Quotes & Sayings About Layman

Although I am even now still a layman in the area of mathematics, and although I lack theoretical knowledge, the mathematicians, and in particular the crystallographers, have had considerable influence on my work of the last twenty years. The laws of the phenomena around us
order, regularity, cyclical repetition, and renewals
have assumed greater and greater importance for me. The awareness of their presence gives me peace and provides me with support. I try in my prints to testify that we live in a beautiful and orderly world, and not in a formless chaos, as it sometimes seems. — M.C. Escher

i have been told many times by family, friends, colleagues and strangers that I, a black African Muslim lesbian, am not included in this vision; that my dreams are a reflection of my upbringing in a decadent, amoral Western society that has corrupted who I really am. But who am I, really? Am I allowed to speak for myself or must my desires form the battleground for causes I do not care about? My answer to that is simple: 'no one allows anyone anything.' By rejecting that notion you discover that only you can give yourself permission on how to lead your life, naysayers be damned. In the end something gives way. The earth doesn't move but something shifts. That shift is change and change is the layman's lingo for that elusive state that lovers, dreamers, prophets and politicians call 'freedom'. — Diriye Osman

The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional. — Hugo Black

This is Poyo. Poyo was exposed to a near-lethal amount of radiation as an egg, during the first stages of a government experiment to create mutant super soldiers
trained in exotic martial arts technique by Tibetan Kung Fu fightin' monks
and given strange bio-enhancements during a rash of farm animal abductions by extra-terrestrials. Nah, just kidding. None of that shit is true. Poyo is just really, really bad ass. — John Layman

None of this excuses anyone from mastering the basic ideas and terminology of economics. The intelligent layman must expect also to encounter good economists who are difficult writers even though some of the best have been very good writers. He should know, moreover, that at least for a few great men ambiguity of expression has been a positive asset. But with these exceptions he may safely conclude that what is wholly mysterious in economics is not likely to be important. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Every interview I do, when I'm asked about scientific issues, I say I'm not a climate scientist. I'm just giving you the informed layman's perspective ... — Myron Ebell

remember that "layman" is just a polite word for "idiot. — Neal Stephenson

Mathematically speaking, the probable (that in 6,000,000,000 throws with a regular six-sided die the die will come up proximately 1 ,000,000,000 times) and the improbable (that in six throws with the same die the one will come approximately up six times) are not different in kind, but only in frequency, whereby the more frequent appears a priori more probable.
But the occasional occurrence of the improbable does not imply the intervention of a higher power, something in the nature of a miracle, as the layman is so ready to assume. The term "probability" includes improbability at the extreme limits of probability, and when the improbable does occur this is no cause for surprise, bewilderment or mystification.
Cf. Ernst Mally's Probability and Law, Hans Reichenbach The theory Probability, Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica, von Mises' Probability, Statistics and Truth — Max Frisch

There is no body of theory or significant body of relevant information, beyond the comprehension of the layman, which makes policy immune from criticism. — Noam Chomsky

Oh, I think so. Yeah. Oh, well, sure. A 'type-token' ratio, I suppose, would be as good a way as any to work that out, and with samples of a thousand words or more, you could just check the frequency of occurrence of the various parts of speech." "And would you call that conclusive?" "Pretty much. You see, that sort of test would discount any change in the basic vocabulary. It's not the words but the expression of the words; the style. We call it 'index of diversity.' Very baffling to the layman, which, of course, is what we want." The director smiled wryly. Then he nodded at the tape in Karras's hands. "And so this other person's voice is on that one?" "Not exactly." "Not exactly? — William Peter Blatty

To a naive observer, money made out of precious metal was 'sound money' because the piece of precious metal was an 'intrinsically' valuable object, while paper money was 'bad money' because its value was only 'artificial'. But even the layman who holds this opinion accepts the money in the course of business transactions, not for the sake of its industrial use-value, but for the sake of its objective exchange-value, which depends largely upon its monetary employment. He values a gold coin not merely for the sake of its industrial use-value, say because of the possibility of using it as jewellery, but chiefly on account of its monetary utility. But, of course, to do something, and to render an account to oneself of what one does and why one does it, are quite different things. — Ludwig Von Mises

