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
“Out of all the stories people tell about Savannah, the one that truly embodies the spirit of the place is this: Sometime around 1800 a fire broke out during a Christmas party at the home of Josiah Tattnall. By the time the servants discovered the fire, Josiah realized it was too late to save the house, so he took his guests outside to continue the party by the fire’s glow. To me, the moral is that even though life will take the things and the people you love from you, you should never, ever stop celebrating that you are alive. Josiah’s guests toasted life and each other and shattered their glasses against a large tree to show that they planned to move on and not hold on to a past that was gone.”
― J.D. Horn, quote from The Source
“Caroline, or Sister Carrie, as she had been half affectionately termed by the family, was possessed of a mind rudimentary in its power of observation and analysis. Self-interest with her was high, but not strong. It was, nevertheless, her guiding characteristic. Warm with the fancies of youth, pretty with the insipid prettiness of the formative period, possessed of a figure promising eventual shapeliness and an eye alight with certain native intelligence, she was a fair example of the middle American class—two generations removed from the emigrant. Books were beyond her interest—knowledge a sealed book. In the intuitive graces she was still crude. She could scarcely toss her head gracefully. Her hands were almost ineffectual. The feet, though small, were set flatly. And yet she was interested in her charms, quick to understand the keener pleasures of life, ambitious to gain in material things. A half-equipped little knight she was, venturing to reconnoitre the mysterious city and dreaming wild dreams of some vague, far-off supremacy, which should make it prey and subject—the proper penitent, grovelling at a woman's slipper.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from Sister Carry
“He felt certain that he was a failure, every artistic endeavor ending with his own surprise at how little had come from it. Perhaps that was how life worked, the expectation of success after each failure the engine that kept the world turning. Perhaps retrogression was an artistic endeavor in itself. Perhaps he might sink so far that he would find himself, somehow, returned to the surface.”
― Kevin Wilson, quote from The Family Fang
“See, Cameron. The only things I care about in this life are me, you, Mum, Dad, Steve and Sarah. And maybe Miffy. The rest of the world means nothing to me. The rest of the world can rot.'
Am I like that too?'
You? No way.' There's a slight gap in his words. 'And that's your problem. You care about everything.'
He's right.
I do.”
― Markus Zusak, quote from Fighting Ruben Wolfe
“Whatever you do or dream you can do—begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from Deep Blue
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