Incomplete Knowledge Quotes

• We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don’t know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.

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  Richard P. Feynman

  Thinking   Incomplete Knowledge   People  

  692

• Among other grand achievements, F. A. Hayek had a remarkable career pointing out the flaws in collectivism. One of his keenest insights was that, paradoxically, any collectivist system necessarily depends on one individual (or small group) to make key social and economic decisions. In contrast, a system based on individualism takes advantage of the aggregate, or 'collective,' information of the whole society; through his actions each participant contributes his own particular, if incomplete, knowledge-information that could never be tapped by the individual at the head of a collectivist state.

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  Sheldon Richman

  Keys   Incomplete Knowledge   Careers  

  2907

• A scientist strives to understand the work of Nature. But with our insufficient talents as scientists, we do not hit upon the truth all at once. We must content ourselves with tracking it down, enveloped in considerable darkness, which leads us to make new mistakes and errors. By diligent examination, we may at length little by little peel off the thickest layers, but we seldom get the core quite free, so that finally we have to be satisfied with a little incomplete knowledge.

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  Torbern Bergman

  Mistake   Knowledge   Science  

  1314

• Given our inevitably incomplete knowledge about key structural aspects of our ever-changing economy and the sometimes asymmetric costs or benefits of particular outcomes, a central bank... need to consider not only the most likely future path for the economy but also the distribution of possible outcomes about that path. They then need to reach a judgment about the probabilities, costs, and benefits of the various possible outcomes under alternative choices for policy.

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  Alan Greenspan

  Keys   Incomplete Knowledge   Choices  

  "Monetary Policy under Uncertainty". Alan Greenspan's Remarks At a symposium sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, www.federalreserve.gov. August 29, 2003.

  1654

• There is no conflict between science and religion. Conflict only arises from an incomplete knowledge of either science or religion, or both.

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  Russell M. Nelson

  Incomplete Knowledge   Conflict   Arise  

  241

• Poems come from incomplete knowledge.

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  Diane Wakoski

  Incomplete Knowledge   Poetry   Incomplete  

  Diane Wakoski (1988). “Emerald Ice: Selected Poems, 1962-1987”, p.132, David R. Godine Publisher

  4300

• Fear is incomplete knowledge.

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  Agatha Christie

  Incomplete Knowledge   Incomplete  

  "Death Comes as the End". Book by Agatha Christie, 1945.

  689

• The incomplete knowledge of a system must be an essential part of every formulation in quantum theory. Quantum theoretical laws must be of a statistical kind. To give an example: we know that the radium atom emits alpha-radiation. Quantum theory can give us an indication of the probability that the alpha-particle will leave the nucleus in unit time, but it cannot predict at what precise point in time the emission will occur, for this is uncertain in principle.

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  Werner Heisenberg

  Science   Incomplete Knowledge   Law  

  4987

• To find the point where hypothesis and fact meet; the delicate equilibrium between dream and reality; the place where fantasy and earthly things are metamorphosed into a work of art; the hour when faith in the future becomes knowledge of the past; to lay down one's power for others in need; to shake off the old ordeal and get ready for the new; to question, knowing that never can the full answer be found; to accept uncertainties quietly, even our incomplete knowledge of God; this is what man's journey is about, I think.

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  Lillian Smith

  Life   Dream   Art  

  473