E.T. Jaynes · 753 pages
Rating: (427 votes)
“A paradox is simply an error out of control; i.e. one that has trapped so many unwary minds that it has gone public, become institutionalized in our literature, and taught as truth.”
― E.T. Jaynes, quote from Probability Theory: The Logic of Science
“if fallacious reasoning always led to absurd conclusions, it would be found out at once and corrected. But once an easy, shortcut mode of reasoning has led to a few correct results, almost everybody accepts it; those who try to warn against it are not listened to.”
― E.T. Jaynes, quote from Probability Theory: The Logic of Science
“something which is absurd or logically contradictory, but which appears at first glance to be the result of sound reasoning.”
― E.T. Jaynes, quote from Probability Theory: The Logic of Science
“Not only in probability theory, but in all mathematics, it is the careless use of infinite sets, and of infinite and infinitesimal quantities, that generates most paradoxes.”
― E.T. Jaynes, quote from Probability Theory: The Logic of Science
“passage to a limit should always be the last operation, not the first.”
― E.T. Jaynes, quote from Probability Theory: The Logic of Science
“The most important question for every client is "W X ho are you?" I'm not as interested in an answer as I am in teaching a process that the girl can use for the rest of her life. The process involves looking within to find a true core of self, acknowledging unique gifts, accepting all feelings, not just the socially acceptable ones, and making deep and firm decisions about values and meaning. The process includes knowing the difference between thinking and feeling, between immediate gratification and long-term goals, and between her own voice and the voices of others. The process includes discovering the personal impact of our cultural rules for women. It includes discussion about breaking those rules and formulating new, healthy guidelines for the self. The process teaches girls to chart a course based on the dictates of their true selves. The process is nonlinear, arduous, and discouraging. It is also joyful, creative and full of surprises.”
― quote from Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
“I was not living but actively dying.”
― Augusten Burroughs, quote from Possible Side Effects
“If you walk east at daybreak from the town
To the cliff’s foot, by climbing steadily
You cling at noon whence there is no way down
But to go toppling backward to the sea.
And not for birds nor birds’ eggs, so they say,
But for a flower that in these fissures grows,
Forms have been seen to move throughout the day
Skyward; but what its name is no one knows.
’Tis said you find beside them on the sand
This flower, relinquished by the broken hand.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, quote from Collected Poems
“Think of the billions of trillions of snowflakes, and the billions of trillions of hydrogen and oxygen molecules in every single one of them. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, who wrote the laws for the wind and the rain, the snow and the dew? I’ve tried to work it out, but it makes my head spin.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Love and magic are like oil and water--they just don't mix.”
― Jasper Fforde, quote from The Last Dragonslayer
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