Verified Quotes & Sayings

By deciding that they would study only that which could be verified under controlled conditions, they had merely limited their field of endeavor. Most truth lay outside the neat confines of science.... — Orson Scott Card

Left with an oncoming headache, went home, and that's verified, to his wife and six-month-old baby. He's three weeks into a big, fat raise and promotion. He doesn't fit for me."
"Lucky for Whistler, and likely his mother?"
"What? Why?"
"Weak joke. So back to your corporate trio. — J.D. Robb

The hypotheses which we accept ought to explain phenomena which we have observed. But they ought to do more than this; our hypotheses ought to foretell phenomena which have not yet been observed; ... because if the rule prevails, it includes all cases; and will determine them all, if we can only calculate its real consequences. Hence it will predict the results of new combinations, as well as explain the appearances which have occurred in old ones. And that it does this with certainty and correctness, is one mode in which the hypothesis is to be verified as right and useful. — William Whewell

I would by all means have men beware, lest Aesop's pretty fable of the fly that sate on the pole of a chariot at the Olympic races and said, 'What a dust do I raise,' be verified in them. For so it is that some small observation, and that disturbed sometimes by the instrument, sometimes by the eye, sometimes by the calculation, and which may be owing to some real change in the sky, raises new skies and new spheres and circles. — Francis Bacon

The commonplace expression that life is nothing but a play is verified above all in this: the world speaks absolutely consistently in one way and acts absolutely consistently in another. — Giacomo Leopardi

Folly is the only thing that keeps youth at a stay and old age afar off;" as it is verified in the Brabanders, of whom there goes this common saying, "That age, which is wont to render other men wiser, makes them the greater fools. — Erasmus

The very notion of nature as a closed system entirely sufficient to itself is plainly one that cannot be verified, deductively or empirically, from within the system of nature. It is a metaphysical (which is to say "extra-natural") conclusion regarding the whole of reality, which neither reason nor experience legitimately warrants. — David Bentley Hart

Progress is achieved by exchanging our theories for new ones which go further than the old, until we find one based on a larger number of facts ... Theories are only hypotheses, verified by more or less numerous facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best, but even then they are never final, never to be absolutely believed. — Claude Bernard

It is, therefore, necessary to be suspicious of those who seek to convince us with means other than reason, and of charismatic leaders: we must be cautious about delegating to others our judgement and our will. Since it is difficult to distinguish true prophets from false, it is as well to regard all prophets with suspicion. It is better to renounce revealed truths, even if they exalt us by their splendor of if we find them convenient because we can acquire them gratis. It is better to content oneself with other more modest and less exiting truths, those one acquires painfully, little by little and without shortcuts, with study, discussion, and reasoning, those that can we verified and demonstrated. — Primo Levi

EPA has a long history of relying on science that was not created by the agency itself. This often means that the science is not available to the public and, therefore, cannot be reproduced and verified. — John Barrasso

Then he noted softly, "You're pissed."
Was he for real? "Uh ... yeah," I verified. "Don't be pissed," he ordered.
No, seriously, he couldn't be for real. — Kristen Ashley

Were there atheists in foxholes during World War II? Of course, as can be verified by my dogtags . . . A veteran of Omaha Beach in 1944, I insisted upon including 'None' instead of P, C, or J as my religious affiliation. — Warren Allen Smith

If art could be absolutely verified as to importance in, say, the way gold can be judged for purity and weight, then it would of course be finished as mythic activity. Free of doubt, controversy, and the inexplicable fluctuation of reputation, art-making would bear the same relationship to creativity as cake mix does to baking. — Harold Town

The belief in a certain idea gives to the researcher the support for his work. Without this belief he would be lost in a sea of doubts and insufficiently verified proofs. — Konrad Zuse

