Been Tested Quotes & Sayings

The Theatre of the Absurd ... can be seen as the reflection of what seems to be the attitude most genuinely representative of our own time. The hallmark of this attitude is its sense that the certitudes and unshakable basic assumptions of former ages have been swept away, that they have been tested and found wanting, that they have been discredited as cheap and somewhat childish illusions. — Martin Esslin

A program that has not been tested does not work. — Bjarne Stroustrup

A caregiver is changed by the culture of illness, just as one is changed by the dynamic era in which one lives. For one thing, I don't have as much time in conversation with myself, and I feel the loss. Certainly I worry more about his death, and mine too, since I;m so much a part of the evolving saga of his health, which I have to monitor every day. But I've grown stronger in every aspect of my life. In small ways: speaking more directly with people. In large ways: discovering I can handle adversity and potential loss and yet keep going. I've a better idea of my strength. I feel like I've been tested, like a willow whipped around violently in a hurricane, but still stranding, its roots strong enough to hold. [p. 301] — Diane Ackerman

It felt right, seeing them joined as a mated couple. A partnership that had been tested more than most, and hard-won. Lucan — Lara Adrian

You've been tested.' He advised me to try and 'forgive and pardon, and this way seek to become beloved by God' without my forgiveness being tied to the one who wronged me. 'This is the Divine remedy,' he emphasised, 'remind your ego when it resists. Don't you love for God to forgive you on the day, too?'

Reflecting on what the Shaykh said, his advice undid a knot in my heart and I resolved to work on my forgiveness purely for the sake of God. The Shaykh also recommended: 'Be careful about what you pray for in the future.' He promised to pray for me personally, asking God to send me a Muslim husband who would value and cherish me for who I am. Insha' Allah! — Kristiane Backer

There is no justifiable prediction about how the hypothesis will hold up in the future; its degree of corroboration simply is a historical statement describing how severely the hypothesis has been tested in the past. — Robert Nozick

I was raised with those principals and values and ethics that came out of the men and women that served. But this generation doesn't quite know; they haven't been tested. — Jack Scalia

No amount of enthusiasm will ever stand up to the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His servant. Only one thing will bear the strain, and that is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ Himself - a relationship that has been examined, purified, and tested until only one purpose remains and I can truly say, "I am here for God to send me where He will." Everything else may become blurred, but this relationship with Jesus Christ must never be. — Oswald Chambers

The challenge lies in knowing how to bring this sort of day to a close. His mind has been wound to a pitch of concentration by the interactions of the office. Now there are only silence and the flashing of the unset clock on the microwave. He feels as if he had been playing a computer game which remorselessly tested his reflexes, only to have its plug suddenly pulled from the wall. He is impatient and restless, but simultaneously exhausted and fragile. He is in no state to engage with anything significant. It is of course impossible to read, for a sincere book would demand not only time, but also a clear emotional lawn around the text in which associations and anxieties could emerge and be disentangled. He will perhaps only ever do one thing well in his life.
For this particular combination of tiredness and nervous energy, the sole workable solution is wine. Office civilisation could not be feasible without the hard take-offs and landings effected by coffee and alcohol. — Alain De Botton

Internet trolling wasn't just a symptom, it was a canary. Trolls tested the boundaries of how far society would allow racism, misogyny, and transphobia to be normalized. Would anyone do anything? Would anyone take action? Would anyone powerful take this seriously? The answer turned out to be no. Those of us on the receiving end begged for help, and were told to grow a thicker skin, because the Internet "isn't real life." Until, surprise, the Internet became president, and we as a society were so inured to hate speech - our boundaries had been so thoroughly obliterated and "political correctness" so stigmatized - that we had no defense. There — Lindy West

Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a company is not allowed to provide a personal benefit to a decision maker in return for business. But hiring the sons and daughters of powerful executives and politicians is hardly just the province of banks doing business in China: it has been a time-tested practice here in the United States. — Andrew Ross Sorkin

There was no faith greater than that that had been tested and survived.
-Shahara's thoughts — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Truly it has been said that there is nothing new under the sun,
for knowledge is revealed and is submerged again, even as a nation rises and falls.
Here is a system, tested throughout the ages, but lost again and again by ignorance or prejudice,
in the same way that great nations have risen and fallen
and been lost to history beneath the desert sands and in the ocean depths. — Paracelsus

