“We only have observations and interpretations. Most of the interpretations remain questionable.”

—  Peter J. Carroll

Source: PsyberMagick (1995), p. 12
Context: We doubt that any facts actually exist. We only have observations and interpretations. Most of the interpretations remain questionable.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We only have observations and interpretations. Most of the interpretations remain questionable." by Peter J. Carroll?
Peter J. Carroll photo
Peter J. Carroll 45
British occultist 1953

Related quotes

F. J. Duarte photo

“The most efficient and practical interpretation of quantum mechanics is… no interpretation at all.”

F. J. Duarte (1954) Chilean-American physicist

in [Quantum Optics for Engineers, CRC, New York, 2013, 978-1439888537, F. J. Duarte]

“Observations interpreted by reason. Few, if any, ideas have had such impact on the lives of men.”

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: World Without End (1995), Chapter 9 (p. 139)

Wu Po-hsiung photo

“While both insist there's only 'one China,' we have different interpretations of 'one China.”

Wu Po-hsiung (1939) Taiwanese politician

Wu Po-hsiung (2012) quoted in: " '1 country, 2 areas' new basis for dialogue: KMT http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/china-taiwan-relations/2012/03/23/335555/p2/1-country.htm" in The China Post 23 March 2012.
Statements were made during his visit to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to meet with Secretary-General of the Communist Party of China, Hu Jintao when both agree on One-China Principle under 1992 consensus in governing cross-strait relations between Taiwan and Mainland China, 22 March 2012.
Wu lauds DPP’s China department (2012)

Novalis photo

“Most observers of the French Revolution, especially the clever and noble ones, have explained it as a life-threatening and contagious illness. They have remained standing with the symptoms and have interpreted these in manifold and contrary ways. Some have regarded it as a merely local ill. The most ingenious opponents have pressed for castration. They well noticed that this alleged illness is nothing other than the crisis of beginning puberty.”

Novalis book Blüthenstaub

Fragment No. 105
Blüthenstaub (1798)

James Joyce photo

“Interpretations of interpretations interpreted.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Notebooks (Summer 1886 – Fall 1887)
Variant translation: Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations…
As translated in The Portable Nietzsche (1954) by Walter Kaufmann, p. 458

Arthur C. Clarke photo

“It is not my duty as an historian to predict the future, only to observe and interpret the past. But its lesson is clear enough; we have lived too long out of contact with reality, and now the time has come to rebuild our lives.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 24 (p. 183)

“It is only as we focus our thoughts on heaven that we will correctly interpret life on earth.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 184

Karl Marx photo

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretirt; es kommt aber darauf an, sie zu verändern.
http://books.google.com/books?id=xyc9AAAAYAAJ&q=%22Die+Philosophen+haben+die+Welt+nur+verschieden%22+%22es+kommt+aber+darauf+an+sie+zu+ver%C3%A4ndern%22&pg=PA72#v=onepage
"Theses on Feuerbach" (1845), Thesis 11, Marx Engels Selected Works,(MESW), Volume I, p. 15; these words are also engraved upon his grave.
First published as an appendix to the pamphlet Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy by Friedrich Engels (1886)
Source: Eleven Theses on Feuerbach

Rajendra Prasad photo

“We have got used to relying on precedents of England to such an extent that it seems almost sacrilegious to have a different interpretation even if our conditions and circumstances might seem to require a different interpretation.”

Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963) Indian political leader

From his speech given on 28 November 1960 at laying the foundation-stone of the building of the Law Institute of India, in: p. 16
Presidents of India, 1950-2003

Related topics