Occams Quotes & Sayings

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary. — Mark Haddon

In order to avoid believing in just one God we are now asked to believe in an infinite number of universes, all of them unobservable just because they are not part of ours. The principle of inference seems to be not Occam's Razor but Occam's Beard: Multiply entities unnecessarily. — J. Budziszewski

In a world in which the price of calculation continues to decrease rapidly, but the price of theorem proving continues to hold steady or increase, elementary economics indicates that we ought to spend a larger and larger fraction of our time on calculation. — John Tukey

Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. — William Of Ockham

And this shows that people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth. And it shows that something called Occam's razor is true. And Occam's razor is not a razor that men shave with but a Law, and it says:
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Which is Latin and it means:
No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary.
Which means that a murder victim is usually killed by someone known to them and fairies are made out of paper and you can't talk to someone who is dead. — Mark Haddon

You have to disentangle the details. You have to hold up every one independently, and ask, "How do we know *this* detail?" Someone sketches out a picture of humanity's descent into nanotechnological warfare, where China refuses to abide by an international control agreement, followed by an arms race ... Wait a minute - how do you know it will be China? Is that a crystal ball in your pocket or are you just happy to be a futurist? Where are all these details coming from?
Where did *that specific* detail come from? — Eliezer Yudkowsky

We imagine always when we speak that it is our own ears, our own mind, that are listening. The truth which one puts into one's words does not carve out a direct path for itself, it is not irresistibly self-evident. A considerable time must elapse before a truth of the same order can take shape in them. — Marcel Proust

And now listen carefully. You in others-this is your soul. This is what you are. This is what your consciousness has breathed and lived on and enjoyed throughout your life-your soul, your immortality, your life in others. And what now? You have always been in others and you will remain in others. And what does it matter to you if later on that is called your memory? This will be you-the you that enters the future and becomes a part of it. — Boris Pasternak

Dullards would have you believe that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth ... but to a mathematical mind, the impossible is simply a theorem yet to be solved. We must not eliminate the impossible, we must conquer it, suborn it to our purpose. — Kim Newman

Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity. — William Of Ockham

In junior high, I was picked on for being the small skinny kid who enjoyed being in drama. All the drama kids, we were looked at like we were aliens, and people would call us names and say, you know, 'It's stupid to be in drama.' They would say a lot worse things, to be honest. — Blake Jenner

With all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one. — William Of Ockham

Noon, do you have any idea how madly" - he pressed his lips against the skin just behind my ear - "deeply" - I shivered as he moved his mouth slowly down my neck - "fiercely" - he kissed the spot on my throat where my pulse beat wildly - "ridiculously in love with you I am? — Jill Archer

We sprung from thin soil, and raised more kin than crops, but we were proud folk... — Louis L'Amour

The Anarchists never have claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow authority. — Benjamin Tucker

There's always risk. But I'm going to come in and play hard. I want to come in and contribute. — Eric Lindros

There was pain, but there was also joy. It was in the tension between the two that life happened. Imperfect as it was, this world was real. Illusion was no substitute. I'd rather live a hard life of fact than a sweet life of lies. — Karen Marie Moning

Fine," Jeb said curtly, stowing his gun. "But don't test me. I haven't shot anyone in a real long time, and I sort of miss the trill of it. — Stephenie Meyer

You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely. — Agatha Christie

nook in the rocks. From this place, we are invisible but have a clear — Suzanne Collins

The complex order we now observe [in the universe] could *not* have been the result of any initial design built into the universe at the so-called creation. The universe preserves no record of what went on before the big bang. The Creator, if he existed, left no imprint. Thus he might as well have been nonexistent. — Victor J. Stenger

The throne we honour is the people's choice. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan

If we focus our efforts on doing, we will always fall short of our real potential. We can do all the right things, but if we do not do them for the right reasons, they will never have the power to change our internal view of life. — Rand Olson

People don't want to know the truth. — Katherine Jackson

Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred. — William Of Ockham

Nature operates in the shortest way possible. — Aristotle.

The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct. — William Of Ockham

Americans are so tense and keyed up that it is impossible even to put them to sleep with a sermon. — Norman Vincent Peale