The "layman" need never think of his humbler task as being inferior to that of his minister. Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act. — A.W. Tozer

Democracy - or any improvement on it - will rest on the layman's right to criticize. His criticism will be often - very often - damn silly, but if, like Plato and the Fascists, we take away his right to criticize, we take away his right to appreciate. — Louis MacNeice

The hero is a device which the historian has taken over from the layman. He uses it because he has no scientific vocabulary or technique for dealing with the real facts of history
the opinions, emotions, attitudes; the wishes, plans, schemes; the habits of men. He can't talk about them so he talks about heroes. — B.F. Skinner

Alright, Colby. How we wanna play this? In through the skylight? Side entrance? Sneak in the back?"
"Are you kidding? Fuck all that shit. Poyo don't sneak. — John Layman

My daily affairs are quite ordinary; but I'm in total harmony with them. I don't hold on to anything, don't reject anything; nowhere an obstacle or conflict. Who cares about wealth and honor? Even the poorest thing shines. My miraculous power and spiritual activity: drawing water and carrying wood. — Layman Pang

It's customary for the field team to take a break after a confirmed memetic incursion into baseline reality - in layman's terms, we're supposed to get some time off after we stop a fairy tale from rewriting a major metropolitan area into an evil, R-rated version of Disney World. New and improved! Now with extra incest and murder! — Seanan McGuire

Every emotional state produces an alteration of consciousness which Janet called abaissement du niveau mental; that is to say there is a certain narrowing of consciousness and a corresponding strengthening of the unconscious which, particularly in the case-of strong affects, is noticeable even to the layman. — C. G. Jung

When I chop wood, I chop wood. When I carry water, I carry water. — Layman Pang

Tool," William said, ... "As in a device to perform or facilitate mechanical or manual labor?"
"That's right Encyclopedia Britannica. Or in layman's terms: screwdriver, hammer - "
"How about a wrench," William interrupted,"
"You've got a quick learner on your hands, Bryn," Paul said ... "Sure, wrench works just fine as well," ... "Whatever blows your skirt up buddy." ...
"Well a wrench would come in handy right now," William mused. "Because you definitely have a couple screws loose. — Nicole Williams

even when a political truth is enshrined in written documents, it is seldom that these have any more value than a radiographic plate on which the layman imagines that the patient's disease is inscribed in so many words, whereas in fact the plate furnishes simply one piece of material for study, to be combined with a number of others on which the doctor's reasoning powers will be brought to bear and on which he will base his diagnosis. — Marcel Proust

How miraculous and wondrous, hauling water and carrying firewood! — Layman Pang

We are often taught to look for the beauty in all things, so in finding it, the layman asks the philosopher while the philosopher asks the photographer. — Criss Jami

I beg you, cease going from lecture to lecture; It's better to seek truth directly. The nature of Diamond Wisdom excludes even a speck of dust. From "Thus we have heard," to "This I believe," All is but an array of unreal names. — Layman Pang

If you are not a psychiatrist, stay away from idiots. They are too stupid to pay a layman for his company. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

A simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it — Martin Luther

Besides this I place another equally obvious confirmation of my view that opera is based on the same principles as our Alexandrian culture. Opera is the birth of the theoretical man, the critical layman, not of the artist: one of the most surprising facts in the history of all the arts. It was the demand of throughly unmusical hearers that before everything else the words must be understood, so that according to them a rebirth of music is to be expected only when some mode of singing has been discovered in which textword lords it over counterpoint like master over servant: For the words, it is argued, are as much nobler than the accompanying harmonic system as the soul is nobler than the body. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Legally, Moosbrugger's case could be summed up in-a sentence. He
was one of those borderline cases in law and forensic medicine
known even to the layman as a case of diminished responsibility.
These unfortunates typically suffer not only substandard health
but also have a substandard disease, Nature has a peculiar prefer-
ence for producing such people in droves. Natura non fecit saltus,
she makes no jumps but prefers gradual transitions; even on the
grand scale she keeps the world in a transitional state between imbe-
cility and sanity. — Robert Musil

