Quotes about experiment
page 52

Augustus De Morgan photo

“Experience has convinced me that the proper way of teaching is to bring together that which is simple from all quarters, and, if I may use such a phrase, to draw upon the surface of the subject a proper mean between the line of closest connexion and the line of easiest deduction.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

This was the method followed by Euclid, who, fortunately for us, never dreamed of a geometry of triangles, as distinguished from a geometry of circles, or a separate application of the arithmetics of addition and subtraction; but made one help out the other as he best could.
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)

Richard Wright photo
Richard Wright photo
Ptolemy photo
Max Weber photo
Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Bill Bailey photo

“Aldous Huxley took the drug mescaline and then chronicled his experience in the book The Doors of Perception.”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Now, I don't actually think that's the first thing he wrote: he probably wrote 'my brain is melting' ten thousand times, but it was the book that the critics latched on to.
Is It Bill Bailey? (TV, 1998)

Francis Crick photo

“The job of theorists, especially in biology, is to suggest new experiments. A good theory makes not only predictions, but surprising predictions that then turn out to be true.”

Francis Crick (1916–2004) British molecular biologist, biophysicist, neuroscientist; co-discoverer of the structure of DNA

If its predictions appear obvious to experimentalists, why would they need a theory?
What Mad Pursuit (1988)

William James photo
Elizabeth Bibesco photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy…. I have not yet had enough experience with women. What we were taught about them in our youth is quite wrong, that is sure, it was quite contrary to nature, and one must try to learn from experience. It would be very pleasant if everybody were good, and the world were good, etc.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

yes - but it seems to me that we see more and more that we are not good, no more than the world in general, of which we are an atom - and the world no more good than we are. One may try one's best, or act carelessly, the result is always different from what one really wanted. But whether the result be better or worse, fortunate or unfortunate, it is better to do something than to do nothing. If only one is wary of becoming a prim, self-righteous prig - as Uncle Vincent calls it - one may be even as good as one likes.
In his letter to Theo, from Nuenen, c. 9 March 1884, http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/14/359.htm
1880s, 1884

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote of Vincent's letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 3 April 1878; a cited in The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to his Brother, 1872-1886 (1927) Constable & Co
As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 483
1870s
Variant: Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

John Stuart Mill photo
Richard Sherman (American football) photo

“I was in awe. It was hilarious after I got past the shock. But it was an incredibly surreal experience for me, to get shouted-out by the president.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

About a White House Correspondents’ Dinner with former President Barack Obama.
The NFL Would Not Have Banned A Donald Sterling For Life (May 7, 2014)

Arthur C. Clarke photo

“There are some things that no amount of pure intelligence can anticipate, but which can only be learned by bitter experience.”

The Road to the Sea, p. 284
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Teal Swan photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Henry Miller photo

“Many is the mirage I chased. Always I was overreaching myself. The oftener I touched reality, the harder I bounced back to the world of illusion, which is the name for everyday life. 'Experience! More experience!”

I clamored. In a frantic effort to arrive at some kind of order, some tentative working program, I would sit down quietly now and then and spend long, long hours mapping out a plan of procedure. Plans, such as architects and engineers sweat over, were never my forte. But I could always visualize my dreams in a cosmogonic pattern. Though I could never formulate a plot I could balance and weigh opposing forces, characters, situations, events, distribute them in a sort of heavenly lay-out, always with plenty of space between, always with the certitude that there is no end, only worlds within worlds ad infinitum, and that wherever one left off one had created a world, a world finite, total, complete.
The Rosy Crucifixion II : Plexus (1953)

Thurgood Marshall photo

“The experience of Negroes in America has been different in kind, not just in degree, from that of other ethnic groups. It is not merely the history of slavery alone, but also that a whole people were marked as inferior by the law. And that mark has endured.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 400-401 (1978) (Marshall, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

Luis Alberto Urrea photo
Hans Morgenthau photo
Audre Lorde photo
Joseph Weizenbaum photo
Peter Hammill photo
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Johannes Kepler photo
Daniel Abraham photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Alexander Hamilton photo
Andrea Dworkin photo

“An experience must be a universal across times as well as across brains. This experience of being you, here now, would be numerically the same whenever, as well as wherever, it was realized.”

Arnold Zuboff (1946) American philosopher

" One self: The logic of experience https://philarchive.org/rec/ZUBOST", Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 33, Iss. 1 (1990), p. 44

Michel Henry photo

“No object has ever had the experience of being touched.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Books on Religion and Christianity, Incarnation: A philosophy of Flesh (2000)
Original: (fr) Aucun objet n'a jamais fait l'expérience d'être touché.

