“In reality, the law always contains less than the fact itself, because it does not reproduce the fact as a whole but only in that aspect of it which is important for us, the rest being intentionally or from necessity omitted.”
"The Economical Nature of Physical Inquiry," in Popular Scientific Lectures (1898), p. 192
19th century
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Ernst Mach 12
Austrian physicist and university educator 1838–1916Related quotes

"On the Conservation of Force" (1862), p. 278
Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)
Context: Every great deed of which history tells us, every mighty passion which art can represent, every picture of manners, of civic arrangements, of the culture of peoples of distant lands or of remote times, seizes and interests us, even if there is no exact scientific connection among them. We continually find points of contact and comparison in our own conceptions and feelings; we get to know the hidden capacities and desires of the mind, which in the ordinary peaceful course of civilised life remain unawakened.
It is not to be denied that, in the natural sciences, this kind of interest is wanting. Each individual fact, taken by itself, can indeed arouse our curiosity or our astonishment, or be useful to us in its practical applications. But intellectual satisfaction we obtain only from a connection of the whole, just from its conformity with law.
Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Donnell v. Herring-Hall-Marvin Safe Co., 208 U.S. 267, 273 (1908).
1900s

Michel Henry, Marx I. une philosophie de la réalité, éd. Gallimard, coll. « Nrf », 1976, p. 353
Books on Economy and Politics, Marx. A Philosophy of Human Being (1976)
Original: (fr) Parce que la pratique est subjective, la théorie qui est toujours la théorie d’un objet, ne peut atteindre la réalité de cette pratique, ce qu’elle est en elle-même, sa subjectivité précisément, mais seulement se la représenter, de telle manière que cette représentation laisse hors d’elle l’être réel de la pratique, l’effectivité du faire. La théorie ne fait rien.

Ackoff (1999, p. 34) cited in: Michael C. Jackson (2000) Systems Approaches to Management. p. 234.
1990s

“The facts are always less than what really happened.”