Any man who is intelligent must, on considering that health is of the utmost value to human beings, have the personal understanding necessary to help himself in diseases, and be able to understand and to judge what physicians say and what they administer to his body, being versed in each of these matters to a degree reasonable for a layman. — Hippocrates

The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. — George Sutherland

No two human beings are alike; it's a question of identity. And what is identity? The cognitive system arisin' from the aggregate memories of that individual's past experiences. The layman's word for this is the mind. Not two human beings have the same mind. At the same time, human beings have almost no grasp of their own cognitive systems. I don't, you don't, nobody does. All we know - or think we know - is but a fraction of the whole cake. A mere tip of the icing. — Haruki Murakami

One of these days I'm gonna beat him in the face with the butt of my service revolver until an eyeball pops out. These are the thoughts that keep me happy. — John Layman

The past is already past. Don't try to regain it. The present does not stay. Don't try to touch it from moment to moment. The future has not come. Don't think about it beforehand. — Layman Pang

Over the last 25 years, since a lot of science writing became accessible to layman, I've become quite a consumer of science. As a child, I wasn't streamed into science, and I regret that now. — John Noble

I am no theologian. I am a layman. I am among those who are preached to, and who listen. It is not for me to preach. I should not willingly forego being a listener, a man who reads the Gospels and then listens to what others say that our Lord meant. But sometimes a listener speaks out, and listens to his own voice. — Haniel Long

Each layman must be his own apologist, responsible for his stewardship of the Gospel in his daily life and work. — William Stringfellow

We do not wish to abolish teaching and to make every man his own master, but if the curates will not teach the gospel, the layman must have the Scripture, and read it for himself, taking God for his teacher. — William Tyndale

You simply collapsed, sir. In layman's terms, your body revoked its permission for you to continue heaping abuse upon it. — Scott Lynch

Patel, the jerk, had gravely presented his diagnosis - syncope resulting from an exaggerated respiratory response, leading to ventilation exceeding metabolic demands, resulting in hemodynamic and chemical changes.

When Tommy'd looked at him blankly, he'd laughed and said, "Relax, Tommy. You hyperventilated and fainted. At least we're pretty sure that's what happened. But we'd like to watch you for a while to rule out cardiogenic causes."

And now, here he lay, confronting the fact that in layman's terms, he'd been scared shitless. — Norah Wilson

Mark my words. Someday, somehow, he WILL be back. And upon his return, shake the very foundation of heaven and hell. Irrevocably. Irredeemably. Because that's one bad-ass motherfuckin' bird! — John Layman

the Law of Inevitable Occurrence. In layman's terms, this law states that some things simply have to happen. If there's a red button on a console with the words don't push taped above it, someone will push it. If there's a gun hanging conspicuously above Chekhov's fireplace, someone is going to end up shooting it (probably at Nietzsche). — Brandon Sanderson

I guess I should explain how Mars missions work, for any layman who may be reading this. — Andy Weir

The intellectual scholars who keep saying 'this is wrong' and 'that is wrong', are neither scholars nor intellectuals. In reality, they are more ignorant than the layman. — Abhijit Naskar

Sometimes when you're listening to a neuroscientist, they have a tendency to use a particular type of jargon that works in their world perfectly but that would lose the average layman. — Pharrell Williams

first, he called idiot savant. The type of person who is so smart in his or her field of expertise that their mind is literally elsewhere. In layman's terms he explained that these people were smart in school and dumb on the bus. The second category was made up of perfectionists, people who were incapable of letting go of one task and moving on to another. These people were always playing catch-up, rarely rose to any real position of power, and needed to be managed properly. The third category, and the one to be most wary of, were the egomaniacs. These were the people who not only felt that their time was more important than anyone else's, but who needed to prove it by constantly making others wait — Vince Flynn

