Out of Context: On Facts (Definitions)

"While those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations." (Aristotle, "De Caelo" ["On the Heavens"], cca. 350 BC)

" By observation, facts are distinctly and minutely impressed on the mind. By analogy, similar facts are connected. By experiment, new facts are discovered [...]" (Sir Humphry Davy, "Elements of Chemical Philosophy" Vol. 4, 1812)

"Facts are the mere dross of history. " (Thomas B Macaulay, "History", 1828)

"Facts are not much use, considered as facts." (Oliver Heaviside, "Electromagnetic Theory", 1893)

"Facts are carpet-tacks under the pneumatic tires of theory." (Austin O’Malley, "Keystones of Thought", 1918)

"Obvious facts are apt to be over-rated." (George Iles, "Canadian Stories", 1918)

"We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest." (Alfred N Whitehead, "The Concept of Nature", 1919)

"[…] facts are too bulky to be lugged about conveniently except on the wheels of theory." (Julian Huxley, "Essays of a Biologist", 1929)

"If our so-called facts are changing shadows, they are shadows cast by the light of constant truth." (Sir Arthur S Eddington, "Science and the Unseen World", 1929)

"Facts are the raw material of science - the bricks from which our model of the universe must be built - and we are rightly taught to search for sound and solid facts, for strong and heavy bricks that will serve us well in building foundations, for clean and polished bricks that will fi t neatly into ornamental towers. " (Marston Bates, "The Natural History of Mosquitoes", 1949)

"Facts are to the scientist what words are to the poet." (Isidor Isaac Rabi, "Faith in Science", Atlantic Monthly , Vol. 187, 1951)

"No theory ever agrees with all the facts in its domain, yet it is not always the theory that is to blame. Facts are constituted by older ideologies, and a clash between facts and theories may be proof of progress." (Paul K Feyerabend, "Against Method", 1978)

"Facts are not pure and unsullied bits of information; culture also influences what we see and how we see it." (Stephen J Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man", 1980)

"Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data." (Stephen J Gould "Evolution as Fact and Theory", 1981)

"Mathematical facts are not isolated, they are woven into a vast spider's web of interconnections." (Gregory Chaitin "Meta Math: The Quest for Omega", 2005) 

"A fact is not novel if it has an analogue which could have some interest. A fact which does not fit in with a series of known facts is a fact which deserves particular attention." (Joseph L Gay-Lussac)

"By observation, facts are distinctly and minutely impressed in the mind; by analogy, similar facts are connected ; by experiment, new facts are discovered ; and, in the progression of knowledge, observation, guided by analogy, leads to experiment, and analogy, confirmed by experiment, becomes scientific truth." (Sir Humphry Davy)

"Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable." (Mark Twain)