton
#71. The experience of seeing differences of dogma made moot in practice by the bonds of family affection and neighborly respect was formative for him. It seemed to leave him with a lasting sense that life was more complicated in practice than in theory - and that this was a good thing.
Yuval Levin
#72. To isolate the revolutionary ideologues and their killers we must gain the trust of the majority of Muslims, this can only happen if they are treated as equal citizens, not just in theory, and have access to decent education and jobs.
Ian Buruma
#74. To first understand the concept of a haunted doll, one must realize that the doll itself does not posses life. In other words, the doll is not alive. In theory, the doll is haunted by the soul of a person who has passed on. A haunted doll is a spiritual attachment, a haunted item.
Matthew Jackson
#75. It's easy to make ideological mistakes in theory.
Liu Cixin
#76. We know that for every 1 person who get access to the Internet, one new job gets created, and one person gets lifted out of poverty. So in theory, going and connecting everyone on the Internet is a large national and even global priority.
Mark Zuckerberg
#77. And capital punishment, however ineffective it may be and through whatever ignorance it may be resorted to, is a strictly defensive act, - at least in theory.
Benjamin Tucker
#78. In theory the Holy Roman Emperor exercised a temporal sway matching the spiritual rule of the Pope over the universal community under God.
Barbara W. Tuchman
#79. Dee thought that this was a good idea. She approved of exercise and took it herself, in theory at least. But exercise without a good diet was not enough. What was the use of pounding the pavements if one was deficient in selenium, or magnesium for that matter?
Alexander McCall Smith
#80. In the ghetto of Genre, anything goes, man. When you live in the gutter it doesn't matter if you're filthy. In theory anyway.
Hal Duncan
#81. War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit ...
Carl Von Clausewitz
#82. I don't like theorizing about my work myself, but that's not to say I have no interest in theory. Other people are free to say what they want about my work.
David Shrigley
#83. Think good and positive thoughts and you will attract good and positive things, think bad and negative thoughts and you will attract bad and negative things. It's as simple as that in theory, but it takes time to master it fully, it takes time, patience and practice.
Jeanette Coron
#84. Killing someone is different in practice than it is in theory. There are factors you can't prepare for, feelings in the moment where you'll question everything you thought you knew about yourself, other feelings that might follow you long after the deed is done.
Paula Stokes
#85. Just like she'd said, she'd gone back to her life and, in theory, I'd gone back to mine. Problem? I didn't like mine, not without her. - Noah
Katie McGarry
#86. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a bank being big. In fact, there are some good arguments about universality of geography that in theory, if you have all your eggs in one little community, and some big employer goes out, that could be your downfall.
Wilbur Ross
#87. Here I find a puzzle of great beauty: Canada works well in practice, but just doesn't work out in theory.
B.W. Powe
#88. Beneficial in theory, so-called free trade agreements far too often have been detrimental to the United States economy and the manufacturing sector that forms its central pillar.
Dan Kildee
#89. Things happen in baseball, even if, in theory, it's something you don't do. Stats are a tool, but it doesn't mean that's how a game is being played at that moment. There's more than one way to win a game, or have a winning team.
Jon Miller
#90. Smart technologies are not just disruptive; they can also preserve the status quo. Revolutionary in theory, they are often reactionary in practice.
Evgeny Morozov
#92. Who could believe an ant in theory? A giraffe in blueprint? Ten thousand doctors of what's possible Could reason half the jungle out of being.
John Ciardi
#93. However much you are read in theory, if thou hast no practice thou art ignorant
Saadi
#94. Human beings may hate a distant enemy in theory, but they generally prefer to kill their neighbors.
Ralph Peters
#95. One's life and passion may be elsewhere, but New York is where you prove if what you think in theory makes sense in life.
Miuccia Prada
#96. As an American I am of course fundamentally opposed to democracy and to anyone advocating or defending democracy, which in theory and practice is the basis of socialism.
Rose Wilder Lane
#97. In theory, there is nothing the computer can do that the human mind can not do. The computer merely takes a finite amount of data and performs a finite number of operations upon them. The human mind can duplicate the process
Isaac Asimov
#98. Commodity exchanges have a lot of advantages. One, you are helping transparency. Two, they are not political. It's institutional building. It can survive any environment, in theory.
Nicolas Berggruen
#99. Laws which are consistent in theory often prove chaotic in practice.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#100. Nothingness is staring you in the face. Utter and permanent oblivion. You will cease to be. To be, Jack. The dier accepts this and dies. The killer, in theory, attempts to defeat his own death by killing others. He buys time, he buys life. - Murray (WN 291)
Don DeLillo
