Inconclusive Quotes & Sayings

When we disagreed, I would state my case, but since Steve could think much faster than I could, he would often shoot down my arguments. So I'd wait a week, marshal my thoughts, and then come back and explain it again. He might dismiss my points again, but I would keep coming back until one of three things happened: (1) He would say "Oh, okay, I get it" and give me what I needed; (2) I'd see that he was right and stop lobbying; or (3) our debate would be inconclusive, in which case I'd just go ahead and do what I had proposed in the first place. — Ed Catmull

This is what schizophrenia is: endless despair, endless, inconclusive treatment; endless clutching at little straws of betterness; endless realisation that that is all they are, is all there is. — Tim Salmon

[Modern science] passed through a long period of uncertainty and inconclusive experiment, but as the instrumental aids to research improved, and the results of observation accumulated, phantoms of the imagination were exorcised, idols of the cave were shattered, trustworthy materials were obtained for logical treatment, and hypotheses by long and careful trial were converted into theories. — Thomas George Bonney

Equally arresting are British pub names. Other people are content to dub their drinking establishment with pedestrian names like Harry's Bar and the Greenwood Lounge. But a Briton, when he wants to sup ale, must find his way to the Dog and Duck, the Goose and Firkin, the Flying Spoon, or the Spotted Dog. The names of Britain's 70,000 or so pubs cover a broad range, running from the inspired to the improbable, from the deft to the daft. Almost any name will do so long as it is at least faintly absurd, unconnected with the name of the owner, and entirely lacking in any suggestion of drinking, conversing, and enjoying oneself. At a minimum the name should puzzle foreigners-this is a basic requirement of most British institutions-and ideally it should excite long and inconclusive debate, defy all logical explanation, and evoke images that border on the surreal. — Bill Bryson

At bottom, politics was a hullabaloo of equal and individual competitors who would only be guaranteed to cooperate for one cause: the elimination of anybody who threatened to step out of line and grab too much power for himself. It follows that there was nothing resembling today's political parties ... Since the fall of the monarchy in 510 BC, Roman domestic politics had been a long, inconclusive class struggle, suspended for long periods by foreign wars. during one never-to-be-forgotten confrontation over a debt crisis in 493 BC, the entire population withdrew its labor (14). — Anthony Everitt

Endings to be useful must be inconclusive. — Samuel R. Delany

The defenders of feeling-based marriage venerate emotions for their authenticity only because they avoid looking closely at what actually floats through most people's emotional kaleidoscopes, all the contradictory, sentimental, and hormonal forces that pull us in a hundred often crazed and inconclusive directions.
We could not be fulfilled if we weren't inauthentic some of the time - inauthentic, that is, in relation to such things as our passing desires to throttle our children, poison our spouse, or end our marriage over a dispute about changing a lightbulb. A degree of repression is necessary for both the mental health of our species and the adequate functioning of a decently ordered society. We are chaotic chemical propositions. We should feel grateful for, and protected by, the knowledge that our external circumstances are often out of line with what we feel; it is a sign that we are probably on the right course. — Alain De Botton

A man should remind himself that an object of faith is not scientifically demonstrable, lest presuming to demonstrate what is of faith, he should produce inconclusive reasons and offer occasion for unbelievers to scoff at a faith based on such ground. — Thomas Aquinas

Life is INCONCLUSIVE but its about an everlasting FUTURE — Delma Pryce

I want to have faith in strangers. I want to have faith in what we're all going to do next. But I'm worried. I see things shifting from United We Stand to God Bless America. I don't believe in God Bless America. I don't believe a higher power is standing beside us and guiding us. I don't believe we're being singled out. I believe much more in United We Stand. I have my doubts, but I want it to be true. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we really came together, if we really found a common humanity? The hitch is that you can't find a common humanity just because you have a common enemy. You have to find a common humanity because you believe that's true. — David Levithan

The air we see in the paintings of the old masters is never the air we breathe. — Edgar Degas

Man owns nothing, never will, though he holds on to illusions of such, in the end he finds what is left-character and integrity. And if none be found was he truly here?
By Mark Miller — Mark Miller

O foolish anxiety of wretched man, how inconclusive are the arguments which make thee beat thy wings below! — Dante Alighieri

