Quotes about explanation
page 7

John D. Barrow photo

“Ultimate explanation no longer means only a story that encompasses everything.”

John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist

New Theories of Everything (2007), Ch. 1, p. 6

Sallustius photo

“May these explanations of the myths find favour in the eyes of the Gods themselves and the souls of those who wrote the myths.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

IV. That the species of myth are five, with examples of each.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

Karl Pearson photo
Karl Pearson photo

“The holding of a myth explanation of any problem whereon mankind has attained true knowledge is what I term enslaved thought or dogmatism.”

Karl Pearson (1857–1936) English mathematician and biometrician

The Ethic of Freethought (Mar 6, 1883)

Jacques Ellul photo
Alan Watts photo
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar photo
Jack Vance photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“How sincere and confidential we can be, saying all that lies in the mind, and yet go away feeling that all is yet unsaid, from the incapacity of the parties to know each other, although they use the same words! My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation until all is said which words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption. Is it that every man believes every other to be an incurable partialist, and himself a universalist? I talked yesterday with a pair of philosophers; I endeavored to show my good men that I love everything by turns and nothing long; that I loved the centre, but doated on the superficies; that I loved man, if men seemed to me mice and rats; that I revered saints, but woke up glad that the old pagan world stood its ground and died hard; that I was glad of men of every gift and nobility, but would not live in their arms. Could they but once understand that I loved to know that they existed, and heartily wished them God-speed, yet, out of my poverty of life and thought, had no word or welcome for them when they came to see me, and could well consent to their living in Oregon, for any claim I felt on them, — it would be a great satisfaction.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“I think that’s unfair, Doctor. You certainly don’t expect a man to believe in things that run contrary to his good sense without offering him any reasonable explanation.”

Frost snorted. “I certainly do—if he has observed it with his own eyes and ears, or gets it from a source known to be credible. A fact doesn’t have to be understood to be true. Sure, any reasonable mind wants explanations, but it’s silly to reject facts that don’t fit your philosophy.”
Elsewhen (pp. 161-162)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

William Quan Judge photo
William Quan Judge photo
Charles Webster Leadbeater photo
Fidel Castro photo

“Marxism-Leninism is an explanation of historical events; Marxism-Leninism is a guide for action, Marxism-Leninism is the ideology of the proletariat, which must guide, make its action conscious to overthrow exploiters, to establish a classless society.”

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

Speech (2 December 1971) http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1971/esp/f021271e.html

Fidel Castro photo

“Marxism-Leninism is the ideology of the working class, the most complete political doctrine, the most accurate explanation of social and historical problems.”

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

Speech (7 June 1972) http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1972/esp/f070672e.html

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Elizabeth Warren photo

“For years, when I was the culture editor at Indian Country Today Media Network, we requested interviews with Warren, but not once did she accept our numerous invitations for comment or explanation regarding her alleged ancestry. She simply ignored us.”

Elizabeth Warren (1949) 28th United States Senator from Massachusetts

Simon Moya-Smith, I am a Native American. I have some questions for Elizabeth Warren https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/15/opinions/elizabeth-warren-native-heritage-where-has-she-been-moya-smith/index.html, CNN.com, October 15, 2018

“I have tried to find some explanation that does not rely on logic, but once the borders of rationality have been removed I cannot imagine what should take their place. How does one begin to measure? What standards should one apply?”

Sean Russell (1952) author

The prince understood what she meant. Once reason was no longer your guide, you were like a man stranded in a featureless landscape. There were no landmarks to use. One direction was as likely to yield results as any other.
Source: Sea Without a Shore (1996), Chapter 26 (p. 353)

Clinton Edgar Woods photo
Hillel the Elder photo

“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation. Go and study it.”

Hillel the Elder (-112–9 BC) Mishnah rabbi

<span lang="arc" dir="rtl">דעלך סני לחברך לא תעביד. זו היא כל התורה כולה, ואידך פירושה הוא: זיל גמור</span>
D'`alakh s'nai l'khavrekh la ta`avaid. Zo hi kol hatora kulahh, ve'idakh perusha hu: zil g'mor
Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat 31a

Roger Federer photo

“The metaphysical explanation is that Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

David Foster Wallace, author in 2006 article in the New York Times titled Federer as Religious Experience http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?pagewanted=all

Richard Dawkins photo
Jamelle Bouie photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Richard Dawkins photo

“To an atheist […], there is no all-seeing all-loving god to keep us free from harm. But atheism is not a recipe for despair. I think the opposite. By disclaiming the idea of the next life, we can take more excitement in this one. The here and now is not something to be endured before eternal bliss or damnation. The here and now is all we have, an inspiration to make the most of it. So atheism is life-affirming, in a way religion can never be. Look around you. Nature demands our attention, begs us to explore, to question. Religion can provide only facile, ultimately unsatisfying answers. Science, in constantly seeking real explanations, reveals the true majesty of our world in all its complexity. People sometimes say "There must be more than just this world, than just this life."”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

But how much more do you want? We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they’re never going to be born. The number of people who could be here, in my place, outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. If you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here, the number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist. We are privileged to be alive and we should make the most of our time on this world.
End of the part 2: "The Virus of Faith" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMUG6qd98wc
The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

David Pearce (philosopher) photo
Narendra Modi photo

“I won’t bother to offer explanations because the media is determined to distort all I say.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

quoted in Madhu Purnima Kishwar: Modi, Muslims and Media. Voices from Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, Manushi Publications, Delhi 2014.
2014

Julia Gillard photo
Sara Ahmed photo
Henry Cavendish photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Salman Aziz photo

“People change just in a blink! You won’t get any explanation for that. They change in front of your eyes or behind of your eyes. Just they change unconditionally.”

Salman Aziz (1993) Bangladeshi independent author and artist

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8897537-people-change-just-in-a-blink-you-won-t-get-any

George W. Bush photo

“I come without explanations or solutions. I can only tell you what I’ve seen.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2020's, Speech during a 9/11 commemoration at the Flight 93 National Memorial

Neal Stephenson photo
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
Michael J. Behe photo

“If a theory claims to be able to explain some phenomenon, but does not generate even an attempt at an explanation, then it should be banished.”

Michael J. Behe (1952) American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate

Source: Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996), p. 186

Tara Westover photo