Quotes about experiment
page 2

Carl R. Rogers photo
Hans Christian Ørsted photo

“The agreement of this law with nature will be better seen by the repetition of experiments than by a long explanation.”

Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851) Danish physicist and chemist

Relating his discovery of the magnetic effect of an electric current, in "Experiments on the Effect of a Current of Electricity on the Magnetic Needle", Annals of Philosophy 1820, vol. 16, pp. 273-277.

Giovanni Boccaccio photo

“The power of the pen is far greater than those people suppose who have not proved it by experience.”

Le forze della penna sono troppo maggiori che coloro non estimano che quelle con conoscimento provato non hanno.
Eighth Day, Seventh Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)

Sergey Lavrov photo

“As the Libyan experience has shown, sadly, a military scenario is possible. We won’t allow any more such disingenuous interpretations. We will see to it that no resolution is open to interpretation like the one on Libya.”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

Moscow to Block Any Bid for Force Against Iran, October 2012 http://en.rian.ru/russia/20121023/176857678.html

Lev Mekhlis photo
Tom Kenny photo
Roger Bacon photo
Barack Obama photo

“As I said last year, each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its own people. Yet experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty, that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments. To put it simply, democracy, more than any other form of government, delivers for our citizens.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

"Remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City," September 23, 2010. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88483&st=&st1=
2010

Nikola Tesla photo
Angela of Foligno photo

“Even if at times I can still experience outwardly some little sadness and joy, nonetheless there is in my soul a chamber in which no joy, sadness, or enjoyment from any virtue, or delight over anything that can be named, enters. This is where the All Good, which is not any particular good, resides, and it is so much the All Good that there is no other good. Although I blaspheme by speaking about it -- and I speak about it so badly because I cannot find words to express it -- I nonetheless affirm that in this manifestation of God I discover the complete truth. In it, I understand and possess the complete truth that is in heaven and in hell, in the entire world, in every place, in all things, in every enjoyment in heaven and in every creature. And I see all this is so truly and certainly that no one could convince me otherwise. Even if the whole world were to tell me otherwise, I would laugh it to scorn. Furthermore, I saw the One who is and how he is the being of all creatures. I also saw how he made me capable of understanding those realities I have just spoken about better than when I saw them in that darkness which used to delight me so. Moreover, in that state I see myself as alone with God, totally cleansed, totally sanctified, totally true, totally upright, totally certain, totally celestial in him. And when I am in that state, I do not remember anything else…”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

Source: The Memorial and Instructions, pp. 214-216

Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Leymah Gbowee photo

“Regardless of whom you pray to, during war our experiences as a community and as mothers are the same.”

Leymah Gbowee (1972) Liberian peace activist

Gruber Foundation, Women's Rights Prize (2009)

Stig Dagerman photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam photo
Shigeru Miyamoto photo
Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Andy Goldsworthy photo

“My sculpture can last for days or a few seconds — what is important to me is the experience of making. I leave all my work outside and often return to watch it decay.”

Andy Goldsworthy (1956) British sculptor and photographer

"Stone River Enters Stanford University's Outdoor Art Collection" (4 September 2001)

Daniel J. Boorstin photo
Lee Kuan Yew photo
Ayrton Senna photo
Dante Alighieri photo

“The experience of this sweet life.”

Canto XX, lines 47–48 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Patch Adams photo
Edmund Husserl photo

“Experience by itself is not science.”

Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) German philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology

... bloße Erfahrung ist keine Wissenschaft.
Pure Phenomenology, 1917

Sathya Sai Baba photo

“Be sincere; talk only about your genuine experience; do not distort, exaggerate or falsify that experience.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

As quoted in Sathyam Sivam Sundaram (The Life Story of Sathya Sai Baba) by N. Kasturi, Ch. XXVI : Holy Joy http://www.ineval.org/sai/Teachings/SathyamSivamSundaram/s1026.html

Chris Cornell photo
Ginger Rogers photo

“I loved Fred so, and I mean that in the nicest, warmest way: I had such affection for him artistically. I think that experience with Fred was a divine blessing. It blessed me, I know, and I don't think blessings are one sided.”

Ginger Rogers (1911–1995) American actress and dancer

Reported by Dick Richards in "Ginger: Salute to a Star", quoting Rogers from Francis Wyndham's story about Ginger Rogers, in London's "Sunday Times Magazine".

