Predicate Quotes & Sayings

For Plato, if two individuals have some common attribute and so are describable by the same predicate-'Tom is a man'; 'Dick is a man'-then there is something in virtue of which Tom and Dick (together with all other referents of the predicate nominative 'man') have this common attribute. This something is the ideal Form man, which Form is what really, ultimately exists, whereas individual men are just temporal appearances of the Form, with a kind of borrowed or derivative existence, like shadows or projected images. That's a very simplified version of the O.O.M., but not a distorted one-and even at this level it should not be hard to see the influences of Pythagoras and Parmenides on Plato's ontological Theory of Forms, which the O.O.M. is an obvious part of. — David Foster Wallace

When we predicate of any thing an abstract name, we affirm of the thing that it is one or other of these five things; that it is a case of Existence, or of Co-existence, or of Causation, or of Sequence, or of Resemblance. — John Stuart Mill

Every proposition, true or false - so the present theory contends - ascribes a predicate to a subject, and - what is a corollary from the above - there is only one subject. The consequences of this doctrine are so strange, that I cannot believe they have been realized by those who maintain it. The theory is in fact self-contradictory. — Bertrand Russell

The principles of storytelling are immutable, explaining why we see shards of ourselves in other people's stories. All enduring stories predicate its themes upon humankind's ability to exercise free will. Without a character's ability to make choices of how to act, there can be no story. In absence of free will, there is no humanity. Only after God evicted them from the Garden of Eden, could Adam and Eve experience what it means to be human. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I would predicate that in all great works of genius masculine and feminine elements in the personality find expression, whether this androgynous nature is played out sexually or not. — May Sarton

It is appropriate to have an over representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis. — Al Gore

It is only when the question ceases to be identified with the subject-verb-predicate structure of grammar, and is recognized within its original ground, within existence itself, that we can start looking for an answer. But such an answer will not be restricted to the confinements of language; it too must be revealed within an existential structure. — Stephen Batchelor

The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. — Oscar Wilde

I'm no online whiz, but I'm not a Luddite, either. I love that we have these laptops and tablets and smart phones; they're awesome and convenient and all that. It's more about maintaining balance. Technology should always be a predicate of the true subject: our individual humanity, our examined lives. — Paul Harding

ATTRIBUTE, TERM, SUBJECT, PREDICATE, PARTICULAR, UNIVERSAL
charmingly useful, if any friend should happen to ask if you have ever studied Logic. Mind you bring all seven words into your answer, and you friend will go away deeply impressed
'a sadder and a wiser — Lewis Carroll

And I did long for it, to say one true sentence of my own, to leap into the subject, that sturdy vessel travelling upstream through the axonal predicate into what is possible; into the object, which is all possibility; into what little we know of the future, of eternity--the light of which, incidentally, was streaming in on us just then through the high windows. Above Stasselova's head the storm clouds were dispersing, as if frightened by some impending goodwill, and I could see tht the birds were out again, forming into that familiar pointy hieroglyph, as they're told to do from deep within. — Rebecca Lee

Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next. — Maya Lin

For if the Absolute has predicates, then there are predicates; but the proposition "there are predicates" is not one which the present theory can admit. We cannot escape by saying that the predicates merely qualify the Absolute; for the Absolute cannot be qualified by nothing, so that the proposition "there are predicates" is logically prior to the proposition "the Absolute has predicates". Thus the theory itself demands, as its logical prius, a proposition without a subject and a predicate; moreover this proposition involves diversity, for even if there be only one predicate, this must be different from the one subject. Again, since there is a predicate, the predicate is an entity, and its predicability of the Absolute is a relation between it and the Absolute. Thus the very proposition which was to be non-relational turns out to be, after all, relational, and to express a relation which current philosophical language would describe as purely external. — Bertrand Russell

God is represented as infinite, eternal, incomprehensible; he is contained under every predicate in non that the logic of ignorance could fabricate. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

The knowledge of personal failure ... is the invaluable predicate of all honest compassion. — Anne Truitt

FDA classifies devices according to the risk they pose to consumers. Premarket review is required for moderate- and high-risk devices. There are two paths that manufacturers can use to bring such devices to market. One path consists of conducting clinical studies, submitting a premarket approval (PMA) application and requires evidence providing reasonable assurance that the device is safe and effective. The other path involves submitting a 510(k) notification demonstrating that the device is substantially equivalent to a device already on the market (a predicate device) that does not require a PMA. The 510(k) process results in FDA clearance and tends to be much less expensive and less time-consuming than seeking FDA approval via PMA. — Judith A. Johnson

When people come to speak to me, whatever they say, I am struck by a kind of incandescence in them, the 'I' whose predicate can be 'love' or 'fear' or 'want,' and whose object can be 'someone' or 'nothing' and it won't really matter, because the loveliness is just in that presence, shaped around 'I' like a flame on a wick, emanating itself in grief and guilt and joy and whatever else. — Marilynne Robinson

