Inversely Quotes & Sayings

The elegance of a mathematical theorem is directly proportional to the number of independent ideas one can see in the theorem and inversely proportional to the effort it takes to see them. — George Polya

The thing can never be separated from someone who perceives it; nor can it ever actually be in itself because its articulations are the very ones of our existence, and because it is posited at the end of a gaze or at the conclusion of a sensory exploration that invests it with humanity. To taking up or the achievement by us of an alien intention or inversely the accomplishment beyond our perceptual powers and as a coupling of our body wit the things. — Maurice Merleau Ponty

One knows that frontal and/or profile photography is torn to pieces ... Inversely, what remains of the photograph must be seen as a fragment coming to fill a gap in the drawing. — Jean-Francois Lyotard

Indeed, it may be suggested that 'traditions' and pragmatic conventions or routines are inversely related. — Eric Hobsbawm

The strength of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as the arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental force as the direct sequence. — George Eliot

The rate of growth of the management skills of any country is inversely proportional to the number of MBAs. Germany produces no MBAs, but America used to produce MBAs by the millions, and you saw the German economy, until at least the '90s, was certainly more efficient than the American economy. — Jairam Ramesh

Time is a resource whose supply is inversely proportional to its demand. — Craig Bruce

An attitude of entitlement is inversely related to one of gratitude. — Pete Wilson

What drove such people to their sinister occupations? Spite? Certainly, but also the desire for order. Because the desire for order tries to transform the human world into an inorganic reign in which everything goes well, everything functions as a subject of an impersonal will. The desire for order is at the same time a desire for death, because life is a perpetual violation of order. Or, inversely, the desire for order is a virtuous pretext by which man's hatred for man justifies its crimes. — Milan Kundera

Expressed in Planck units, the temperature T of a black hole is inversely proportional to its mass, m. This is a third law, Hawking's law: T = k/m. The constant k is very small in normal units. As a result, astrophysical black holes have temperatures of a very small fractionnof a degree. — Lee Smolin

Notice the small things. The rewards are inversely proportional. — Liz Vassey

The values of commodities are directly as the times of labor employed in their production, and are inversely as the productive powers of the labor employed. — Karl Marx

No matter how slick the demo is in rehearsal, when you do it in front of a live audience, the probability of a flawless presentation is inversely proportional to the number of people watching, raised to the power of the amount of money involved. — Mark Gibbs

In flying, the probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival. — Neil Armstrong

It is rather astonishing how little practical value scientific knowledge has for ordinary men, how dull and commonplace such of it as has value is, and how its value seems almost to vary inversely to its reputed utility. — G.H. Hardy

Patience is inversely proportional to the distance from the front of the queue. — John Day

The amount of quaint, authentic, rustic charm varies inversely with the pounds per square inch of water pressure in the shower. — Frank Mankiewicz

Let's take some extra time to talk about one: Only the number one can create all numbers with this simple equation, 111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321. One, expressed nine times, multiplied by itself, produces all subsequent numbers progressively and then inversely. Zero is not a number. — Michael Ben Zehabe

This by the way is known as Werther's Axiom, whereby quote The Intensity of a desire D is inversely proportional to the ease of D's gratification. Known also as Romance. — David Foster Wallace

It is long accepted by the missionaries that morality is inversely proportional to the amount of clothing people wore — Alex Carey

If, again, the most superficial introspection teaches the physiologist that his conscious life is dependent upon the mechanical adjustments of his body, and that inversely his body is subjected with certain limitations to his will, then it only remains for him to make one assumption more, namely, that this mutual interdependence between the spiritual and the material is itself also dependent on law, and he has discovered the bond by which the science of the matter and the science of consciousness are united into a single whole. — Samuel Butler

Cuteness and kindness are often inversely proportional in people. — Daria Snadowsky

A player's ability to rebound is inversely proportional to the distance between where he was born and the nearest railroad tracks. The greater distance you live from the poor side of the railroad tracks, the less likely that you will be a good rebounder. — Pete Carril

Few Christians understand the concept of eternal rewards, even thought the Lord dedicated a great deal of His precious time on earth to teaching about them. The one certainty is that our position in the Lord's kingdom will be inversely proportional to how we indulge ourselves in this lifetime. — Larry Burkett

But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated. — John Kenneth Galbraith