Many look back to the Israelites, and marvel at their unbelief and murmuring, feeling that they themselves would not have been so ungrateful; but when their faith is tested, even by little trials, they manifest no more faith or patience than did ancient Israel. When brought into strait places, they murmur at the process by which God has chosen to purify them. Though their present needs are supplied, many are unwilling to trust God for the future, and they are in constant anxiety lest poverty shall come upon them, and their children shall be left to suffer. Some are always anticipating evil or magnifying the difficulties that really exist, so that their eyes are blinded to the many blessings which demand their gratitude. The obstacles they encounter, [294] instead of leading them to seek help from God, the only Source of strength, separate them from him, because they awaken unrest and repining. — Ellen G. White

My GOD is a consuming fire and He answers by FIRE! His fire surrounds me and burns inside of me. My faith has been tested in the fire. My faith in Him is unwavering, therefore I shall not be moved. I cannot fail because He will NEVER fail me. — Theresa Pecku-Laryea

The silent horror of Archie's ordeal had been temporarily replaced by the howling, agonising pain of the blood refusing to drain from his penis, the end of which was a deep purple verging on black where Officer Griff had tested how hard it was by using the back of his hand to give it a solid twang. — Dylan Perry

I don't want a knight in shining armor.
I don't want a knight in scuffed armor.
I want his helmet to have dents. I want my knight to be real, and dark and savage. I want my knight to be a survivor. Someone who's been tested and got through his trails. Not some pussy in gleaming metal. — Belle Aurora

American students, we are told, are falling behind in reading and math; on test after test, they score below most European students (at the level of Lithuania), and the solution, rather than seeking to engage their curiosity, has been testing and more testing - a dry and brittle method that produces lackluster results. And so resources are pulled from the "soft" fields that are not being tested. Music teachers are being fired or not replaced; art classes are quietly dropped from the curriculum; history is simplified and moralized, with little expectation that any facts will be learned or retained; and instead of reading short stories, poems and novels, students are invited to read train schedules and EPA reports whose jargon could put even the most committed environmentalist to sleep. — Azar Nafisi

Nitric oxide production by immune cells is one of the key mechanisms that our bodies use to destroy diseased cells. Enhancement of these types of immune responses is seen consistently with many medicinal mushrooms that have been tested by cancer researchers. — Paul Stamets

Faith given back to us after a night of doubt is a stronger thing, and far more valuable to us than faith that has never been tested. — Elizabeth Goudge

The Negro, however, has been tested on an extensive scale. — Ellsworth Huntington

depletion and climate change. For the older generation it's easy to misunderstand the word 'student' or 'graduate': to my contemporaries, at college in the 1980s, it meant somebody engaged in a liberal, academic education, often with hours of free time to dream, protest, play in a rock band or do research. Today's undergraduates have been tested every month of their lives, from kindergarten to high school. They are the measured inputs and outputs of a commercialized global higher education market worth $1.2 trillion a year - excluding the USA. Their free time is minimal: precarious part-time jobs are essential to their existence, so that they are a key part of the modern workforce. Plus they have become a vital asset for the financial system. In 2006, Citigroup alone made $220 million clear profit from its student loan book.2 — Paul Mason

We know ourselves only as far as we've been tested. — Wislawa Szymborska

I'm sorry, 'herbal medicine', "Oh, herbal medicine's been around for thousands of years!" Indeed it has, and then we tested it all, and the stuff that worked became 'medicine'. And the rest of it is just a nice bowl of soup and some potpourri, so knock yourselves out. — Dara O Briain

I have been tested. My faith has been tested. I have battled breast cancer. I have buried a child. Through it all, the love of my family and my personal relationship with Jesus Christ has seen me through. And on this journey my family and my faith will see me through as well. I will not falter, and I will not shrink from this fight. — Carly Fiorina

If any remedy is tested under controlled scientific conditions and proved to be effective, it will cease to be alternative and will simply become medicine. So-called alternative medicine either hasn't been tested or it has failed its tests. — Richard Dawkins

Be careful that you do not turn to iniquity, for that is why you have been tested by H affliction. — Anonymous

Why, then, do I continue to claim that creationism isn't science? Simply because these relatively few statements have been tested and conclusively refuted. — Stephen Jay Gould

I think educating myself has been huge. I feel like the way it's presented in the media is that if you got to Brazil you're flipping a coin on your health. I don't think it has to be that way. If I were wanting to have a baby right after the Olympics I would take precautions, and then when the Olympics were over I would get tested to make sure I didn't have the virus in me, and then I'd go for it. — Kerri Walsh