Michel Henry, Incarnation. Une philosophie de la chair, éd. du Seuil, 2000, p. 295

Michel Henry photo

“But then, when and why is this emotional upheaval produced, which opens a person to his own essence ? Nobody knows. The emotional opening of the person to his own essence can only be born of the will of life itself, as a rebirth that lets him suddenly experience his eternal birth. The Spirit blows where it wills.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, C'est moi la Vérité, éd. du Seuil, 1996, p. 291
Books on Religion and Christianity, I am the Truth. Toward a philosophy of Christianity (1996)
Original: (fr) Mais quand donc ce bouleversement émotionnel qui ouvre le vivant à sa propre essence se produit-il et pourquoi ? Nul ne le sait. L’ouverture émotionnelle du vivant à sa propre essence ne peut naître que du vouloir de la vie elle-même, comme cette re-naissance qui lui donne d’éprouver soudain sa naissance éternelle. L’Esprit souffle où il veut.

Michel Henry photo
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Maurice Allais photo

“A theory is only as good as its assumptions. If the premises are false, the theory has no real scientific value. The only scientific criterion for judging the validity of a scientific theory is a confrontation with the data of experience.”

Maurice Allais (1911–2010) French economist; 1988 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics

L'anisotropie de l'espace. La nécessaire révision de certains postulats des théories contemporaines. Les données de l'expérience (1997), p. 591

Christopher Poole photo

“I can’t wait to contribute my own experience from a dozen years of building online communities, and to begin the next chapter of my career at such an incredible company”

Christopher Poole (1988) American Internet entrepreneur, founder of 4chan

Source: 7 March 2016 https://variety.com/2016/digital/news/google-hires-4chan-founder-chris-poole-moot-1201724308/

“The problem is, some of us have either convinced ourselves that we are not creative, or are yet to find our way. Confidence in our own creativity can wane. Which is bad. Confidence is crucial. In my experience artists, like a lot of us, fear being “found out.””

Will Gompertz (1965) British journalist

But somehow they manage to summon up enough self-belief to overcome the self-doubt, which enables them to back their creativity. The Beatles were just a bunch of young lads with time on their hands who found the confidence to persuade themselves and then the world that they were musicians.
Think Like an Artist (2015)

Benjamin Creme photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Emmanuel Levinas photo
Raymond Williams photo
John D. Carmack photo
Céline Sciamma photo
John Denham photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Darko Miličić photo

“My experience in the NBA was a catastrophe, because I’m a born winner. I don’t like losing, even in card games.”

Darko Miličić (1985) Serbian basketball player

As quoted in "Miserable at every NBA stop, Darko Milicic has found peace as a farmer" http://sports.yahoo.com/news/miserable-at-every-nba-stop-darko-milicic-has-found-peace-as-a-farmer-131359198.html (14 March 2017), by Ben Rohrbach, Yahoo! Sports
2010s

Dylan Moran photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“It's like the old dilemma: You can't get a job without experience, but you can't get experience because no one will give you a job.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Otto von Bismarck photo

“In the domain of political economy the abstract doctrines of science leave me perfectly cold, my only standard of judgment being experience.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

As quoted in W. H. Dawson, Bismarck and State Socialism: An Exposition of the Social and Economic Legislation of Germany since 1870 (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1891), p. 54
Undated

Tedros Adhanom photo
Zhong Nanshan photo

“We have developed an effective treatment plan (to patients contracting COVID-19) based on our experience of dealing with SARS, by employing various life support methods to (achieve) a higher rate of recovery.”

Zhong Nanshan (1936) Chinese pulmonologist

Zhong Nanshan (2020) cited in " China starts clinical trials for new antiviral drug to treat coronavirus https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3048732/china-starts-clinical-trials-new-antiviral-drug-treat" on South China Morning Post, 3 February 2020.

China Miéville photo
David Pearce (philosopher) photo

“[T]he claim that suffering is bad for those who experience it and thus ought in general to be prevented when possible cannot be seriously doubted.”

Jeff McMahan (philosopher) (1954) American philosopher

Jeff McMahan, " The Meat Eaters https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/the-meat-eaters/", The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2010

William Lane Craig photo
William Blum photo

“This, then, was the American people's first experience of a new social phenomenon that had come upon the world, their introductory education about the Soviet Union and this thing called "communism."”