One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue. — Saul Alinsky

This proletarianization of the lower salaried bourgeoisie is accompanied by an excess in the opposite direction: the irrationally high pay of top managers and bankers, a level of remuneration that is economically irrational since, as investigations in the US have demonstrated, it tends to be inversely proportional to the company's success. — Slavoj Zizek

The usefulness of any meeting is inversely proportional to the size of the group. — Lane Kirkland

Every particle of matter is attracted by or gravitates to every other particle of matter with a force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances. — Isaac Newton

The degree of insult is inversely proportional to the size of the entity causing it. — Shubha Vilas

The size of the promised paycheck is inversely proportional to the likelihood of surviving to collect it. — Howard Tayler

I sometimes think that the size of our happiness is inversely proportional to the size of our house. — Gregory David Roberts

Appealingness is inversely proportional to attainability. — John Updike

It may well be that an analysis of figures would reveal a law - the duration of a marriage is inversely proportional to the cost of the wedding. Or, to put it another way, any union celebrated with personalized toasting flutes is doomed. — Michael Foley

The well-being of individual persons in any society varies inversely with the money at the disposal of the political class. — Edmund A. Opitz

The Humanity of men and women is inversely proportional to their Numbers. A Crowd is no more human than an Avalanche or a Whirlwind. A rabble of men and women stands lower in the scale of moral and intellectual being than a herd of Swine or of Jackals. — Aldous Huxley

If someone were to propose that the planets go around the sun because all planet matter has a kind of tendency for movement, a kind of motility, let us call it an 'oomph,' this theory could explain a number of other phenomena as well. So this is a good theory, is it not? No. It is nowhere near as good as the proposition that the planets move around the sun under the influence of a central force which varies exactly inversely as the square of the distance from the center. The second theory is better because it is so specific; it is so obviously unlikely to be the result of chance. It is so definite that the barest error in the movement can show that it is wrong; but the planets could wobble all over the place, and, according to the first theory, you could say, 'Well, that is the funny behavior of the 'oomph. — Richard Feynman

By clearly emphasizing all that was lacking in others, by mapping and raising to an art form the catalog of their flaws, Veblen's mother had inversely punched out a template for an ideal human being, and it was the unspoken assumption that Veblen would aspire to this template with all her might. "It's — Elizabeth Mckenzie

By such deductions the law of gravitation is rendered probable, that every particle attracts every other particle with a force which varies inversely as the square of the distance. The law thus suggested is assumed to be universally true. — Isaac Newton

The quality of a restaurant's food is inversely proportioned to the amount of fun its staff seems to be having. — Dov Davidoff

The potential for engaged learning is inversely proportionate to the knowability of the outcome. — Gever Tulley

Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available — Gregory Benford

It's not that we don't trust you," Royce said as Hadrian prepared the bow. "It's just that we've learned over the years that honor among nobles is usually inversely proportionate to their rank. As a result, we prefer to rely on more concrete methods for motivations - such as self-preservation. You already know we don't want you dead, but if you have ever been riding full tilt and had a horse buckle under you, you understand that death is always a possibility, and broken bones are almost a certainty."
"There's also the danger of missing the horse completely," Hadrian added. "I'm a good shot, but even the best archers have bad days. So to answer your question - yes, you can control your own horse. — Michael J. Sullivan

The frequency of leadership going to the gemba is inversely proportional to the number of walls separating them from the gemba. — Jon Miller

The fact is that the amount of money startups raise in their seed and Series A rounds is inversely correlated with success — Fred Wilson

The number of one's possible fantasies is inversely proportional to the amount of one's liquid assets. For him who has everything dreams are no longer possible. — Stanislaw Lem

The results you produce in life are inversely proportional to the degree to which you are intimidated. — Robert Ringer

The efficiency of a hierarchy is inversely proportional to its Maturity Quotient, M.Q. MQ = No. of employees at level of incompetence x 100 Total no. of employees in hierarchy Obviously, when MQ reaches 100, no useful work will be accomplished at all. — Laurence J. Peter

The stretch of the limousine usually is inversely proportional to the self esteem of the person riding in it. — Denis Waitley

One of the biggest problems with people who think that they are smart is that they believe that the number of times they admit that they are wrong is inversely proportional to their
intellectual level. — Daniel Willey

These relations show that the intensity of illumination is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of light. — Charles Mark Turton