I've been tested by fire, and the fire lost. — Ann Richards

During this period the Lord has allowed us to be tested beyond our strength; often 'pressed out of measure, above strength ... that we should not trust in ourselves.' Our faith has grown with the work, and we have proved over and over again that all the testings have been for the purpose of strengthening it. — Rees Howells

And you will spend the rest of your life wondering if I have disciples to avenge me. Hire your tasters, Burbesh. Until the Master of the Sleeps comes for you, you'll never know a taste of anything that has not touched another's lips first. You'll never sleep in a bed that has not been first tossed for vipers. You'll never sit in a chair that has not been tested for poisoned barbs in its cushions. You shall never see a bath drawn for you that you will not at first fear is acid. And you'll never have another dream where my face is not grinning at you from the shadows." -- From "Morality for Alchemists and Thieves — L. Joseph Shosty

If you have ever belonged to such a community, however, you may have discovered that the trouble starts when darkness falls on your life, which can happen in any number of unsurprising ways: you lose your job, your marriage falls apart, your child acts out in some attention getting way, you pray hard for something that does not happen, you begin to doubt some of the things you have been taught about what the Bible says. The first time you speak of these things in a full solar church, you can usually get a hearing. Continue to speak of them and you may be reminded that God will not let you be tested beyond your strength. All that is required of you is to have faith. If you still do not get the message, sooner or later it will be made explicit for you: the darkness is your own fault, because you do not have enough faith. — Barbara Brown Taylor

But you said you did not love our father. How can you have faith in him if you didn't love him?"
"Maybe that's the reason," Adam said slowly, feeling his way. "Maybe if I had loved him I would have been jealous of him. You were. Maybe - maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure - never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself? I can see it pretty clearly. I can see how you loved him and what it did to you. I did not love him. Maybe he loved me. He tested me and hurt me and punished me and finally he sent me out like a sacrifice, maybe to make up for something. But he did not love you, and so he had faith in you. Maybe - why, maybe it's a kind of reverse. — John Steinbeck

In some ways they had come to know themselves better. In this lonely world of ice and emptiness, they had achieved at least a limited kind of contentment. They had been tested and found not wanting. — Alfred Lansing

I've dealt with some tragedy in my life, like losing my brother. That was probably one of the hardest days when I've been tested. But you learn what things are important. You have to prioritize your life with your family, your friends, things you want to accomplish. You've got to get all that stuff in order. — Joe Nemechek

I had been involved in animal welfare groups, but DDAL presented an opportunity to actually create and pass legislation aimed at issues which really matter to so many people. From local spaying and neutering ordinances, to legislation against puppy mills, to standards to prevent animals from being tested for the sake of a new cosmetic, we could - and did - make a difference. — Doris Day

I wonder what either of us knows about love. Our love has never been tested. — Haruki Murakami

And, as for the oil, it is a masterpiece. You'll see.
Before dinner that night, we tested it, dripping it onto slices of bread that had been rubbed with the flesh of tomatoes. It was like eating sunshine. — Peter Mayle

What hadn't been realized in the literature until now is that merely to describe how severely something has been tested in the past itself embodies inductive assumptions, even as a statement about the past. — Robert Nozick

The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti-Rev. Wright or, if Sen. Clinton wins, anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail. This model has already been tested with disastrous results. — Newt Gingrich

Each such answer to the great question, invariably asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, or it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors. — Thomas Huxley

In fact, I've been thinking; lips like that have got to be soft as a rose petal. You wouldn't mind if I tested them out, would ya, sweetheart? — Codi Gary

Some of the most wonderful aspects and consequences of evolution have been discovered only recently. This is in stark contrast to creationism, which offers a static view of the world, one that cannot be challenged or tested with reason. And because it cannot make predictions, it cannot lead to new discoveries, new medicines, or new ways to feed all of us. — Bill Nye

It suddenly occurred to me that the whole notion of this side, of us and them - it was all over. It was no longer the Lord's Crusade. We were no longer fighting to overthrow Satan. We have been tested, I thought to myself, and we have been found wanting. Our faith was corrupted. My comrades and I - we'd become the endless days, days without light. What does that mean, you ask? We were sick and tired of living. At the least provocation, we would spit out, Fuck it, and kill whoever happened to be involved. (2007: 222) — Hwang Sok-yong