Max Planck photo

“Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

As quoted in Advances in Biochemical Psychopharmacology, Vol. 25 (1980), p. 3

Andrea Dworkin photo
Carl Panzram photo
Rudolf Steiner photo
Otto Dix photo
Hubert Reeves photo
George Orwell photo
Jennifer Aniston photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Georg Ohm photo

“The design of this Memoir is to deduce strictly from a few principles, obtained chiefly by experiment, the rationale of those electrical phenomena which are produced by the mutual contact of two or more bodies, and which have been termed galvanic; its aim is attained if by means of it the variety of facts be presented as unity to the mind.”

Georg Ohm (1789–1854) German physicist and mathematician

Introductory sentence of [Georg Simon Ohm, The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically, translated by William Francis, D. Van Nostrand Co, 1891, 11]

Marvin Minsky photo

“I cannot articulate enough to express my dislike to people who think that understanding spoils your experience… How would they know?”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

Mat Buckland, AI Techniques for Game Programming (2002), Cincinnati, OH: Premier Press, 36 ISBN 1-931841-08-X.
Attributed

Stephen Hawking photo

“Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory.”

Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 1
Context: Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. As philosopher of science Karl Popper has emphasized, a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be disproved or falsified by observation. Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory.

Ludwig von Mises photo

“If we were to regard the Soviet regime as an experiment, we would have to say that the experiment has clearly demonstrated the superiority of capitalism and the inferiority of socialism.”

Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)
Context: The only certain fact about Russian affairs under the Soviet regime with regard to which all people agree is: that the standard of living of the Russian masses is much lower than... the paragon of capitalism, the United States of America. If we were to regard the Soviet regime as an experiment, we would have to say that the experiment has clearly demonstrated the superiority of capitalism and the inferiority of socialism.

Wilhelm Reich photo

“You dare not think that you ever might experience your self differently: free instead of cowed; open instead of tactical; loving openly instead of like a thief in the night.”

Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: "What right do you have to tell me things?" I can see this question in your apprehensive look. I hear this question from your impertinent mouth, Little Man. You are afraid to look at yourself, you are afraid of criticism, Little Man, just as you are afraid of the power they promise you. You would not know how to use this power. You dare not think that you ever might experience your self differently: free instead of cowed; open instead of tactical; loving openly instead of like a thief in the night. You despise yourself Little Man. You say: "Who am I to have an opinion of my own, to determine my own life and to declare the world to be mine?" You are right: Who are you to make a claim to your life?

C.G. Jung photo

“A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the "personal unconscious". But this personal layer rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the "collective unconscious".”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Source: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1934), p. 3-4
Context: A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the "personal unconscious". But this personal layer rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the "collective unconscious". I have chosen the term "collective" because this part of the unconscious is not individual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents and modes of behaviour that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals.

Marvin Minsky photo

“When you "get an idea," or "solve a problem," or have a "memorable experience," you create what we shall call a K-line.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

K-Linesː A Theory of Memory (1980)
Context: When you "get an idea," or "solve a problem," or have a "memorable experience," you create what we shall call a K-line. This K-line gets connected to those "mental agencies" that were actively involved in the memorable event. When that K-line is later "activated," it reactivates some of those mental agencies, creating a "partial mental state" resembling the original.

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added mystery in each new revelation.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Preface
Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added mystery in each new revelation. To me the verses of the Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha have ever been things of the spirit, and therefore endowed with boundless vital growth; and I have used them, both in my own life and in my preaching, as being instinct with individual meaning for me, as for others, and awaiting for their confirmation, my own special testimony, which must have its value because of its individuality.

Ram Dass photo

“To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible.”

Be Here Now (1971)
Context: I'd get to a point with my colleagues when I couldn't explain any further, because it came down to "To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible.".

Wernher von Braun photo

“My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?”

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space architect

From a letter to the California State board of Education (14 September 1972)

Niels Bohr photo

“An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

As quoted by Edward Teller, in Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession by Robert Coughlan, in LIFE magazine (6 September 1954), p. 62 http://books.google.de/books?id=I1QEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA62
As quoted by Edward Teller (10 October 1972), and A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) by Alan L. Mackay, p. 35
Variant: An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.

Oliver Wendell Holmes photo

“A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

Source: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. X.
Context: Poets are never young, in one sense. Their delicate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.