An odd contradiction, if the layman were correct in his unconscious assumption that an artist begins with reality and ends with art: the converse is true - to the degree that this dichotomy has any truth - the artist begins with art, and through it arrives at reality. — Robert Motherwell

Food and clothes sustain
Body and life;
I advise you to learn
Being as is.
When it's time,
I move my hermitage and go,
And there's nothing
To be left behind. — Layman Pang

If physics is too difficult for the physicists, the nonphysicist may wonder whether he should try at all to grasp its complexities and ambiguities. It is undeniably an effort, but probably one worth making, for the basic questions are important and the new experimental results are often fascinating. And if the layman runs into serious perplexities, he can be consoled with the thought that the points which baffle him are more than likely the ones for which the professionals have not found satisfactory answers. — Edward Condon

Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must believe? — Thomas Jefferson

The most exquisite pleasure in the practice of medicine comes from nudging a layman in the direction of terror, then bringing him back to safety again. — Kurt Vonnegut

Outside his own ever-narrowing field of specialization, a scientist is a layman. What members of an academy of science have in common is a certain form of semiparasitic living. — Erwin Chargaff

I went to see Alison Krauss and Union Station at Disney Hall and I would say it was one of the most astonishing sonic experiences I have had. It's an enormous room that's acoustically perfect. My interpretation of receiving music as a layman is that the way the music kind of settled on me in that room was perfection. — John C. McGinley

There was on section in First Corinthians 13 that talks about (showing) patience, kindness, politeness, how can I demonstrate forgiveness to my children and more fully enjoy them as they're growing up and vice versa. And so, each of those has a day's journey. There are 40 days that people will go through in applying these biblical principles for their kids. We spell them out in layman's terms so it's really easy to grasp a principle. — Alex Kendrick

The mathematic, then, is an art. As such it has its styles and style periods. It is not, as the layman and the philosopher (who is in this matter a layman too) imagine, substantially unalterable, but subject like every art to unnoticed changes form epoch to epoch. The development of the great arts ought never to be treated without an (assuredly not unprofitable) side-glance at contemporary mathematics. — Oswald Spengler

Teddy tried, in the manner of a simple layman, to keep up with theoretical physics, via articles in the Telegraph and an heroic struggle with Stephen Hawking in 1996, but admitted defeat when he came across string theory. From then on he took every day as it came, hour by hour. — Kate Atkinson

More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic. — Simone Weil

To put it in layman's terms, crazy is crazy. And crazy will find a way to do something crazy. Racist is racist. And racist people will find a way to project their racism onto the world. — Nia Long

The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland, but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman. — Alan Perlis

Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each non-existed in an entirely different way. — Stanislaw Lem

Not a good book. It attempts to take a complex subject and make it assessable to the layman with cartoons, and in this effort it fails. Moreover, the authors often take biased stances, and while I agree with them for the most part it nonetheless detracts from any scholarly offerings in which they wish to partake. — Richard Appignanesi

This evening, I've demonstrated coitus interruptus to the both of you." We stared at the Levantine, confused. The doctor snickered at his secretary's statement, as if taking part in a private conspiracy. "Jabril mentioned to me earlier that you didn't understand the meaning of coitus interruptus. Rather than providing a verbal explanation, we decided to give a demonstration," our host explained. Zac and I looked at the men agape. The Levantine smiled lasciviously before adding, "In layman's terms, coitus interruptus, otherwise known as the rejected sexual intercourse, is the withdrawal or pull-out method. "In heterosexual terms, it is a form of birth control in which a man, during intercourse, withdraws his penis from a woman's vagina prior to orgasm. Ejaculating outside her orifice and directing his semen away from the vagina is an effort to avoid insemination. — Young