The effectiveness of your persona is inversely proportional to what people know about you. — Brenna Yovanoff

Like other women who sought equality, the amount of trouble I cause is inversely proportional to my physical size. — Cassandra Duffy

Beneath all the rhetoric about relevance lies a profoundly disturbing possibility - that people may base their lives upon an illusion, upon a blatant lie. The attractiveness of a belief is all too often inversely proportional to its truth ... To allow "relevance" to be given greater weight than truth is a mark of intellectual shallowness and moral irresponsibility. — Alister E. McGrath

if they believe that their fortunes are inversely correlated with the foreigners' fortunes, that the foreigners have to lose for them to win - then their theology will probably be less inclusive. Let's — Robert Wright

The chances of seeing an idea through to completion are inversely proportional to the time you've spent talking about it beforehand. — Jean-Philippe Toussaint

There's a superstition among falconers that a hawk's ability is inversely proportional to the ferocity of its name. Call a hawk Tiddles and it will be a formidable hunter; call it Spitfire or Slayer and it will probably refuse to fly at all. — Helen Macdonald

Not all clever words are true ... And inversely most things that are true are not clever. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

The memorability of a fact is inversely proportional to its usefulness.

- Jason's Third Law — Jason Dias

Freedom isn't a static point. It's spectrum from absolute to none at all, and is usually inversely proportional to safety. — M.L. Wulff

Happiness, as a rule, is inversely proportional to intellect. — Sunil Raina

The payoff of a human venture is, in general, inversely proportional to what it is expected to be. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts. — Bertrand Russell

In any decision situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision. — Paul Dickson

Fake titties are inversely proportioned to their owners level of self esteem. This being said, part of me loves them. — Dov Davidoff

Love and Loneliness inversely proportional to each other. Love increases then loneliness decreases from this world. — Anonymous

There must be a rule of thumb in pop-culture archaeology that states that the allure of any topic is inversely related to its assigned importance in the affairs of humanity. The more trivial the subject, the dearer it is to most of its partisans and the more worthy of scholarship. The smallest things in life often mean the most to people. — Paul Di Filippo

The amount of time that a young girl spends wearing pink will be inversely proportional to her future income. — Sandra Lerner

The hardest lesson I've had to learn in my life is that my intelligence is inversely correlated to my humility. The more I thought I knew, the less I actually knew. — Tucker Max

Financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated. Long-run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future. Here, at least equally with Communism, lies the threat to Capitalism. It is what causes men who know that things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound. — John Kenneth Galbraith

The mistake in the argument of those who suppose that a variation in the quantity of money results in an inversely proportionate variation in its purchasing power lies in its starting-point. If we wish to arrive at a correct conclusion, we must start with the valuations of separate individuals; we must examine the way in which an increase or decrease in the quantity of money affects the value-scales of individuals, for it is from these alone that variations in the exchange-ratios of goods proceed. — Ludwig Von Mises

Suggestibility varies as the amount of disaggregation, and inversely as the unification of consciousness. — Boris Sidis

The appropriate length of a name is inversely proportional to the size of its scope. — Mark Jason Dominus

The value of a book about dealing with children is inversely proportional to the number of times it contains the word behavior. — Alfie Kohn

The exercise of true leadership is inversely proportional to the exercise of power. — Stephen Covey

Besides, these box-checking Christians having such a majority is largely in our favor. Their ubiquity is inversely proportional to their efficacy. — Geoffrey Wood

I smiled back, the importance of manners, my mother always said, is inversely related to how inclined one is to use them, or, in other words, sometimes politeness is all that stands between oneself and madness. — Nicole Krauss

The number of rooms in a fictional house should be inversely proportional to the years during which the couple living in that house enjoyed true happiness. — George Saunders

Peace and prosperity are inversely proportional to the level of taxation. — John Pugsley

My moods are inversely related to the clarity of the sky. — Glenn Gould

Shutter speed and aperture are inversely related, so that a wide aperture requires a faster shutter speed under any given light conditions. The wide aperture lets in more light, and a faster shutter speed lets in less by reducing the time that the sensors are exposed. — Brian Black

Creativity varies inversely with the number of cooks involved in the broth. — Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

Researchers from Britain's Keele University have found that swearing after an injury may help alleviate pain. Evidently, the pain that you feel is inversely proportional to the number of middle names you give Jesus. — Stephen Colbert