In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it. — Eric Schmidt

French wines may be said but to pickle meat in the stomach, but this is the wine that digests, and doth not only breed good blood, but it nutrifieth also, being a glutinous substantial liquor; of this wine, if of any other, may be verified that merry induction: That good wine makes good blood, good blood causeth good humors, good humors cause good thoughts, good thoughts bring forth good works, good works carry a man to heaven, ergo, good wine carrieth a man to heaven. — James Howell

You have a memory chip that small implanted in you, he verified.
I nodded, guessing this was somewhat worse than having cooties. — James Patterson

Classical physics has been superseded by quantum theory: quantum theory is verified by experiments. Experiments must be described in terms of classical physics. — Carl Friedrich Von Weizsacker

The strongest arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences and the goal of all speculation. — Roger Bacon

Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance. — Eric Schmidt

As consumers, we can buy organic and non-GMO verified products, so look out for those labels when shopping! — Zoe Lister-Jones

Never accept a fact until it has been verified by theory. — Arthur Eddington

I hold that the propositions embodied in natural science are not derived by any definite rule from the data of experience, and that they can neither be verified nor falsified by experience according to any definite rule. — Michael Polanyi

On the whole, the experience that the activity of the soul obeys the law of least resistance has been verified even in regard to women's social morals. As a rule, these have been focused on the family and on charity - among other reasons, because woman's sense of duty seldom finds means of expression in other directions. — Ellen Key

The Internet's abundant capacity has removed the old artificial constraints on publishing - including getting our content checked and verified. The new strategy of publishing everything we find out thus results in an immense cloud of data, free of theory, published before verified, and available to anyone with an Internet connection. And this is changing the role that facts have played as the foundation of knowledge. — David Weinberger

My job is to get to the heart of a story, to find out what's really going on; to get it verified and, then, to get it out to as many people as possible as fast as. — Kate Adie

Never repeat a rumor before you have verified it. And if it is true, hold your tongue all the more. — Selma Lagerlof

One would think that potential motherhood should make women as a class as sacred as the priesthood. In common parlance we have much fine-spun theorizing on the exalted office of the mother, her immense influence in moulding the character of her sons; "the hand that rocks the cradle moves the world," etc., but in creeds and codes, in constitutions and Scriptures, in prose and verse, we do not see these lofty paeans recorded or verified in living facts. As a class, women were treated among the Jews as an inferior order of beings, just as they are to-day in all civilized nations. And now, as then, men claim to be guided by the will of God. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Prior to any generalization about literature, literary texts have to be read, and the possibility of reading can never be taken for granted. It is an act of understanding that can never be observed, nor in any way prescribed or verified. — Paul De Man

Four predictions of the Big Bang Theory have now been verified - surely enough to quench even the most biased critics. — Joseph Silk

Talk can neither be verified nor falsified in any rigorous sense. This is an open secret which hermeneutics and aesthetics, from Aristotle to Croce, have laboured to exorcise or to conceal from themselves and their clients. This ontological, which is to say both primordial and essential axiom (or platitude) of ineradicable undecidability needs, none the less, to be closely argued. — George Steiner

The lesson: Be aware of the incredible power of social media and the dangers of reacting to news that you haven't verified. — Ric Edelman

For all this talk about us being a nation at war with child abuse, and for all the media hype about witch-hunts and false allegations - and don't ever let anyone use the word witch-hunts about this; there were no witches - the fact remains that in 1994, it is extremely difficult to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse. And the external forces of denial are almost overwhelming. If a case as verified as mine meets with denial, I dread to think about the experience of people who don't have the kind of corroboration that I do. And I really worry that we're getting close to a point where it's going to be impossible to prosecute child molesters, because we don't believe children, and now we don't believe adults. (Cheit "Paper presented at the Mississippi Statewide Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect" Jackson, April 29 1994.) — Ross Cheit

Nothing is accomplished all at once, and it is one of my great maxims, and one of the most completely verified, that Nature makes no leaps: a maxim which I have called the law of continuity. — Gottfried Leibniz

