Ockham Quotes & Sayings

Most people oversimplify Occam's razor to mean the simplest answer is usually correct. But the real meaning, what the Franciscan friar William of Ockham really wanted to emphasize, is that you shouldn't complicate, that you shouldn't "stack" a theory if a simpler explanation was at the ready. Pare it down. Prune the excess. — Harlan Coben

Ockham snorted. I am no nominalist. The problem with teaching the Modern Way is that lesser scholars, excited by the novelty, seldom bother to master my insights. There are lips on which I heartily wish my name had never rested. I tell you, Dietl, a man becomes a heretic less for what he writes than for what others believe he has written. — Michael Flynn

The years between Roger Bacon's birth, in 1220, and Uthred's death, in 1370, are considered the final flowering of the Middle Ages. They were followed by a longer, grimmer period in Europe, during which the machinery for rooting out heresy defeated enlightened discourse almost completely. The early condemnation of works by William Ockham, Johannes Eckehart, the spiritual Franciscans, and Dante signaled the start of a breakdown in the integrity of Western thought. During this Great Interruption, xenophobia replaced curiosity, interest in Islam and the classics withered, and Muslim thought was anathematized or ignored. Fifty years later, it was no longer wise to learn Arabic, Hebrew, or even Greek. — Michael Wolfe

When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better. — William Of Ockham

Entities should not be posited unnecessarily. — William Of Ockham

Simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones. — William Of Ockham

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

Plurality is not to be posited without necessity. — William Of Ockham

For nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture. — William Of Ockham

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

According to the standard reading of the Organon, Aristotle holds that there are ten categories of existing things as follows: substance, quality, quantity, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and passion. According to Ockham's reading, however, Aristotle holds that there are only two categories of existing things: substance and quality. Ockham bases his interpretation on the thesis that only substances and qualities have real essence definitions signifying things composed of matter and form. The other eight categories signify a substance or a quality while connoting something else. They therefore have nominal essence definitions, meaning that they are not existing things. — Anonymous

Communism is Christianity castrated by Ockham's Razor. — Israel Shamir

There never was a sounder logical maxim of scientific procedure than Ockham's razor: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. That is to say; before you try a complicated hypothesis, you should make quite sure that no simplification of it will explain the facts equally well. — Charles Sanders Peirce

Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate. (Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.) — William Of Ockham

Whenever two hypotheses cover the facts, use the simpler of the two. — William Of Ockham

God's existence cannot be deduced by reason alone. — William Of Ockham

Ockham's disposable razors — James K. Morrow

My God is
the green tide in the spring leaves
the redness of cherries high in the air
the excitement of shooting stars
the song of birds in summer branches
the sunrise on a winter's morning
the name of everything we don't understand ... — William Of Ockham

Keep things simple. — William Of Ockham

But a question needs to be asked, a basic logical scientific question. It is simply this, has anyone applied Ockham's Razor to the question yet? — Leviak B. Kelly

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

First it must be known that only a spoken word or a conventional sign is an equivocal or univocal term; therefore a mental contentor concept is, strictly speaking, neither equivocal nor univocal. — William Of Ockham

It is only rather recently that science has begun to make peace with its magical roots. Until a few decades ago, it was common for histories of science either to commence decorously with Copernicus's heliocentric theory or to laud the rationalism of Aristotelian antiquity and then to leap across the Middle Ages as an age of ignorance and superstition. One could, with care and diligence, find occasional things to praise in the works of Avicenna, William of Ockham, Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon, but these sparse gems had to be thoroughly dusted down and scraped clean of unsightly accretions before being inserted into the corners of a frame fashioned in a much later period. — Philip Ball

Plurality should not be assumed without necessity. — William Of Ockham

Intuitive cognition of a thing is cognition that enables us to know whether the thing exists or does not exist, in such a way that, if the thing exists, then the intellect immediately judges that it exists and evidently knows that it exists, unless the judgment happens to be impeded through the imperfection of this cognition. — William Of Ockham

The simplest explanation is usually the right one — William Of Ockham

Know what you know. Most people oversimplify Occam's razor to mean the simplest answer is usually correct. But the real meaning, what the Franciscan friar William of Ockham really wanted to emphasize, is that you shouldn't complicate, that you shouldn't "stack" a theory if a simpler explanation was at the ready. Pare it down. Prune the excess. Andrew — Harlan Coben

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

Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. — William Of Ockham

3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, and 7 is a prime. Why bother with non-prime numbers when the primes can do everything? — William Of Ockham

All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one. — William Of Ockham

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