I'm not the guy who will sit in a room with somebody who's using a bunch of big words and just act like I know what they're talking about, or sit on set with somebody and they'll be trying to explain something and not using layman's terms and I'll just say, "Hey, excuse me, what do you mean by that? Explain to me so I just understand." — Mark Wahlberg

BERTRAND RUSSELL, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism We've associated that word philosophy with academic study that in its own way has gotten so far beyond the layman that if you read contemporary philosophy you've no clue, because it's almost become math. And it's odd that if you don't do that and you call yourself a philosopher that you always get 'homespun' attached to it. — Bertrand Russell

The right circumstances sometimes happen of their own accord, slyly, without fanfare, without warning. Layman's alchemy ... The magic of everyday things. — Joanne Harris

Fighting is spiritual. It appears to be physical from the layman's eyes. In my fights, I seemed to be angry and mad - all that stuff you saw me doing, the yelling and screaming and being mean in the ring - but I'm cool as a cucumber. I can hear everybody talking around me outside of the ring. I can see everybody. I know what is going on. — Mike Tyson

We need science education to produce scientists, but we need it equally to create literacy in the public. Man has a fundamental urge to comprehend the world about him, and science gives today the only world picture which we can consider as valid. It gives an understanding of the inside of the atom and of the whole universe, or the peculiar properties of the chemical substances and of the manner in which genes duplicate in biology. An educated layman can, of course, not contribute to science, but can enjoy and participate in many scientific discoveries which as constantly made. Such participation was quite common in the 19th century, but has unhappily declined. Literacy in science will enrich a person's life. — Hans Bethe

The search for a "suitable" church makes the man a critic where God wants him to be a pupil. What he wants from the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise- does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going. — C.S. Lewis

A critic is a person who rationalizes his likes and dislikes in such impressive language that the layman thinks he is reasoning instead of rationalizing. — Helen McCloy

It's terrifying the way molecular biology has become more and more jargon ridden. But I strongly believe that my book can be read by the intelligent layman. I want everyone who bought a copy of 'A Brief History of Time' to buy a copy of 'Genome'. — Matt Ridley

Photography is to the layman perhaps the most enticing art. As a buff and a follower, at a respectful distance, I find myself like others, having the heart of a Steiglitz with hands that sometimes seem impeded by boxing gloves. What is exasperating is that one can feel closer to managing the skills of photography than most other arts, and yet be a long hop, skip and delusional way from it. — Norman Corwin

In my career I've had my hands upon more revolting bodies than a layman is likely to encounter in a lifetime of trying. I've squeezed boils, soaked my hands in blood and pus, slipped in entrails, swaddled slippery stillborns, and pulled excrement from unwilling bowels by hand. — Cherie Priest

The key to understanding my career is that I was never into technology. From the beginning, I brought an outsider's point of view, which is why I write for a layman's publication. — David Pogue

How wondrously supernatural, And how miraculous this! I draw water, and I carry fuel. — Layman Pang

My mother is a Senior Casualty Claims Specialist I, which in layman's terms means the head insurance adjuster! — Ciara Renee

Photographers learn to interpret photographs in that technical way because they want to understand and use that 'language' themselves just as musicians learn a more technical musical language than the layman needs. Social scientists who want to work with visual materials will have to learn to approach them in this more studious and time-consuming way. — Howard S. Becker

One is compulsive overeating. In layman's terms, an addiction to food. Using food and eating to hide from emotion. To fill a void and cope with stress and the problems that occur in everyday life. Compulsive overeaters are most times fully aware that their eating habits aren't normal but get little support, other than being told to get some willpower and go on a diet. It's just as damaging to their self-esteem as telling an anorexic to just eat. — Stephanie Evanovich

The layman always means, when he says reality that he is speaking of something self-evidently known; whereas to me it seems the most important and exceedingly difficult task of our time is to work on the construction of a new idea of reality. — Wolfgang Pauli