C.G. Jung photo

“Any theory based on experience is necessarily statistical; that is to say, it formulates an ideal average which abolishes all exceptions at either end of the scale and replaces them by an abstract mean.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

p 6
The Undiscovered Self (1958)
Context: Any theory based on experience is necessarily statistical; that is to say, it formulates an ideal average which abolishes all exceptions at either end of the scale and replaces them by an abstract mean. This mean is quite valid though it need not necessarily occur in reality. Despite this it figures in the theory as an unassailable fundamental fact. … If, for instance, I determine the weight of each stone in a bed of pebbles and get an average weight of 145 grams, this tells me very little about the real nature of the pebbles. Anyone who thought, on the basis of these findings, that he could pick up a pebbles of 145 grams at the first try would be in for a serious disappointment. Indeed, it might well happen that however long he searched he would not find a single pebble weighing exactly 145 grams. The statistical method shows the facts in the light of the ideal average but does not give us a picture of their empirical reality. While reflecting an indisputable aspect of reality, it can falsify the actual truth in a most misleading way.

Giovanni Morassutti photo

“Creating the kind of connections between people that lead to collective civic action, political expression, community dialogue, shared cultural experiences.”

Giovanni Morassutti (1980) Italian actor, theatre director and cultural entrepreneur.

Quoted in "Connected by a Thread: Arts Territory Exchange Residency in Sustainable Practice" by Gudrun Filipska, CSPA Quarterly periodical (January 25, 2019) http://www.sustainablepractice.org/2019/01/25/connected-by-a-thread/.

Niki Lauda photo
Brigitte Bardot photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.”

Bryn Mawr Commencement Address https://books.google.com/books?id=QK6TYg32CocC&pg=PA160 (1986), in Dancing at the Edge of the World (1997), p. 160

Benjamin Creme photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Alexis Karpouzos photo
Alexis Karpouzos photo
Swami Samarpanananda photo

“Spirituality is to experience the infinite in the transcendental state. There is no other definition to it.”

Swami Samarpanananda Monk, Author, Teacher

The World of Religions ( Page 20 )

Neale Donald Walsch photo
Oscar Wilde photo
C.G. Jung photo
Alexandre Dumas photo

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.”

Chapter 117 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_117
Source: The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846)
Context: Tell the angel who will watch over your future destiny, Morrel, to pray sometimes for a man who, like Satan, thought himself, for an instant, equal to God; but who now acknowledges, with Christian humility, that God alone possesses supreme power and infinite wisdom... There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.

Joseph Addison photo

“If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

The earliest appearance of this proverb yet located is in Eliza Cook's Journal Vol. 11, (1854), p. 128, and the earliest attribution to Addison yet found is in Public Ledger Almanac (1887), p. 20.
Disputed
Source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_New_Era/XD8DAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=addison%20%22hope%20your%20guardian%20genius%22&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover&bsq=addison%20%22hope%20your%20guardian%20genius%22 Many Thoughts of Many Minds

Jimmy Carter photo
Nikki Giovanni photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions — as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.”

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

Sec. 41
The Gay Science (1882)

Max Frisch photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Eckhart Tolle photo

“One thing we do know: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Variant: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Rick Warren photo

“God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Neale Donald Walsch photo
Max Planck photo

“An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Source: Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (1949)
Context: Experimenters are the schocktroops of science… An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature’s answer. But before an experiment can be performed, it must be planned – the question to nature must be formulated before being posed. Before the result of a measurement can be used, it must be interpreted – Nature’s answer must be understood properly. These two tasks are those of theorists, who find himself always more and more dependent on the tools of abstract mathematics.

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“From experience. That something is irrational is no argument against its existence, but rather a condition for it.”

Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 515
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation

Anaïs Nin photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Oscar Wilde photo
Henry Ford photo
Malcolm X photo
Galileo Galilei photo

“See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences (1638); Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno à due nuove scienze, as translated by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio (1914)
Other quotes
Source: Discorsi E Dimostrazioni Matematiche: Intorno a Due Nuoue Scienze, Attenenti Alla Mecanica & I Movimenti Locali

Anthony Burgess photo

“Every grain of experience is food for the greedy growing soul of the artist.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader (1965)
Variant: Every grain of experience is food for the greedy growing soul of the artist.

Mark Twain photo

“[Whose_property]Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Osteopathy” (1901), in Mark Twain's Speeches, p. 253 http://books.google.com/books?id=jmhaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA253&dq=%22Whose+property+is+my+body%22
Source: Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings

John Cage photo
C.G. Jung photo
George Washington photo
Byron Katie photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Albert Schweitzer photo

“Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics, Chapter 26
Context: Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me. It is an uncomfortable doctrine which the true ethics whisper into my ear. You are happy, they say; therefore you are called upon to give much.

Judy Blume photo
Etty Hillesum photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo