Plausible Quotes

#1. As in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy, has a plausible idea at the root of it.

John Ruskin

#2. Why, then, even when I advanced, was I so quick to retreat? Why did I always have ready a gracious smile, a happy laugh, when things went badly? Why, sooner or later, did I always find plausible excuses for those who made me suffer?

Elena Ferrante

#3. I'm focused on solving the problem that would make it plausible for gov't to get back to solving real problems.

Lawrence Lessig

#4. The novelist, unlike many of his colleagues, makes up a number of word-masses roughly describing himself (roughly: niceties shallcome later), gives them names and sex, assigns them plausible gestures, and causes them to speak by the use of inverted commas, and perhaps to behave consistently.

E. M. Forster

#5. Hitler had a plausible case to argue when he claimed that the Anschluss was only the application of the Wilsonian principle of self-determination.

Alan Bullock

#6. James Croll, the Scottish janitor and self-taught polymath whose theories concerning Earth's orbit provided the first plausible explanation for how ice ages might have started.

Bill Bryson

#7. When we badly want a thing, we go to hunting for good and righteous reasons for it; we give it that fine name to comfort our consciences, whereas we privately know we are only hunting for plausible ones.

Mark Twain

#8. The cost of oblivius daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realigment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.
Her reverie, once rich in plausible details, had become a passing silliness before the hard mass of the actual.
It was difficult to come back.

Ian McEwan

#9. Atheist's denial of God's existence needs just as much substantiation as does the theist's claim; the atheist must give plausible reasons for rejecting God's existence.

Paul Copan

#10. Most important to any fake story is a plausible, realistic edge with a satirical twist that is topical.

Joey Skaggs

#11. I think mine is the fullest and most plausible account of what went on in Marie Antoinette's life.

Antonia Fraser

#12. Science fiction deals with improbable possibilities, fantasy with plausible impossibilities.

Miriam Allen De Ford

#13. I marvel at these young people: drinking their coffee, they tell clear, plausible stories. If they are asked what they did yesterday, they aren't embarrassed: they bring you up to date in a few words. If I were in their place, I'd fall all over myself.

Jean-Paul Sartre

#14. Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means.

Charles Dickens

#15. Quantum mechanics provides us with an approximate, plausible, conjectural explanation of what actually is, or was, or may be taking place inside a cyclotron during a dark night in February.

Edward Abbey

#16. Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.

Francis Bacon

#17. The word happiness exists in every language; it is plausible the thing itself exists.

Jorge Luis Borges

#18. To construct plausible and moving 'other worlds' you must draw upon the only real 'other world' we know, that of the spirit.

C.S. Lewis

#19. I was curious, given the swimming pools of booze I've guzzled over the years - not to mention all of the cocaine, morphine, sleeping pills, cough syrup, LSD, Rohypnol ... there's really no plausible medical reason why I should still be alive. Maybe my DNA could say why.

Ozzy Osbourne

#20. All this very plausible reasoning does not convince me, as it has not convinced the wisest of our Statesmen, that our ancestors erred in laying it down as an axiom of policy that the toleration of Irregularity is incompatible with the safety of the State.

Edwin A. Abbott

#21. Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.

Salman Rushdie

#22. A plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive, at least a little bit ...

Kurt Vonnegut

#23. African leaders should not turn the continent into a giant collector of donations and loans from wealthy nations - they must find other plausible means to help established their economic security so as to minimize poverty. This incoherent blunder on the mainland must be scrutinized.

Duop Chak Wuol

#24. The latest indication we have is that Amado is experiencing some delay in getting his visa. We understand that and we can accept that as a plausible reason for him not to be here.

Alexi Lalas

#25. Paradoxes are less paradoxical in their reference to truth than most of the most plausible axioms.

Raheel Farooq

#26. Only God can tell a truly plausible lie.

Eliezer Yudkowsky

#27. Our vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.

Henry David Thoreau

#28. He is twenty-eight years old, and to the best of his knowledge he has no ambitions. No burning ambitions, in any case, no clear idea of what building a plausible future might entail for him.

Paul Auster

#29. I really believe that the aliens are us from the future. It seems to me a very plausible reason that explains a lot of phenomena as opposed to green men with one eye from outer space.

Chris Squire

#30. Looking back to data, we can see if the consequences are plausible; looking forward to theory, we can see if general principles are suggested.

John Henry Holland

#31. It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment.

Charlotte Bronte

#32. Implications Move Let's recap. We have reminded the readers as to what our research study was about; we have stated the main findings; and we have offered a plausible interpretation of the results. Our next major task is to explain the implications of the interpretations.

Danielle S. McNamara

#33. I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did'.

Kurt Vonnegut

#34. Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions, seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives.

Morris Raphael Cohen

#35. Plausible development, building from what we know about what really did go on, and a whacking good story ... Surrounded by Enemies delivers on both, big-time. So hold on to your hats, folks. You're in for quite a ride.

Harry Turtledove

#36. Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

Francis Bacon

#37. We tend to think only in terms of what we think is plausible that we could pull off and decide that "that's what I want", instead of focusing on "what do I want?" and then figuring out how we could pull it off.

Michael Neill

#38. It is very difficult to make a vigorous, plausible, and job-risking defense of an estimate that is derived by no quantitative method, supported by little data, and certified chiefly by the hunches of the managers

Fred Brooks

#39. Eating animals involves an intentional decision to participate in the suffering and death of nonhumans where there is no plausible moral justification.

Gary L. Francione

#40. Those who can envision a plausible future that's brighter than today will earn the opportunity to lead.

Ray Ozzie

#41. Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough
as most wrong theories are!

H.G.Wells

#42. It's good to get your hands dirty a bit and to test how you see things at a given point. And it's very pleasing after writing something like 'Atonement' or 'On Chesil Beach,' which are historical, to get involved in some plausible re-enactment of the here and now.

Ian McEwan

#43. For a novelist, the great thing about the Stone Age people is that we know virtually nothing about their beliefs - which means that I get to make it up! But it's still got to be plausible.

Michelle Paver

#44. There is no exercise of the intellect which is not, in the final analysis, useless. A philosophical doctrine begins as a plausible description of the universe; with the passage of the years it becomes a mere chapter if not a paragraph or a name in the history of philosophy.

Jorge Luis Borges

#45. What could be more foolish than to base one's entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible at the time, now appear to be quite erroneous? And what would be more important than to find our true place in the universe by removing one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs?

Francis Crick

#46. It must be said, some success. For instance, he had spent those fifteen years pretending to be an out-of-work actor, which was plausible enough.

Douglas Adams

#47. There's almost always a plausible rationale - and a good, if misguided, intention - behind every usability flaw. Another

Steve Krug

#48. We must embrace a new agenda based on inclusiveness; a commitment to reconnecting the social and the economic; a relinking of the latter to a plausible redistributive system; and a determination to ensure that everyone has access to justice. All these things are within our reach.

Noreena Hertz

#49. Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow His precepts - there is just too much misery and cruelty for that.

Benjamin Spock

#50. The stultifying effect of the movies is not that the children see them but that their parents do, as if Hollywood provided a plausible adult recreation to grow up into.

Paul Goodman

#51. In fact, the very nature of an X-event is that it is both rare and surprising. So I would not say that any specific X-event is likely. What I would say, though, is that some X-event is not only plausible, but very likely in a time scale of a few years.

John L. Casti

#52. I sometimes wonder why I do so much research - I look at other successful writers, and I think it must just be so relaxing to write about flying horses or something, but I have to make it plausible.

Michelle Paver

#53. The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.

Arthur Eddington

#54. He could easily invent an elaborate, plausible universe. But it is one thing to make that universe believable, and another to believe it. That is the difference between art and religion.

Lawrence Wright

#55. I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right that matters, but victory.

Adolf Hitler

#56. The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.

William Hazlitt

#57. When you're in zero gravity everything moves at the same speed and nothing stops it. If you throw something it travels forever but it still travels at the speed you threw it at. To make it plausible, movies have chosen to show it in slow motion.

Danny Boyle

#58. The Democrats are giving aid and comfort to the enemy for no purpose other than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no plausible explanation for the Democrats' behavior other than that they long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle.

Ann Coulter

#59. Woe to the leader whose arguments at the end of a war are not as plausible as they were at the beginning.

Otto Von Bismarck

#60. The truth has got to appear plausible on the stage.

Edward Bond

#61. I loved Molly. Or at least I told myself I did. Or, if what I felt for her was not love, it was at least a plausible imitation, a convincing substitute.

Robert Charles Wilson

#62. Can any plausible excuse be furnished for the crime of creating the human race?

Mark Twain

#63. We use committees for all the ulterior purposes for which they might have been designed: diffusion of executive responsibility, plausible deniability, misdirection, providing the appearance of activity without the substance, and protecting the guilty.

Charles Stross

#64. Indeed a lie is often more plausible than the truth. "Almost" always. The truth, of course, is never very plausible.

Fyodor Sologub

#65. These arguments on each side (and many more might be produced) are so plausible, that I am apt to suspect, they may, the one as well as the other, be solid and satisfactory, and that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral determinations and conclusions.

David Hume

#66. When Bill Gates started Corbis we were told that he needed images to fill those digital picture frames in his home, and many found this plausible. But now it's pretty clear that he's set out to control the visual history of the twentieth century.

Philip Jones Griffiths

#67. The important thing is that we maintain plausible deniability.

Richard M. Nixon

#68. When the sun comes up, Justineau is silently amazed. It seemed entirely plausible that this ontological impasse would go on for ever. Through

M.R. Carey

#69. Plausible that a professional pitcher with some time to practice could throw a golf ball faster than a baseball.