Every set of phenomena, whether cultural totality or sequence of events, has to be fragmented, disjointed, so that it can be sent down the circuits; every kind of language has to be resolved into a binary formulation so that it can circulate not, any longer, in our memories, but in the luminous, electronic memory of the computers. No human language can withstand the speed of light. No event can withstand being beamed across the whole planet. No meaning can withstand acceleration. No history can withstand the centrifugation of facts or their being short-circuited in real time (to pursue the same train of thought: no sexuality can withstand being liberated, no culture can withstand being hyped, no truth can withstand being verified, etc.). — Jean Baudrillard

Experimental evidence has now verified that nuclear reactions can be caused to occur in heavily loaded solids. It is premature to predict where this is headed from an applications point of view, but the basic science is clearly revolutionary. — George H. Miley

Miracles are commonplace in religious scripture. Our ancient ancestors are said to have felt Jesus' wounds, verified Muhammad's ascent to heaven, and even interacted with their respective deities directly. Today, believers have no such luxury. They are forced to rely on blind faith that these things occurred, that people were at one time able to overcome or render inert natural laws. — David G. McAfee

We are adjured not to burn the candle at both ends.
But how many people have verified that physically possible? — Idries Shah

When promises are verified, God's truth is magnified. — Thomas Watson

If information is true, if it can be verified, and if it's really important, the newspaper needs to be willing to take the risk associated with using unidentified sources. — Bob Woodward

I want to have sex with you" he told her back. "Touch you until you squirm with pleasure."
Laurel's head shot around. "What did you say?"
Oh, shit. He had never actually verified how much or how little Laurel could hear. — Erin McCarthy

To regard the successful experiences which ensue from a belief as a criterion of its truth is one thing
and a thing that is sometimes bad and sometimes good
but to assume that truth itself consists in the process by which it is verified is a different thing and always bad. — William Pepperell Montague

Whenever known and sufficient causes are available, it is anti-scientific to discard them in favour of a hypothesis that can never be verified. — Max Weber

I tended to be skeptical of anything that couldn't be measured, written down, and independently verified across a series of double-blind tests. But this was hard data. Lola's heart beat fastest for me. — Max Barry

During my long investigation of these strange objects, I have seen many reports verified by Air Force Intelligence, detailed accounts by Air Force pilots, radar operators, and other trained observers proving the UFOs are high-speed craft superior to anything built on Earth. — Donald Keyhoe

The theories of the social sciences do not consist of "laws" in the sense of empirical rules about the behavior of objects definable in physical terms. All that the theory of the social sciences attempts is to provide a technique of reasoning which assists us in connecting individual facts, but which, like logic or mathematics, is not about the facts. It can, therefore, and this is the second point, never be verified or falsified by reference to facts. — Friedrich Hayek

Many ask what difference does it make whether man believes in a God or not.
It makes a big difference.
It makes all the difference in the world.
It is the difference between being right and being wrong; it is the difference between truth and surmises - facts or delusion.
It is the difference between the earth being flat, and the earth being round.
It is the difference between the earth being the center of the universe, or a tiny speck in this vast and uncharted sea of multitudinous suns and galaxies.
It is the difference in the proper concept of life, or conclusions based upon illusion.
It is the difference between verified knowledge and the faith of religion.
It is a question of Progress or the Dark Ages. — Joseph Lewis

This belief, that science eradicates (the need for) God, is a myth many people believe today. The truth is that science, the study of the world and collection of our findings, has not and cannot disprove God. There is no scientific journal that has disproven God's existence. This is because God cannot be put in a test tube and either verified or falsified. God is a spiritual being and is outside the reach of empirical scientific research. Christians cannot prove God the existence of God with absolute certainty, nor can atheists disprove his existence with any certainty. That does not mean that we cannot look at the evidence as to whether or not God exists. — Jon Morrison

Theorists have wonderful ideas which take years and years to be verified. — David Gross