Todd, trust math. As in Matics, Math E. First-order predicate logic. Never fail you. Quantities and their relation. Rates of change. The vital statistics of God or equivalent. When all else fails. When the boulder's slid all the way back to the bottom. When the headless are blaming. When you do not know your way about. You can fall back and regroup around math. Whose truth is deductive truth. Independent of sense or emotionality. The syllogism. The identity. Modus Tollens. Transitivity. Heaven's theme song. The night light on life's dark wall, late at night. Heaven's recipe book. The hydrogen spiral. The methane, ammonia, H2O. Nucleic acids. A and G, T and C. The creeping inevibatility. Caius is mortal. Math is not mortal. What it is is: listen: it's true. — David Foster Wallace

The welfare state is predicate don collecting money from today's workers in order to pay for those who paid in before them. But today's workers don't have enough money to sustain the scheme, and there are too few of them to do so. As a result, virtually every welfare state in Europe, and many American states, like California are going broke. — Dennis Prager

You are all at once the subject, object, predicate, preposition, and period of my thoughts. — Daria Snadowsky

Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive.... Virtually every page is a cliffhanger--you've got to force them to turn it."~ — Dr. Seuss

To me, a philosopher who says that the distinction between human and nonhuman depends on whether you have a white or a black skin, and a philosopher who says that the distinction between human and nonhuman depends on whether or not you know the difference between a subject and a predicate, are more alike than they are unlike. — J.M. Coetzee

Stupid English."
"English isn't stupid," I say.
"Well, my English teacher is." He makes a face. "Mr. Franklin assigned an essay about our favorite subject, and I wanted to write about lunch, but he won't let me."
"Why not?"
"He says lunch isn't a subject."
I glance at him. "It isn't."
"Well," Jacob says, "it's not a predicate, either. Shouldn't he know that? — Jodi Picoult

This, however, only shows that there is an ambiguity in the word is; a word which not only performs the function of the copula in affirmations, but has also a meaning of its own, in virtue of which it may itself be made the predicate of a proposition. — John Stuart Mill

It should be pointed out that certain correlative concepts retain their meaning, and possibly their foremost significance, if they are referred exclusively to man. One might, for example, speak of an unforgettable life or moment even if all men had forgotten it. If the nature of such a life or moment required that it be unforgotten, that predicate would not imply a falsehood but merely a claim not fulfilled by men, and probably also refer to a realm in which it is fulfilled: God's remembrance. — Walter Benjamin

It is self-evident that the tabula rasa of modernization favors the optimum use of earth-moving equipment inasmuch as a totally flat datum is regarded as the most economic matrix upon which to predicate the rationalization of construction. — Kenneth Frampton

(1) an attribute is predicated of some subject, (35) so that the subject to which 'being' is attributed will not be, as it is something different from 'being'. [186b] Something, therefore, which is not will be. Hence 'substance' will not be a predicate of anything else. For the subject cannot be a being, unless 'being' means several things, in such a way that each is something. But ex hypothesi 'being' means only one thing. — Aristotle.

He was my teacher, and he had wrapped himself, his elaborate historical self, into this package, and stood in front of the high windows, to teach me my little lesson, which turned out to be not about Poland or fascism or war, borderlines or passion or loyalty, but just about the sentence: the importance of, the sweetness of. And I did long for it, to say one true sentence of my own, to leap into the subject, that sturdy vessel traveling upstream through the axonal predicate possibility; into what little we know of the future, of eternity. — Rebecca Lee

As a Black woman filmmaker I feel that's my job: visibility. And my preference within that job is Black subjectivity. Meaning I'm interested in the lives of Black folk as the subject. Not the predicate, not the tangent.[These stories] deserve to be told. Not as sociology, not as spectacle, not as a singular event that happens every so often, but regularly and purposefully as truth and as art on an ongoing basis, as do the stories of all the women you love. — Ava DuVernay

[I]f God as a subject is the determined, while the quality, the predicate, is determining, then in truth the rank of the godhead is due not to the subject, but to the predicate. — Ludwig Feuerbach

People take even greater umbrage when they hear themselves labeled with a common noun. The reason is that a noun predicate appears to pigeonhole the with a stereotype of a category rather than referring to them as an individual who happens to possess a trait. — Steven Pinker

If the will is their servant then it is not sovereign, and if the will is not sovereign, we certainly cannot predicate 'freedom' of it. — Arthur W. Pink

The only thing that words can do with any real precision or accuracy is hang together. Accuracy of description in language is not possible beyond a certain point: the most faithfully descriptive account of anything will always turn away from what it describes into its own self-contained grammatical fictions of subject and predicate and object. — Northrop Frye

Governments predicate the call for war upon very terrible lies: that it will restrain evil men, make honest and courageous men out of boys, and the outcome depends upon the moral virtuousness of the combatants. Warfare is obscene, an evil waste of life, and a destroyer of civilization. Society can salvage no virtue or rectitude from the larger waste of destroying cities and killing people. There is no moral message deduced from warfare. All warfare is barbaric and inhuman. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The silver lining of those years when I was trying to get 'Tinkers' published but couldn't were the years when I had to decide, Why do I want to be a writer? I realized that writing is the thing itself; writing is not a means to publication, writing is not a predicate of publication, so I spent years making art for art's sake. — Paul Harding

Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives. — Audre Lorde