Nelson Goodman Quotes

#1. Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.

Evan Esar

#2. What I have learned is that a whole lot of people with degrees don't know a damn thing, and a lot of people with no degrees are brilliant.

John Henrik Clarke

#3. What intrigues us as a problem, and what will satisfy us as a solution, will depend upon the line we draw between what is already clear and what needs to be clarified.

Nelson Goodman

#4. There's nothing more fun than feeling frequencies and learning about equipment - everybody should do that. But if you're going to put your heart into an album and you want to give it to the world and add to the conversation, I think it's really important to take your time.

Tamaryn

#5. Rules and particular inferences alike are justified by being brought into agreement with each other. A rule is amended if it yields an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend.

Nelson Goodman

#6. Truth cannot be defined or tested by agreement with 'the world'; for not only do truths differ for different worlds but the nature of agreement between a world apart from it is notoriously nebulous.

Nelson Goodman

#7. We aim at simplicity and hope for truth.

Nelson Goodman

#8. The gift of the great microscopist is the ability to think with the eyes and see with the brain.

Daniel Mazia

#9. Embrace thy need for truth. Be your own seeker. Lie to others if you must but never to yourself.

Truth Devour

#10. I would rather listen to my dog bark at a crow than hear a man swear that he loves me

William Shakespeare

#11. Coming to understand a painting or a symphony in an unfamiliar style, to recognize the work of an artist or school, to see or hear in new ways, is as cognitive an achievement as learning to read or write or add.

Nelson Goodman

#12. I am concerned, rather, that there should not be more things dreamt of in my philosophy than there actually are in heaven and earth.

Nelson Goodman

#13. Almsgiving leaves a man just where he was before. Aid restores him to society as an individual worthy of all respect and not as a man with a grievance.

Evita Peron

#14. My boyfriend? I thought I'd resigned myself to the fact that we weren't going to be together. And now I'm thinking of him as my boyfriend?

Sarina Bowen

#15. Among even the happiest married couples there are always moments of regret.

Honore De Balzac

#16. Discovering laws involves drafting them. Recognizing patterns
is very much a matter of inventing and imposing them. Comprehension
and creation go on together.

Nelson Goodman

#17. We make versions, and true versions make worlds.

Nelson Goodman

#18. May Lord revive and restore you to good health.

Lailah Gifty Akita

#19. Internationally, there are countries going well beyond the course, with airlines, transportation. There are systems around the world that have explored mining, rail transport, television, communication, Internet service - there very common examples around the world that we can draw examples from.

Gar Alperovitz

#20. An answer, once found, is dull; and the only remaining interest lies in a further effort to render equally dull what is still obscure enough to be intriguing.

Nelson Goodman

#21. Any effort ... to make the obscure obvious is likely to be unappealing, for the penalty of failure is confusion while the reward of success is banality.

Nelson Goodman

#22. If we are ready to tolerate everything as understood, there is nothing left to explain; while if we sourly refuse to take anything, even tentatively, as clear, no explanation can be given.

Nelson Goodman

#23. This move is called Qworegoys,
and the women of my grandmother's family taught it to their daughters just as they taught them to make thorn-bush fences to protect the hut from hyenas.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

#24. I may be doomed to the stake and the fire, or to the scaffold tree, but it is not in me to falter if I can promote the work of emancipation.

David Walker