Curiosity broke her earlier resolve. "Have you ever been tested?"
"No." He stood behind Sara, holding the camera in front so she could see. "Zoom here," he said, flicking the toggle.
"You could probably-"
"This is macro."
"Will-"
"Super macro." He kept talking over her until she gave up. "Here's where you adjust for color. This is light. Anti-shake. Red-eye." He clicked through the features like a photography instructor.
Sara Finally relented. "Why don't I point and you shoot?"
"All right." His back was stiff, and she could tell that he was irritated.
"I'm sorry I-"
"Please don't apologize."
Sara held his gaze for a few moments longer, wishing she could fix this. There was nothing to say if he wouldn't even let her apologize. — Karin Slaughter

It was great and I had fun that day even though I was so sort of pleased when it was over to get through it. I didn't realize at the time that usually they screen test a number of actresses for the part, but they only tested me. So I think they knew then they wanted me to do it, and I wish they told me because I wouldn't have been so nervous. That was quite funny. — Gemma Arterton

I've been very blessed as far as my faith sustaining me because it's not like I haven't been challenged and I haven't been tested and disappointed. But my faith does really bind me and keep me. — Kim Fields

Immortality Device has been tested and researched by medical researchers all over the world from time to time. They email me and told me what they found. I post their results sometimes on my site. — Alex Chiu

I have been tested. I have beaten breast cancer. I have buried a child. I started as a secretary. I fought my way to the top of corporate America while being called every B word in the book. I fought my way into this election and on to this debate stage while all the political insiders and the pundits told, "it couldn't be done." — Carly Fiorina

A lot has happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war, and it's been tested by recession and all manner of challenges - I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before. — Barack Obama

No doubt it is devastating. One cannot prove anything here, but it is possible to be convinced." "How? By what?" "By the experience of active love. Try to love your neighbors actively and tirelessly. The more you succeed in loving, the more you'll be convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of your soul. And if you reach complete selflessness in the love of your neighbor, then undoubtedly you will believe, and no doubt will even be able to enter your soul. This has been tested. It is certain. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned. — J.K. Rowling

Your lives have always been about the Great Romance, and in the days to come you will understand that like never before. Your love will be tested. Others will join you. Some will leave the circle. Some will die. All of you will suffer. The Horde will hate you because their hearts have been stolen and their eyes have been blinded by the Shataiki. But if you keep your eyes on me until the end ... the lake will seem tame compared to what awaits us. — Ted Dekker

But smart has to have a depth as well as a length. Some smart brushes over a problem. And some smart grinds exceeding slow, like the mills of God, and it grinds fine, and when it comes up with an answer, it has been tested. — Terry Pratchett

I know it is possible not only to restore trust but to actually enhance it. The difficult things that we got through with the important people in our lives can become fertile ground for the growth of enduring trust - trust that is actually stronger because it's been tested and proved through challenge. — Stephen Covey

There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse. — Idries Shah

A vital part of philosophizing is learning to trust one's own intuitivist intelligence, getting one's center of gravity back between one's feet. In our culture-so outer-directed, "objective" or extraverted-this is already heresy. This is self-mastering thinking, centered in what has been well-tested as certainties: autarkia or self-rule. — Kenny Smith

Let me get this straight. The owners are about to shut down baseball when it's more prosperous than it's even been, and the players are the ones who have to get their urine tested? — Ron Darling

All through my life, I have been tested. My will has been tested, my courage has been tested, my strength has been tested. Now my patience and endurance are being tested. — Muhammad Ali

The fact is that astrological beliefs go back at least 2,500 years. Now that should be a sufficiently long time for astrologers to prove their case. They have not proved their case ... It's just simply gibberish. The fact is, there's no theory for it, there are no observational data for it. It's been tested and tested over the centuries. — Richard E. Berendzen

This is the city of dreamers and time and again it's the place where the greatest dream of all, the American dream, has been tested and has triumphed. — Michael Bloomberg

and in time, when yet very young, he became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever having been tested by those events of the sea that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the — Joseph Conrad

He had long been curious at leaders intermittent calls for a return to past values and had tested the notion by trying to build a house from the sky downwards — Steve Aylett

