“A convincing demonstration of correctness being impossible as long as the mechanism is regarded as a black box, our only hope lies in not regarding the mechanism as a black box.”

“Why don't they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff?”

“The sight of the black box stunned the gathering into a silence more deep than before. Only members of The Vigils and their victims had seen it. In the garish stadium light, the box was revealed as worn and threadbare, a small wooden container that might have been a discarded jewelry box. And yet it was a legend in the school.”

“Wack job in the back with a black stocking cap/Jacking off to a hockey mask in a boxing match”

“I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.”

“Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.”

“Your chances of getting support in the black community are poor at best. You have a master-servant philosophy with regard to blacks.”

“If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn’t the whole airplane made out of that stuff?”

“It is actually impossible in theory to determine exactly what the hidden mechanism is without opening the box, since there are always many different mechanisms with identical behavior. Quite apart from this, analysis is more difficult than invention in the sense in which, generally, induction takes more time to perform than deduction: in induction one has to search for the way, whereas in deduction one follows a straightforward path.”

“An explanation of a phenomenon is regarded, apparently instinctively, as the most general possible when it is a mechanical explanation. The "mechanism" of the process is the ultimate goal of experiment. Now this mechanism in general lies beyond the range of the senses; either by reason of their limitations, as in the case of the atomic structure of matter, or by the very nature of the supposed mechanism, as in the theory of the ether. The only way to bridge the gap between the machinery of the physical process and the world of sense-impressions is to think out some consequence of that mechanism. This we will call the hypothesis. The hypothesis, resting still on the mechanical basis, is yet beyond the range of direct experimental investigation; but if, by mathematical reasoning, a consequence of the hypothesis can be deduced, this will often lie within the range of experimental inquiry, and thus a test of the soundness of the original mechanical conception may be instituted.”