Quotable Mathematics

"The dialectician is concerned only with proceeding from propositions which are as acceptable as possible. These are propositions which...

"Hypothesis, however, is an inference based on knowledge which is insufficient to prove its high probability." (Frederick L Barry,...

"Events are independent when the happening of any one of them does neither increase nor abate the probability of the rest." (Thoma...

"The actual science of logic is conversant at present only with things either certain, impossible, or entirely doubtful, none of which ...

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.” (Sir Arthur C Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”, 1...

"Probability is the very guide of life." (Marcus Tullius Cicero, "De Natura Deorum" ["On the Nature of the Gods...

"All this, though, is to miss the point of gambling, which is to accept the imbalance of chance in general yet deny it for the here and...

"In the laws of probability theory, likelihood distributions are fixed properties of a hypothesis. In the art of rationality, to explai...

"Of course, we know the laws of trial and error, of large numbers and probabilities. We know that these laws are part of the mathematic...

"A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'poi...

"The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular." (Edward Gibbon, "Memoirs of My Life", 1774) ...

"Arithmetic and number theory study patterns of number and counting. Geometry studies patterns of shape. Calculus allows us to handle p...

"The theory of probability is the only mathematical tool available to help map the unknown and the uncontrollable. It is fortunate that...

"Historically, the original purpose of the theory of probability was to describe the exceedingly narrow domain of experience connected ...

"I am convinced that it is impossible to expound the methods of induction in a sound manner, without resting them on the theory of prob...

"We must rather seek for a cause, for every event whether probable or improbable must have some cause." (Polybius, "The H...

"By its very nature a model cannot include all the details of the reality it seeks to represent, for then it would be just as hard ...