Quotes about Proof

When people refuse to see proof, they think their belief helps them so much that losing it will cost more, then they gain from a perhaps more truthfull story.
I can tell you it is not, but one will never see that when in doubt.

And basicly, our choices of what to believe in life, makes our life the way it is now. We are shaped by the beliefs we choose to carry.

I have no proof for any proof.

And yes, any belief can be justified.
But that is why we call it belief, it isn't bound to proof.

Once, long ago, she'd allowed herself to think seriously about what human beings would do, confronted directly with a sign of God's presence in their lives.  The Bible, that repository of Western wisdom, was instructive either as myth or as history, she'd decided.  God was at Sinai and within weeks, people were dancing in front of a golden calf.  God walked in Jerusalem and days later, folks nailed Him up and then went back to work.  Faced with the Divine, people took refuge in the banal, as though answering a cosmic multiple-choice question:  If you saw a burning bush, would you (a) call 911, (b) get the hot dogs, or (c) recognize God?  A vanishingly small number of people would recognize God, Anne had decided years before, and most of them had simply missed a dose of Thorazine.

Just because your idea is now generating revenue isn’t everlasting proof that you will always be right.

Even an atheist finds God when they point at what they don't believe in.

The Extreme Leader is a generator, a powerful force for action, for progress, and an enthusiastic believer in people and in their capacity to do the awesome.

I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic.

Where music dwells Lingering and wandering on as loth to die, Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality.

Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!

'Tis a common proof, That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend.

FIRST CITIZEN: Come, come, we fear the worst; all shall be well. THIRD CITIZEN: When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks; When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand; When the sun sets, who doth not look for night? Untimely storms make men expect a dearth. All my be well; but if God sort it so. 'Tis more than we deserve, or I expect. SECOND CITIZEN: Truly, the souls of men are full of dread; Ye cannot reason almost with a man That looks not heavily and full of fear. THIRD CITIZEN: Before the times of change, still is it so: By a divine instinct men's minds distrust Ensuing dangers; as, by proof, we see The waters swell before a boisterous storm.

The man who is worthy of being "a leader of men" will never complain about the stupidity of his helpers, the ingratitude of mankind nor the inappreciation of the public. These are all a part of the great game of life. To meet them and overcome them and not to go down before them in disgust, discouragement or defeat-that is the final proof of power.

"[T]hough we must hold to our faith in the evolution of species, there is little evidence as to how it has come about, and no clear proof that the process is continuing in any considerable degree at the present time."

Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.

In the bottom of an old pond lived some grubs who could not understand why none of their groups ever came back after crawling up the stem of the lilies to the top of the water. They promised each other that the next one who was called to make the upward climb would return and tell what happened to him. Soon one of them felt an urgent impulse to seek the surface; he rested himself on top of a lily pad and went through a glorious transformation which made him a dragonfly with beautiful wings. In vain he tried to keep him promise. Flying back and forth over the pond, he peered down at his friends below. Then he realized that if they could ever see him they would not recognize such a radiant creature as one of their number. The fact that we cannot see our friends or communicate with them after the transformation, which we call death. is no proof that they cease to exit.

Those needing proof refuse to see it.

The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose one's own way.

Man is a peculiar creature. He spends a fortune making his home insect-proof and air-conditioned, and then eats in the yard.

Programming today is a race between software engineers stirring to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.

If you believe in something, no proof is necessary. If you don't, none is sufficient.

Proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.

Freedom always carries a burden of proof, always throws us back on ourselves.

It is proof of a bad cause when it is appluaded by the mob.

Women are cursed, and men are the proof.

It wouild be very discouraging if somewhere down the line you could ask a computer if the Riemann hypothesis is correct and it said, 'Yes, it is true, but you won't be able to understand the proof.' John Horgan. Scientific American 269:4 (October 1993) 92-103.

Philosophical argument, trying to get someone to believe something whether he wants to believe it or not, is not, I have held, a nice way to behave towards someone; also it does not fit the original motivation for studying or entering philosophy. That motivation is puzzlement, curiousity, a desire to understand, not a desire to produce uniformity of belief. Most people do not want to become thought-police. The philosophical goal of explanation rather than proof not only is morally better, it is more in accord with one's philosophical motivation.

If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes Will keep my talk from getting overwise, I'm not the one for putting off the proof. Let it be overwhelming.

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idoits. So far, the Universe is winning.