I arrived always at the same, disquieting place: the history of Western exploration in the New World in every quarter is a confrontation with an image of distant wealth. Gold, furs, timber, whales, the Elysian Fields, the control of trade routes to the Orient - it all had to be verified, acquired, processed, allocated, and defended. And these far-flung enterprises had to be profitable, or be made to seem profitable, or be financed until they were. The task was wild, extraordinary. And it was complicated by the fact that people were living in North America when we arrived. Their title to the wealth had to be extinguished. — Barry Lopez

Bad writing, it is easily verified, has never kept scholarship from being published. — Jacques Barzun

A scientist naturally and inevitably ... mulls over the data and guesses at a solution. He proceeds to testing of the guess by new data-predicting the consequences of the guess and then dispassionately inquiring whether or not the predictions are verified. — Edwin Powell Hubble

Officers, what offence have these men done?
DOGBERRY
Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have
belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves. — William Shakespeare

Many have been with the show for years, and they have sources in the business, so we do know things, but until it is verified, we don't run with the story. — Mary Hart

We had a few calls saying election precincts had closed early. But it turned out that the callers were in the wrong places. Some people went to the old locations of a church, rather than the new one. We called the polling locations as well as the church pastor and they verified they were still open. — Jane Anderson

The accumulation of genetic mutations were touted to be enough to change one species to another ... .No. It wasn't dishonesty. I think it was wish fulfillment and social momentum. Assumptions, made but not verified, were taught as fact. — Lynn Margulis

Modern science is predicated on 'truths' verified through accurate observation and measurements of physical world phenomena. — Bruce Lipton

The past is open to all sorts of magical possibilities because it can't be verified. It's as we make it, so it seems to be entirely free. It seems to be completely up for grabs. But of course it's not. — Samantha Harvey

It seems a miracle that young children easily learn the language of any environment into which they were born. The generative approach to grammar, pioneered by Chomsky, argues that this is only explicable if certain deep, universal features of this competence are innate characteristics of the human brain. Biologically speaking, this hypothesis of an inheritable capability to learn any language means that it must somehow be encoded in the DNA of our chromosomes. Should this hypothesis one day be verified, then lingusitics would become a branch of biology. — Niels Kaj Jerne

Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If it can be verified, we don't need faith ... Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys. — Madeleine L'Engle

There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California. — Edward Abbey

Struggle toward the capital-T Truth, but recognize that the task is impossible - or that if a correct answer is possible, verification certainly is impossible.
In the end, it cannot be doubted that each of us can see only a part of the picture. The doctor sees one, the patient another, the engineer a third, the economist a fourth, the pearl diver a fifth, the alcoholic a sixth, the cable guy a seventh, the sheep farmer an eighth, the Indian beggar a ninth, the pastor a tenth. Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete. And Truth comes somewhere above all of them, where, as at the end of that Sunday's reading;
the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work. — Paul Kalanithi

The end is low, like all quantitative ends, personal or not, and it can be attained and verified. — Fernando Pessoa

The movie business is very difficult but the music business is just impossible. So I'll play in bands and record and play songs with other people, but for me it's a form of expression that all I need is me. I don't need cameras or agents, I can just have a piano and sing and feel totally verified. — Jeremy Renner

There is a social injunction implied in the positivist and analyst methods. This social axiom is that :;:;:;:;:;:; We OUGHT to act in such a way that what IS true can be verified to be so. — Jacob Bronowski

The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game. — Karl Popper

The thing about being a lifelong gamer is that my eye-to-hand reaction time is faster than average. I actually went on a website that tests your reaction time and verified this to my satisfaction. — Arthur Chu

The existence of flying saucers is unlikely to be verified by an accumulation of facts and figures, dates and times, which, if anything, tend to dull and distract the creative intelligence, obscuring more than they reveal. — Ken Hollings