The desire to maximize the number of winning trades (or minimize the number of losing trades) works against the trader. The success rate of trades is the least important performance statistic and may even be inversely related to performance. — William Eckhardt

Quantitatively speaking, 'conversation' is inversely proportional to economic standing. If you are traveling in a bus, your fellow passengers will get into a conversation with you very quickly and without any reservation. If you are traveling by first class on a train, people will be more reserved. If you are traveling by air, then the likely hood of getting into a conversation is quite small. If you are in first class on an international flight then you may travel 24 hours without exchanging a single word with the person sitting next to you. — Sudha Murty

I tend to follow a very nocturnal sort of existence mainly because I don't much care for sunlight. Bright colors of any kind depress me, in fact. And my moods are more or less inversely related to the clarity of the sky, on any given day ... my private motto has always been that behind every silver lining there is a cloud. — Glenn Gould

The age of a child is inversely correlated with the size of the animals it prefers. — Desmond Morris

In the sciences, looking good was usually a negative. It implied you wasted time on outdoor activities instead of building something useful. Even using hair product or makeup implied misguided priorities. Like you thought how things looked mattered, instead of how they worked. We liked to look at attractive people. We expected it of our movie stars and TV characters. But we did not respect it. We knew physical attractiveness was inversely correlated with intelligence, because look at us. — Max Barry

Newton supposed that all matter attracted other matter inversely according to the square of the distance; and the hypothesis was found to account for the whole movements of the heavenly bodies; which all became verifications of what Newton supposed to be the law of the solar system. Adopt the hypothesis that Jesus was what He is represented, and the whole of the books and the history becomes a verification. — James McCosh

It is no more appropriate to speak of a difference between the purchasing power of money in Germany and in Austria than it would be justifiable to conclude from differences between the prices charged by hotels on the peaks and in the valleys of the Alps that the objective exchange-value of money is different in the two situations and to formulate some such proposition as that the purchasing power of money varies inversely with the height above sea-level. The purchasing power of money is the same everywhere; only the commodities offered are not the same. — Ludwig Von Mises

Two bodies attract each other directly as the product of their masses and inversely as the square of their distance.' It sounds like a rule for simple physical facts, does it not? Yet it is nothing of the sort; it was the poetical way the old ones had of expressing the rule of propinquity which governs the emotion of love. The bodies referred to are human bodies, mass is their capacity for love. Young people have a greater capacity for love than the elderly; when thy are thrown together they fall in love, yet when they are separated they soon get over it. 'Out of sight, out of mind.' It's as simple as that. But you were seeking some deep meaning for it. — Robert A. Heinlein

We knew that in general the quality of treatment we received in the training class varied inversely with the desirability of the job held by the speaker. In this there was a lesson: To get the best job, you had to weather the most abuse. — Michael Lewis

The idea that athleticism was suddenly inversely proportional to intellect was never a cause of bigotry, but rather a result of it. — David Epstein

A man who cannot work without his hypodermic needle is a poor doctor. The amount of narcotic you use is inversely proportional to your skill. — Martin H. Fischer

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other. — Leon Trotsky

In all cases where work is produced by heat, a quantity of heat proportional to the work done is expended; and inversely, by the expenditure of a like quantity of work, the same amount of heat may be produced. — Rudolf Clausius

I wonder briefly if I could somehow broker a deal with God whereby if I put both my arms around Chris, his suffering would be transferred to me via skin-to-skin osmosis at a rate inversely proportionate to how much I love him. — Laura Buzo

Property taxes - particularly those which tax only or primarily the land and not the improvements - are the closest approximations we have today to community land contributions. For this reason, property taxes and home affordability rates - which is to say, land affordability rates - are inversely correlated.

Land contributions are necessary for the vitality of every community and city. For example, urban sprawl is a consequence of not capturing sufficient land contributions and thus enabling inefficient land use.

Community land contributions lead to a more intensive use of land and encourage the greening of a city's surroundings, as the existing population will tend to cluster closer together. Land contributions also encourage the restoration of blighted areas. — Martin Adams

He's a man; the sum on his pay check is inversely proportional to his intellect. — Ronald Simonar

A slowly moving queue does not move uniformly. Rather, waves of motion pass down the queue. The frequency and amplitude of these waves is inversely related to the speed at which the queue is served. — Anthony Stafford Beer