It's your storm, and the future of us all depends on you now. So who are you? Sage, an orphan boy who cares only for himself? Or the undisciplined, rebellious prince your father sent away? Life has tested your resilience and strength and willpower, and you have succeeded in ways nobody ever thought possible. But the storm has never been worse, and it will either destroy you, or define you. When everything is taken from you, can you still stand before us as Jaron, the Ascendant King of Carthya? — Jennifer A. Nielsen

Nothing that is new is ever new twice. While things that are true are still true the next time; truer, in fact, because they have been tested, they have been tasted, and they are always ripe, always ready ... — Orson Scott Card

Trayless cafeterias. Cafeteria managers have been taking a keen interest in reducing food waste. Seeing how easy it is to load up a tray with extra food that often goes uneaten and extra napkins that go unused, curious managers and students at Alfred University in New York tested a trayless policy over two days. When trays weren't offered, food and beverage waste dropped between 30 and 50 percent! — Richard H. Thaler

A stab had clearly once been made at de-uglifying these public spaces by painting a corridor a jaunty yellow. This was because, it turned out, babies come here to have their brains tested and someone thought the yellow might calm them. But I couldn't see how. Such was the oppressive ugliness of this building it would have been like sticking a red nose on a cadaver and calling it Ronald McDonald. — Jon Ronson

A faith that hasn't been tested can't be trusted. — Adrian Rogers

I am in the process of starting a nonprofit organization that gives rescued animals a home in a simulated wild environment and, for those who have been tested on, who are disabled, aggressive, etc., their own space to live out their days. — Casey Affleck

The grace of God has been tested in the crucible of human experience, and has been found to be more than an equal for the problems and sins of humanity. — Billy Graham

You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. — J.K. Rowling

As the years go by those relationships are tested, and only then do you realize their true nature. Only after they've been tested through weddings, moves, funerals, divorces, births and other stages in life are you able to judge them. Until then, 'best friend', 'good guy', etc are only labels. In the end, it's interesting; often surprising to see the results. — Benjamin J. Carey

Margaret herself hadn't known her body was a parish bell tolling at every heartbreak she heard of, and that night with Pete calmly sitting on the edge of her favorite chair, invading her private room with words this room was sealed from, she felt it just as a bell would. It struck her right inside, until her bronze skin rang out the news. Not of Pete's story, which had not even made him cry, but some other story she'd been trying not to tell herself. So she sat stiffly there and wept, clanging and clanging like a thing that tested its own breaking. — Andrew Sean Greer

The next day I was driven down to New York City to take the physical. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. Several hundred young men, maybe even a thousand, in their skivvies, walking around an enormous room, all of us lost, dazed, and confused.
Some of these guys had dodged the draft and were there under the watchful eyes of dozens of federal marshals lined up against one of the walls. After eight hours of being poked, prodded, stuck, and poked again, I was given a large red envelope. I had been rejected. I had the respiratory problems of an old man, high blood pressure, partial loss of hearing, very bad teeth, very flat, very wide feet and I tested positive for tuberculosis.
"Frankly," the doctor said, "I don't know how the hell you're even standing up," and that was when the sergeant told me that if they bottled everything that was wrong with me "we could take over the world without a shot. — John William Tuohy

I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything. I have not broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic. I have been tested as recently as 2004, and I am clean. — Sammy Sosa

How could I understand my weaknesses if my strength had not been tested? — Jennifer Beckstrand

I have always been, am, and propose to remain a mere scholar. All that I have ever proposed to myself is to say, this and this I have learned; thus and thus have I learned it; go thou and learn better; but do not thrust on my shoulders the responsibility for your own laziness if you elect to take, on my authority, conclusions the value of which you ought to have tested for yourself. — Thomas Huxley

I love what's left after love has been tested. — Stephen Dunn

My grandfather was Jacques Cousteau, a pioneer of ocean exploration and the co-inventor of scuba diving. Back in the 1940s when he tested out his invention which allowed humans to swim freely in the ocean with a portable air source for the first time in history, very little of the ocean had been explored let alone captured on film. — Philippe Cousteau Jr.