Randall Munroe

#70. In the 1990s I began to study the prospects that life could spread from Mars to Earth or maybe Earth to Mars and that maybe life began on Mars and came to Earth, and that idea seemed to have a lot of traction and is now accepted as very plausible.

Paul Davies

#71. This is actually a very important principle that science is learning about large systems like evolution and that futurists are learning about anticipating human society: just because a future scenario is plausible doesn't mean we can get there from here.

Kevin Kelly

#72. The cunning old cow, thought Melena. She is trying that rarest of strategies, telling the truth, and making it sound plausible.

Gregory Maguire

#73. I saw at least one analysis of the experiment where the author seemed to find it perfectly plausible that if a person was overcome by a violent madness he'd involuntarily start to sound like someone from Louisiana.

Jon Ronson

#74. Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.

H.L. Mencken

#75. It seems hardly possible to analyse such a complex situation involving deceit and supposition of another person's emotional response, and then prepare your own plausible lie, all while someone is waiting for you to reply to a question. Yet that is exactly what people expect you to be able to do.

Graeme Simsion

#76. Tricks you need to transform something which appears fantastic, unbelievable into something plausible, credible, those I learned from journalism. The key is to tell it straight. It is done by reporters and by country folk.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

#77. I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US ... But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

Gideon Rachman

#78. Orange juice from concentrate is labeled. Food coloring Red #5 is labeled. Fish are labeled as to whether they've been previously frozen. To a consumer, there's no plausible reason why these factors should be on a food ingredient label while the presence of GMOs shouldn't be.

Ramez Naam

#79. If there be any plausible reason for supposing that we have the right to legislate on the slave interests of the District, you cannot put down the investigation of the subject out of doors, by refusing to receive petitions.

Caleb Cushing

#80. It has amazed me that the most incongruous traits should exist in the same person and, for all that, yield a plausible harmony.

W. Somerset Maugham

#81. Maybe she'd just say she ran into a door; that seemed infinitely more plausible than the truth.

Kimberly Derting

#82. A big lie is more plausible than truth.

Ernest Hemingway,

#83. I don't believe that we evolved moral psychology; it just doesn't seem plausible to me as a biological phenomenon.

Tom Stoppard

#84. Never trust a man whom you know to have acted like a scoundrel to others, whatever friendliness he may profess to feel towards yourself, however plausible he may be, or however kindly he may behave; be sure that, the moment he has anything to gain by so doing, he will "throw you over."

Charlie Day

#85. There's a very good reason for why economics developed the way it did, and that is that in many situations, the assumption that people will exploit the opportunities available to them is very plausible, and it simplifies the analysis of how markets will behave.

Daniel Kahneman

#86. Fiction has to be plausible. All history has to do is happen.

Harry Turtledove

#87. What you need for a participatory system to work: "a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain."

Clay Shirky

#88. What people want, mainly, is to be told by some plausible authority that what they are already doing is right. I don't know know of a quicker way to become unpopular than to disagree.

John Brunner

#89. The idea of God was invented in the small hours of history by a scam who had genius; it somehow reeks too much of humanity, that idea, to make its azure origin plausible ...

Vladimir Nabokov

#90. That technology has canceled geography contains just enough merit to be called a plausible fallacy,

Robert D. Kaplan

#91. What I had to do was keep the story within certain limits of what was, of course, plausible.

Arthur Golden

#92. Now '90210' is returning with an all-new cast of slightly more plausible teens. I'll be honest: I wish the old cast was back. Ideally, this spin-off would be an Ice Storm-esque exploration of the West Beverly gang's bleak adult lives.

Diablo Cody

#93. Fact is often stranger than fiction because most writers of fiction try to make their stories plausible.

Richard Posner

#94. If nature abhors a vacuum, historiography loves a void because it can be filled with any number of plausible accounts;
Howe, Nicholas, Anglo-Saxon England and the postcolonial void

Deanne Williams

#95. Men write many fine and plausible arguments in support of monarchy, but the fact remains that where every man has a voice, brutal laws are impossible

Mark Twain

#96. The chief practical use of history is to deliver us from plausible historical analogies.

James Bryce

#97. Given the tendency of many to picture God's realm as somewhere high above Earth - an idea that sounds suspiciously like the Greek stories of deities perched on inaccessible mountain tops - it may seem plausible to assume that astronomers have special insight. Well, of course they don't.

Seth Shostak

#98. I have not proved that the universe is, in fact, a digital computer and that it's capable of performing universal computation, but it's plausible that it is.

Seth Lloyd

#99. In the many-mansioned house of Alternate History, I occupy a small corner. The trio of what-ifs I chronicled in 'Then Everything Changed' all begin with tiny, highly plausible twists of fate that lead to hugely consequential shifts in history.

Jeff Greenfield

#100. It is perhaps, plausible that a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern of the universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his life and have them taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance.

Stephen Crane