"Probability is likeliness to be true, the very notation of the word signifying such a proposition, for which there be arguments or proofs to make it pass, or be received for true. […] The grounds of probability are two: conformity with our own experience, or the testimony of others' experience. Probability then, being to supply the defect of our knowledge and to guide us where that fails, is always conversant about propositions whereof we have no certainty, but only some inducements to receive them for true." (John Locke, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding", 1689)
"The rule is derived inductively from experience, therefore does not have any inner necessity, is always valid only for special cases and can anytime be refuted by opposite facts. On the contrary, the law is a logical relation between conceptual constructions; it is therefore deductible from upper laws and enables the derivation of lower laws; it has as such a logical necessity in concordance with its upper premises; it is not a mere statement of probability, but has a compelling, apodictic logical value once its premises are accepted."(Ludwig von Bertalanffy, "Kritische Theorie der Formbildung", 1928)
"[Statistics] is both a science and an art. It is a science in that its methods are basically systematic and have general application; and an art in that their successful application depends to a considerable degree on the skill and special experience of the statistician, and on his knowledge of the field of application, e.g. economics." (Leonard H C Tippett, "Statistics", 1943)
"Historically, the original purpose of the theory of probability was to describe the exceedingly narrow domain of experience connected with games of chance, and the main effort was directed to the calculation of certain probabilities." (William Feller, "An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications", 1950)
"The painful experience of many gamblers has taught us the lesson that no system of betting is successful in improving the gambler's chances. If the theory of probability is true to life, this experience must correspond to a provable statement." (William Feller, "An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications", 1950)
"In a sense, of course, probability theory in the form of the simple laws of chance is the key to the analysis of warfare; […] My own experience of actual operational research work, has however, shown that its is generally possible to avoid using anything more sophisticated. […] In fact the wise operational research worker attempts to concentrate his efforts in finding results which are so obvious as not to need elaborate statistical methods to demonstrate their truth. In this sense advanced probability theory is something one has to know about in order to avoid having to use it." (Patrick M S Blackett, "Operations Research", Physics Today, 1951)
"Statistics is the name for that science and art which deals with uncertain inferences - which uses numbers to find out something about nature and experience." (Warren Weaver, 1952)
"We can never achieve absolute truth but we can live hopefully by a system of calculated probabilities. The law of probability gives to natural and human sciences - to human experience as a whole - the unity of life we seek." (Agnes E Meyer, "Education for a New Morality", 1957)
"[...] in probability theory we are faced with situations in which our intuition or some physical experiments we have carried out suggest certain results. Intuition and experience lead us to an assignment of probabilities to events. As far as the mathematics is concerned, any assignment of probabilities will do, subject to the rules of mathematical consistency." (Robert Ash, "Basic probability theory", 1970)
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