William Blum (1933–2018) American author and historian

The students have never recovered from the lesson. Neither has the Soviet Union.
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Introduction

Mike Pompeo photo

“What’s the cadet motto at West Point? You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do. I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s — it was like — we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”

Mike Pompeo (1963) 70th United States Secretary of State, former Director of Central Intelligence Agency and former Congressman fro…

Texas A&M University (April 15, 2019)

I Was The CIA Director - We Lied, We Cheated, We Stole, ZeroHedge,Tyler Durden Sun, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-21/i-was-cia-director-we-lied-we-cheated-we-stole (21 April 2019)
2019

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Ho Iat Seng photo

“Honestly, from the experience of SARS (in 2002-2003), if the (2019-nCoV outbreak) situation is so serious, no one will go to a casino in Macau.”

Ho Iat Seng (1957) Chief Executive of Macau

Ho Iat Seng (2020) cited in " Macau casinos could be closed if risk of Wuhan virus rises: Ho Iat Seng https://www.asgam.com/index.php/2020/01/23/macau-casinos-could-be-closed-if-risk-of-wuhan-virus-rises-ho-iat-seng/" on Inside Asian Gaming, 23 January 2020.

“What we call the Fall of the Western Roman Empire was an imaginative experiment that got a little out of hand.”

Walter Goffart (1934) American historian

Source: Quotaes, Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418-584(1980), p. 35

Husayn ibn Ali photo

“Knowledge facilitates comprehension and experience increases wisdom.”

Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib

[Mizan al-Hikmah, Muhammadi Reishahri, Muhammad, Dar al-Hadith, 2010, 2, Qum, 186]
Regarding Wisdom

Jacqueline Wilson photo

“I’ve tried hard…I don’t know … my experience of my own dad and my own ex-husband possibly has some effect. I will remedy this. It is very unfair. I have tried harder, but I just can’t quite get there yet.”

Jacqueline Wilson (1945) novelist

On why the lack of positive father figures in her novels in “Jacqueline Wilson: 'I've never really been in any kind of closet'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/04/jacqueline-wilson-ive-never-really-been-in-any-kind-of-closet in The Guardian (2020 Apr 4)

William L. Shirer photo
Giovanni Morassutti photo

“Wine making is an artistic creation in which you deal with a variety of styles, colors, and inspiration therefore good wine, like good art, can evoke emotions, sensations and create an experience which leaves a lasting impression.”

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

Stated in the description of Video artwork Ribolla https://artelaguna.world/videoart/ribolla.30318/ , Arte Laguna World https://artelaguna.world/. Also quoted on visual art work Sauvignon https://www.wikiart.org/en/giovanni-morassutti/sauvignon, Series Wine & Art https://www.wikiart.org/en/giovanni-morassutti/all-works#!#filterName:Series_wine-art,resultType:masonry, Wikiart.org (28 April, 2020) https://www.wikiart.org/

Samir D. Mathur photo
Kuruvilla Pandikattu photo
George Adamski photo
Mick Jackson (director) photo
Jane Ellen Harrison photo

“It is useless, or almost useless, to offer to Youth the treasures of experience gathered by Age. "When you are my age," says Crabbed Age, "you will know what I know, see as I see."”

Jane Ellen Harrison (1850–1928) British classical scholar, linguist and feminist

Nothing could be more profoundly false. History does not repeat itself. Evolution forbids. When you are my age, you will not know what I know, but something quite different.

p. 18 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015011434878;view=1up;seq=30
Alpha and omega (1915)

I. A. Richards photo

“An experience has to be formed, no doubt, before it is communicated, but it takes the form it does largely because it may have to be communicated.”

I. A. Richards (1893–1979) English literary critic and rhetorician

[Richards, I. A., Principles of Literary Criticism, 1924]
Principles of Literary Criticism

Karl Pearson photo

“Does not the beauty of the artist's work lie for us in the accuracy with which his symbols resume innumerable facts of our past emotional experience? ... [A]esthetic judgment... how exactly parallel it is to the scientific judgment.”

Introductory. Pearson refers the reader to William Wordsworth's preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1815) "General View of Poetry".
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Jason Graves photo

“I think any composer is the sum of their life experience, and that's what makes each of them interesting and different.”

Jason Graves (1973) American composer

Interview: The Man Behind the Music - Jason Graves http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2015/05/interview_the_man_behind_the_music_-_jason_graves (May 16, 2015)