We need useless theory more than ever today.
Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher.
I’m a student of patterns. At heart, I’m a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything.
Often GOP political strategy seems like the human wave theory of the Chinese military translated to politics. Where Beijing uses masses of soldiers to overwhelm their adversaries, the GOP uses huge campaign budgets as a substitute for strategy, thought or issues.
My theory about Taylor Swift is that she's a virgin, that everyone breaks up with her because they date her for two weeks and she's like, 'I'm not gonna do it'.
If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make reality the basis of our philosophy? But we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory. It makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of a theory.
Finally I got to carbon, and as you all know, in the case of carbon the reaction works out beautifully. One goes through six reactions, and at the end one comes back to carbon. In the process one has made four hydrogen atoms into one of helium. The theory, of course, was not made on the railway train from Washington to Ithaca. . . It didn't take very long, it took about six weeks, but not even the Trans-Siberian railroad [has] taken that long for its journey.
Has not the experience of two centuries shown that gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice? Is there an instance, in the history of the world, where slaves have been educated for freedom by their task-masters?
One of the big take-aways from a lot of economic theory is that people should engage in consumption smoothing.
I started working and publishing in price theory by 1938.
If the evidence says you're wrong, you don't have the right theory. You change the theory, not the evidence.
All data are filtered, observation is necessarily 'theory-laden'.
The profit orientation is only one orientation of a person. The same people who are interested in profit-making are also selfless. I am not saying that capitalist theory is wrong. I am saying that it has not been interpreted and practiced fully.
Never miss a joy in this world of trouble-that's my theory!. . . . Happiness, like mercy,is twice blest: it blesses those most intimately associated with it and it blesses all those who see it, hear it, touch it or breathe the same atmosphere.
I used to say: "Everything is Representation Theory". Now I say: "Nothing is Representation Theory".
The best theory is inspired by practice.
Theory is needed to tell you where to look.
Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities- that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration.
What would it mean if there were a theory that explained everything? And just what does "everything" actually mean, anyway? Would this new theory in physics explain, say the meaning of human poetry? Or how economics work? Or the stages of psychosexual development? Can this new physics explain the currents of ecosystems, or the dynamics of history, or why human wars are so terribly common?
And capital punishment, however ineffective it may be and through whatever ignorance it may be resorted to, is a strictly defensive act, - at least in theory.