Dr. Ian Stevenson, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia Medical School, has published five volumes of case histories, mostly of children under the age of four who have detailed memories of past lives. Some of them even describe the process of dying and being reincarnated. The vivid detail of the best cases, all verified by Dr. Stevenson and his assistants, suggests strongly that reincarnation is a real process - and therefore, by implication, that the soul is real. — Whitley Strieber

I think I should learn to get along better with people," he explained to Miss Benson one day, when she came upon him in the corridor of the literature building and asked what he was doing wearing a fraternity pledge pin (wearing it on the chest of the new V-neck pullover in which his mother said he looked so collegiate). Miss Benson's response to his proposed scheme for self-improvement was at once so profound and so simply put that Zuckerman went around for days repeating the simple interrogative sentence to himself; like Of Times and the River, it verified something he had known in his bones all along, but in which he could not placed his faith until it had been articulated by someone of indisputable moral prestige and purity : "Why," Caroline Benson asked the seventeen-year-old boy, "should you want to learn a thing like that? — Philip Roth

It is a fact verified and recorded in many histories that soul capable of the greatest good is also capable of the greatest evil. Who is there more impious than backsliding priest? Who more carnal than a recent virgin? This, however, may be a matter of appearance. — John Steinbeck

People's conceptions about themselves and the nature of things are developed and verified through four different processes: direct experience of the effects produced by their actions, vicarious experience of the effects produced by somebody else's actions, judgments voiced by others, and derivation of further knowledge from what they already know by using rules of inference — Albert Bandura

Touch screen voting is a fine thing so long as they have a voter-verified paper trail. — Joan Blades

No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile. I didn't bring you up only to move across sure ground. I didn't teach you to think that everything must be within our control or understanding. Did I? For, if I did, I was wrong. I fyou won't take a chance, then the powers you refuse because you cannot explain them, will, as they say, make a monkey out of you. — Mark Helprin

Which prophecy of Christ we see wonderfully to be verified, insomuch that the whole course of the Church to this day may seem nothing else but a verifying of the said prophecy. — John Foxe

It has always seemed to me that a being coming from another world, with a message of infinite importance to mankind, should at least have verified that message by his own signature. Is it not wonderful that not one word was written by Christ? — Robert Green Ingersoll

It's important that all my friends have verified Twitter accounts. The blue checkmark makes me feel comfortable and like I'm friends with a legit, high-quality person. I also prefer friends with ridiculously long usernames. — Jonah Peretti

Who's asking?" I kept my face a complete blank. I didn't want to give away my identity before I'd verified that he wasn't one of those church people trying to convince me the only way to save my soul was to be in church come Sunday morning. Not that I had anything against church, I just thought Mrs. Bosley probably needed saving far more than I did. — Kendra Ashe

Science consists exactly of those forms of knowledge that can be verified and duplicated by anybody. — Seth Lloyd

There have been many times when we have not run stories because we cannot get it verified. — Mary Hart

I left Caen, where I was living, to go on a geological excursion under the auspices of the School of Mines. The incidents of the travel made me forget my mathematical work. Having reached Coutances, we entered an omnibus to go to some place or other. At the moment when I put my foot on the step, the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it, that the transformations I had used to define the Fuchsian functions were identical with those of non-Euclidean geometry. I did not verify the idea; I should not have had time, as upon taking my seat in the omnibus, I went on with a conversation already commenced, but I felt a perfect certainty. On my return to Caen, for convenience sake, I verified the result at my leisure. — Henri Poincare

Do you want to know why you don't meet my standards?" he asked.
She shook her head in mortification.
"Too late," he replied. "Here's my most important rule: Never have intercourse when one of the parties is in love with the other. It won't end well."
She gasped. "You arrogant cad! I'm not in love with you."
"I know." He didn't look away from her. "Isn't that what I said? Only one of us is in love, and it isn't you."
Violet stared at him. Her ears appeared to be working; her brain seemed to function. Tentatively, she added two and three and verified that they still made five. — Courtney Milan

While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq's proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq. — Scott Ritter