I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs. — Bertrand Russell

The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table, ... the collection is so tantalizingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmented and inconclusive, that more can be said about what is missing than about what is present ... but ever since Darwin's work inspired the notion that fossils linking modern man and extinct ancestor would provide the most convincing proof of human evolution, preconceptions have led evidence by the nose in the study of fossil man. — John Reader

She has never liked sleeping alone. Even as a small child, she would steel herself to brave the black soup of the room as far as her brother's bed, creeping in beside him. And he, who when awake would rather fight than talk, would put his arms around her and stroke her hair until their warmness mingled and she fell asleep. — Sarah Dunant

Judged by the normal standards of human affairs, the lives of men and women of God may look overburdened with suffering, and even inconclusive. — Eknath Easwaran

Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows. — Thomas Carlyle

It is, as I say, easy enough to describe Holden's style of narration; but more difficult to explain how it holds our attention and gives us pleasure for the length of a whole novel. For, make no mistake, it's the style that makes the book interesting. The story it tells is episodic, inconclusive and largely made up of trivial events. Yet the language is, by normal literary criteria, very impoverished. Salinger, the invisible ventriloquist who speaks to us through Holden, must say everything he has to say about life and death and ultimate values within the limitations of a seventeen-year-old New Yorker's argot, eschewing poetic metaphors, periodic cadences, fine writing of any kind. — David Lodge

Watch-see, Holy One, my grave-rats will kill-kill all dead-things. We show-tell Fester-rats how to fight. Show-tell why Fester-rats should stay true to Horned One. — C.L. Werner

and withholding. Everything I get from them is either inconclusive or subject to reinterpretation. Nothing is as it appears. — Michael Brandman

At a minimum the name should puzzle foreigners - this is a basic requirement of most British institutions - and ideally it should excite long and inconclusive debate, defy all logical explanation, and evoke images that border on the surreal. Among — Bill Bryson

What's to become of us? We can't go on like this."
"Yes, we can go on like this," said Cesare. "We can go on exactly like this for the rest of our lives. — Penelope Fitzgerald

In the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels." James F. Black Exxon Senior Scientist 1978 "Currently, the scientific evidence is inconclusive as to whether human activities are having a significant effect on the global climate." Lee Raymond Exxon Chairman and CEO 1997 — Neela Banerjee

Me, I think you only get at gist by assembling all the tiny inconclusive anecdotes that would fall flat at a dinner table and that seem irrelevant until you collect them in a pile. — Lionel Shriver

Life at university, with its intellectual and inconclusive discussions at a postgraduate level is on the whole a bad training for the real world. Only men of very strong character surmount this handicap. — Paul Chambers

The story of life is INCONCLUSIVE but it is all about an everlasting future. — Delma Pryce

It has long been recognized by public men of all kinds ... that statistics come under the head of lying, and that no lie is so false or inconclusive as that which is based on statistics. — Hilaire Belloc

Language changes. If it does not change, like Latin it dies. But we need to be aware that as our language changes, so does our theology change, particularly if we are trying to manipulate language for a specific purpose. That is what is happening with our attempts at inclusive language, which thus far have been inconclusive and unsuccessful. — Madeleine L'Engle

Art work is inconclusive. It opens your mind up. At least, that's what I hope it does. And advertising, using exactly the same photograph, closes things down. It makes it conclusive. It sells a product, and that is its primary function. — Alison Jackson

The truth!" we demanded.
"Oh, the truth," she stammered, "the truth has nothing to do with literature," and sitting down she refused to say another word.
It all seemed to us very inconclusive. — Virginia Woolf

It was only after a long silence, when he said, in a hesitating voice, "I suppose you fellows remember I did once turn fresh-water sailor for a bit," that we knew we were fated, before the ebb began to run, to hear about one of Marlow's inconclusive experiences. — Joseph Conrad

informative to investors than GAAP earnings, even in settings that previously generated inconclusive results. Although investors exhibit a preference for non-GAAP earnings as a summary measure of firm performance, — Anonymous

Reading the Koran on its own terms, trying to interpret it without resorting to commentaries, is a difficult and questionable exercise because of the nature of the text-its allusive and referential style and its grammatical and logical discontinuities, as well as our lack of sure information about its origins and the circumstances of its composition. Often such a reading seems arbitrary and necessarily inconclusive.
G. R. Hawting — Ibn Warraq