“Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”

— Henry David Thoreau

November 11, 1854
Referring to an 1849 dairyman's strike, during which there was suspicion of milk being watered down
Journals (1838-1859)
Variant: Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

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Henry David Thoreau 385

1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862

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“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“Circumstantial evidence only raises a probability.”

Sir Frederick Pollock, 1st Baronet (1783–1870) British lawyer and Tory politician

Reg. v. Rowton (1865), 13 W. R. 437.

“Poems present their testimony as circumstantial evidences, not as closing argument.”

Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet

A Poets View (1984)
Context: Acknowledgement, and celebration, of mystery probably constitutes the most consistent theme of my poetry from its very beginnings. Because it is a matter of which I am conscious, it is possible, however imprecisely, to call it an intellectual position; but it is one which emphasizes the incapacity of reason alone (much though I delight in elegant logic) to comprehend experience, and considers Imagination the chief of human faculties. It must therefore be by the exercise of that faculty that one moves toward faith, and possibly by its failure that one rejects it as delusion. Poems present their testimony as circumstantial evidences, not as closing argument. Where Wallace Stevens says, "God and the imagination are one," I would say that the imagination, which synergizes intellect, emotion and instinct, is the perceptive organ through which it is possible, though not inevitable, to experience God.

“Circumstantial evidence, Markham, is the utt‘rest tommyrot imag‘nable. Its theory is not unlike that of our present-day democracy. The democratic theory is that if you accumulate enough ignorance at the polls, you produce intelligence; and the theory of circumst‘ntial evidence is that if you accumulate a sufficient number of weak links, you produce a strong chain.”

S. S. Van Dine book The Benson Murder Case

Source: The Benson Murder Case (1926), Ch. 22

“All mammals nurse their young, and breast milk benefits a newborn infant in ways above and beyond nutrition. In fact, until 1 to 2 years of age, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization, the Institute of Medicine and more promote breast-feeding as optimal. Unfortunately, breast-feeding until that age is often difficult, if not impossible, because mothers have to return to work, and children go off to preschool or day care. So we often replace human milk with the milk of cows or other animals. But at a certain point, we have to acknowledge that we are the only mammals on the planet that continue to consume milk after childhood, often in great amounts. More and more evidence is surfacing, however, that milk consumption may not only be unhelpful, it might also be detrimental. … there’s very little evidence that most adults need it. There’s also very little evidence that it’s doing them much good.”

Aaron Carroll American pediatrician

"Got Milk? Might Not Be Doing You Much Good", in The New York Times (17 November 2014) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/upshot/got-milk-might-not-be-doing-you-much-good.html?_r=0

“And the too strong grasping of it,
when it is pressed together and condensed,
loses it This very thing you are”

Charles Olson (1910–1970) American writer

Part I, 4
The Kingfishers (1950)
Context: We can be precise. The factors are
in the animal and / or the machine the factors are
communication and / or control, both involve
the message. And what is the message? The message is
a discrete or continuous sequence of measurable events distributed in time is the birth of the air, is
the birth of water, is
a state between
the origin and
the end, between
birth and the beginning of
another fetid nest is change, presents
no more than itself And the too strong grasping of it,
when it is pressed together and condensed,
loses it This very thing you are

“You know my eyes are not very strong. So every day to make them stronger I force myself to look at the sun. I find it very hard. But do you know what I find harder? That is to look into the blue of your eyes.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Early in 1976, speaking to Margaret Trudeau, according to page 317 of Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000 https://books.google.ca/books?id=ACC_G_kiR4cC&pg=PA317&lpg=PA317 by John English.

“Wherever the trout are, it's beautiful.”

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937) First Czechoslovak president

“Science in fact has a lot to say about the supernatural. It can and has tested it, and so far has found no evidence for it…. Indeed, over its history science has repeatedly investigated supernatural claims and, in principle, could find strong evidence for them. But that evidence hasn’t appeared.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 113

“Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow.”

Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) American singer-songwriter and folk musician

“Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”

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Henry David Thoreau 385

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