Under the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star Program, homes are independently verified to be measurably more energy efficient than average houses. — Melissa Bean

Maybe they sensed that they were waving at themselves, waving in the hope that someday if evidence is demanded of their passage through time, demanded by their own doubts, a moment might be recalled when they stood in a dazzling plaza in the sun and were registered on the transparent plastic ribbon; and thirty years away, on that day when proof is needed, it could be hoped that their film is being projected on a screen somewhere, and there they stand, verified, in chemical reincarnation, waving at their own old age, smiling their reassurance to the decades, a race of eternal pilgrims in a marketplace in the dusty sunlight, seven arms extended in a fabulous salute to the forgetfulness of being. What better proof (if proof is ever needed) that they have truly been alive? Their happiness, I think, was made of this, the anticipation of incontestable evidence, and had nothing to do with the present moment, which would pass with all the others into whatever is the opposite of eternity. — Don DeLillo

It is sometimes said that we should never believe a scientific theory until it is verified by experiment. But a famous astronomer has also stated that we should never believe an observation until it is confirmed by a theory. — Joao Magueijo

Your view on the world is validated and verified daily. How is your view on the world working for you? — Tony Curl

In the Bhagavad Gita, there is no long discussion, nothing elaborate. The main reason for this is that everything stated in the Gita is meant to be tested in the life of every man; it is intended to be verified in practice. — Vinoba Bhave

A system that is comprehensively tested and passes all of its tests all of the time is a testable system. That's an obvious statement, but an important one. Systems that aren't testable aren't verifiable. Arguably, a system that cannot be verified should never be deployed. — Robert C. Martin

I remember calling the council's cemetery department to ask about body decomposition in different soil types. Once they had verified that I was a novelist and not a sicko, they were extremely helpful. — Sara Sheridan

Organizations worried about the potential for e-voting problems have long-advocated for audit procedures by which votes cast by e-voting machines could be verified through audit trails. — Bob Barr

Again, we cannot search the whole world in order to make sure that nothing exists which the law forbids. Nevertheless, both kinds of strict statements, strictly existential and strictly universal, are in principle empirically decidable, each, however, in one way only: they are unilaterally decidable. Whenever it is found that something exists here or there, a strictly existential statement may thereby be verified, or a universal one falsified. — Karl R. Popper

Unless the old adage must be verified, That beggars mounted, run their horse to death. — William Shakespeare

But at the time of transition, your guides, your guardian angels, people whom you have loved and who have passed on before you, will be there to help you. We have verified this beyond a shadow of a doubt, and I say this as a scientist. There will always be someone to help you with this transition. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Self-worth cannot be verified by others. You are worthy because you say it is so. If you depend on others for your value it is other-worth. — Wayne W. Dyer

Kanematsu Sugiura ... took down lab books and showed me that in fact Laetrile is dramatically effective in stopping the spread of cancer. The animals were genetically programmed to get breast cancer and about 80 - 90% of them normally get spread of the cancer from the breast to the lungs which is a common route in humans, also for how people die of breast cancer, and instead when they gave the animals Laetrile by injection only 10-20% of them got lung metasteses. And these facts were verified by many people, including the pathology department. — Ralph W. Moss

One cannot enter don Juan's world intellectually, like a dilettante seeking fast and fleeting knowledge. Nor, in don Juan's world, can anything be verified absolutely. The only thing we can do is arrive at a state of increased awareness that allows us to perceive the world around us in a more inclusive manner. — Carlos Castaneda

Science is nothing more than a method of inquiry. The method says an assertion is valid, and merits universal acceptance, only if it can be independently verified. The impersonal rigor of the method means it is utterly apolitical. A truth in science is verifiable whether you are black or white, male or female, old or young. It's verifiable whether you like the results of a study, or you don't. — Michael Crichton

The mind effortlessly and automatically takes in new ideas, which remain in limbo until verified or rejected by conscious, rational analysis. — Rene Descartes