A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by 'mere' words. He will feel that he is being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so very wrong, for the words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. But we shall have to follow a roundabout path in order to explain how science sets about restoring to words a part at least of their former magical power. — Sigmund Freud

Certain signs, some of them visible to the layman as well as the scientist, indicate that we have been watching an ice age approach for some time without realizing what we are seeing ... Scientists predict that it will cause great snows which the world has not seen since the last ice age thousands of years ago. — Betty Friedan

At best he read popular science magazines like the Scientific American he had now, to keep himself up-to-date, in layman's terms, with physics generally. But even then his concentration was marred, for a lifetime's habit made him inconveniently watchful for his own name. He saw it as if in bold. It could leap out at him from an unread double page of small print, and sometimes he could sense it coming before the page turn. — Ian McEwan

The lawyers' contribution to the civilizing of humanity is evidenced in the capacity of lawyers to argue furiously in the courtroom, then sit down as friends over a drink or dinner. This habit is often interpreted by the layman as a mark of their ultimate corruption. In my opinion, it is their greatest moral achievement: It is a characteristic of humane tolerance that is most desperately needed at the present time. — John Silber

I am very well aware of the fact that best learning is the learning from within, but due to his essential temperaments, the layman always goes for the outside knowledge, what others say. — Anu Lal

If the layman cannot participate in decision making, he will have to turn himself over, essentially blind, to a hermetic elite ... [The fundamental question becomes] are we still capable of self-government and therefore freedom? Margaret Mead wrote in a 1959 issue of Daedalus about scientists elevated to the status of priests. Now there is a name for this elevation, when you are in the hands of-one hopes-a benevolent elite, when you have no control over your political decisions. From the point of view of John Locke, the name for this is slavery. — Gerald Holton

Mathematics is not the rigid and rigidity-producing schema that the layman thinks it is; rather, in it we find ourselves at that meeting point of constraint and freedom that is the very essence of human nature. — Hermann Weyl

I'm a bit of a layman physics junkie. I don't really understand it, but I love trying to understand it. — Laura San Giacomo

When the creations of a genius collide with the mind of a layman, and produce an empty sound, there is little doubt as to which is at fault. — Salvador Dali

Making mathematics accessible to the educated layman, while keeping high scientific standards, has always been considered a treacherous navigation between the Scylla of professional contempt and the Charybdis of public misunderstanding. — Gian-Carlo Rota

But there is nothing to prevent a layman from taking just one Psalm a day, for instance in his night prayers, and reciting it thoughtfully, pausing to meditate on the lines which have the deepest meaning for him. — Thomas Merton

From a consideration of the immense volume of newly discovered facts in the field of physics, especially atomic physics, in recent years it might well appear to the layman that the main problems were already solved and that only more detailed work was necessary. — Victor Francis Hess

The primary math of the real world is one and one equals two. The layman (as, often, do I) swings that every day. He goes to the job, does his work, pays his bills and comes home. One plus one equals two. It keeps the world spinning. But artists, musicians, con men, poets, mystics and such are paid to turn that math on its head, to rub two sticks together and bring forth fire. Everybody — Bruce Springsteen

Isolated, so-called "pretty theorems" have even less value in the eyes of a modern mathematician than the discovery of a new "pretty flower" has to the scientific botanist, though the layman finds in these the chief charm of the respective sciences. — Hermann Hankel

His head was boiled, impaled upon a pole and raised above London Bridge. So ended the life of Thomas More, one of the few Londoners upon whom sainthood has been conferred and the first English layman to be beatified as a martyr. — Peter Ackroyd

The expectation that every neurotic phenomenon can be cured may, I suspect, be derived from the layman's belief that the neuroses are something quite unnecessary which have no right whatever to exist. Whereas in fact they are severe, constitutionally fixed illnesses, which rarely restrict themselves to only a few attacks but persist as a rule over long periods throughout life. — Sigmund Freud

In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt reminded us that the Constitution is, and I quote, "a layman's document, not a lawyer's contract." — Mike DeWine