"The best reaction to a paradox is to invent a genuinely new and deep idea. (Ian Hacking, "An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic", 2001)
"The brain highlights what it imagines as patterns; it disregards contradictory information. Human nature yearns to see order and hierarchy in the world. It will invent it where it cannot find it." (Benoît Mandelbrot, "The (Mis)Behavior of Markets", 2004)
"Metaphorizing is a manner of thinking, not a property of thinking. It is a capacity of thought, not its quality. It represents a mental operation by which a previously existing entity is described in the characteristics of another one on the basis of some similarity or by reasoning. When we say that something is (like) something else, we have already performed a mental operation. This operation includes elements such as comparison, paralleling and shaping of the new image by ignoring its less satisfactory traits in order that this image obtains an aesthetic value. By this process, for an instant we invent a device, which serves as the pole vault for the comparison’s jump. Once the jump is made the pole vault is removed. This device could be a lightning-speed logical syllogism, or a momentary created term, which successfully merges the traits of the compared objects." (Ivan Mladenov, “Conceptualizing Metaphors: On Charles Peirce’s marginalia”, 2006)
"The strength of a theory is not what it allows, but what it prohibits; if you can invent an equally persuasive explanation for any outcome, you have zero knowledge." (Eliezer Yudkowsky, "An Alien God", 2007)
"We didn't invent nature. Nature invented us. Nature bats last, the saying goes, but, even more importantly, it's her playing field. We would be wise to learn the ground rules and play by them." (Kenny Ausubel, [speech at Bioneers Conference, 2003)
"Scientists often invent words to fill the holes in their understanding. These words are meant as conveniences until real understanding can be found. […] Words such as dimension and field and infinity […] are not descriptions of reality, yet we accept them as such because everyone is sure someone else knows what the words mean." (Scott Adams, "God's Debris: A Thought Experiment", 2004)
"The urge to discover, to invent, to know the unknown, seems so deeply human that we cannot imagine our history without it." (Alan Lightman, "The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th-Century Science, Including the Original Papers", 2009)
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