William Kingdon Clifford - Quotations

Quotations

  • "I ... hold that in the physical world nothing else takes place but this variation ." Mathematical Papers.
  • "There is no scientific discoverer, no poet, no painter, no musician, who will not tell you that he found ready made his discovery or poem or picture – that it came to him from outside, and that he did not consciously create it from within." (From a lecture to the Royal Institution titled "Some of the conditions of mental development")
  • "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." The Ethics of Belief (1879)
  • "I was not, and was conceived. I loved and did a little work. I am not and grieve not." - epitaph.
  • "If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it -- the life of that man is one long sin against mankind." - Contemporary Review (1877)

Read more about this topic:  William Kingdon Clifford

Famous quotes containing the word quotations:

    Reading any collection of a man’s quotations is like eating the ingredients that go into a stew instead of cooking them together in the pot. You eat all the carrots, then all the potatoes, then the meat. You won’t go away hungry, but it’s not quite satisfying. Only a biography, or autobiography, gives you the hot meal.
    Christopher Buckley, U.S. author. A review of three books of quotations from Newt Gingrich. “Newtie’s Greatest Hits,” The New York Times Book Review (March 12, 1995)

    A book that furnishes no quotations is, me judice, no book—it is a plaything.
    Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866)