People had been working for so many years to make the world a safe, organized place. nobody realized how boring it would become. with the whole world property-lined and speed-limited and zoned and taxed and regulated, with everyone tested and registered and addressed and recorded. nobody had left much room for adventure, except maybe the kind you could buy. on a roller coaster. at a movie. still, it would always be that kind of faux excitement. you know the dinosaurs aren't going to eat the kids. the test audiences have outvoted any chance of even a major faux disaster. and because there's no possibility of real disaster, real risk, we're left with no chance for real salvation. real elation. real excitement. Joy. Discovery. Invention.
the laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom.
without access to true chaos, we'll never have true peace. — Chuck Palahniuk

America is moving forward and gaining strength. We have been tested, and we have proven ourselves to be a tough, resilient and resourceful nation. — Bill Frist

Some people say you can get hepatitis if you do coke with ones because they've been handled so much. But I tested that theory out for about a year, and I decided it's bullshit. — The Rev

But it's high school. It's not real love, or at least you can't be sure it's real love. Real love is messy and complicated and brutal. It's been tested. Zik and Michelle have never been tested by anything mroe than being separated by a couple of classes. — Barry Lyga

Almost all the world is natural chemicals, so it really makes you re-think everything. A cup of coffee is filled with chemicals. They've identified a thousand chemicals in a cup of coffee. But we only found 22 that have been tested in animal cancer tests out of this thousand. And of those, 17 are carcinogens. There are ten milligrams of known carcinogens in a cup of coffee and thats more carcinogens than you're likely to get from pesticide residues for a year! — Bruce Ames

It is not so important, what happens to the body. I have led in some ways a blessed life. God has been good and not tested me. Now he does I cannot fail me. I have been vigilant over my heart, and I have not always liked what I have found there. If it comes into the hands of the hangman at the last, so be it. It will be in God's hands soon enough. — Hilary Mantel

you know that a soldier is the most holy of all humans because he is the most tested - most tested of all. I'll try to tell you. Look now - in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man — John Steinbeck

The future is not Big Government. Self-serving politicians. Powerful bureaucrats. This has been tried, tested throughout history. The result has always been disaster. President Obama, your agenda is not new. It's not change, and it's not hope. — Rush Limbaugh

Well, I guess I'm just not as special as you are. (Urian)
No one knows their true mettle until it's been tested. This is yours. Whether you pass or fail is entirely up to you. I can't tell you what to do, but I know where I'll be tonight. (Acheron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Much early alchemy seems to have been adventure. You heated and mixed and burnt and pounded and to see what would happen. An adventure might suggest an hypothesis that can subsequently be tested, but adventure is prior to theory. — Ian Hacking

Unfortunately, psychologists know much less about how the environment influences a person's personality than is commonly assumed. People often talk as if the environmental effects had been well understood for decades, and the new discovery was that there were genetic effects too. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The area of environmental influences on personality is a morass of unsupported or poorly tested ideas, and, ironically, it is behaviour geneticists who have brought the most progress to the field. The irony is that behaviour genetics was founded in order to discover heritable influences on human behaviour. The methods such studies use, however, also allow us to identify non-genetic influences, and say quite a lot about them. — Daniel Nettle

We're always attracted to characters who are people we could identify with and yet are put through incredibly tortured or difficult circumstances - the idea being that you don't really know who you are until you've been tested or suffered in some way. — Erich Hoeber

My writer friends, and they are legion, do not go around beaming with quiet feelings of contentment. Most of them go around with haunted, abused, surprised looks on their faces, like lab dogs on whom very personal deodorant sprays have been tested. — Anne Lamott

A disaster recovery solution that has never been tested will not work. — Martin Landry

Although no definite reason for the accident has been established, modifications are being embodied to cover every possibility that imagination has suggested as a likely cause of the disaster. When these modifications are completed and have been satisfactorily flight tested, the Board sees no reason why passenger services should not be resumed. — John Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon Of Tara

A helmet is the most important part of any jockey's kit because of the number of falls you take, so I wouldn't want to be wearing anything on the track unless it had been thoroughly tested. — Tony McCoy

The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false. — Paul Johnson

Love that has been tested is far more awe-inspiring than love that has never known anything but bliss. — Po Bronson

Darling checked his temper as he saw the hurt in Maris's eyes. "I know, Mari. I'm sorry." The two of them had been through so much in their lives. Best friends since they'd started preschool together twenty-three years ago. Through thick and thin, brothers to the bitter end. That had been their childhood pledge to each other. Little had they known then how many times that bond would be tested. Never — Sherrilyn Kenyon

We salute our veterans of Pearl Harbor and World War II, whose sacrifices saved democracy during a dark hour. In their memory, a new generation of our Armed Forces goes forward against new enemies in a new era. Once again, we pledge to defend freedom, secure our homeland, and advance peace around the world. Americans have been tested before, and our Nation will triumph again. — George W. Bush