Themes

"More specifically, we must not say this in a language of "adequate notation" (6.122; also 3.325, 5.533, 5.534). In other words, in a logically adequate, or correct, notation—-a Begriflrchrift (4. l273)...a notation in which sentences consist only of simple names naming simple objects."

"Peano's scheme [system of symbolization for logic] became the dominant system of notation for the majority of mathematical logicians; Russell's popularity and the influence of Principia Mathematica, which made use of Peano's notation, were mainly responsible for this."

"An English sentence like 'every whale is a mammal' transcribes directly into algebraic notation as '-W+M'. Similarly, its equivalent, 'no non-mammals are whales', transcribes directly as '-(+(-M)+W)'. Sentences that come ready made for direct transcription are called “Canonical”."

"The fact is that, while Leibniz did insist on a subject-predicate analysis of statements, this attitude was well thought out, and the failures of his logic are due only to his inability to devise an appropriate system of notation for his logical algorithm."

"A term used in Linguistics and Phonetics to refer to any system of Graphic representation of speech (as in Phonemic notation, where the term transcription is widely used). Specifically it refers to the set of symbols which represent a mode of linguistic analysis, as in the ‘Phrase-structure notation’ in general grammar. An analytic convention, in this sense, which is introduced into an analysis to facilitate the formulation of a statement such as a Rule, is often termed a notational device, e.g. the use of ( ) to indicate optionality in generative syntax."

"The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation."

"We could, of course, use any notation we want; do not laugh at notations; invent them, they are powerful. In fact,mathematics is, to a large extent, invention of better notations."

"A writing system is wider than a spelling system. English uses many w:Logogramslogograms which have as unambiguous correspondence with a single morpheme but give no indications of pronunciations:1,2,3 etc, L, @, &, %, +. Many more are in use in mathematics and formal logic. Other specialized uses include proofreading symbols (e.g. for delete, insert). Many of these symbols are not specific to English, and more detailed discussion would shade off into special purpose writing systems such as shorthands and scientific notations. However, “normal” uses of English also include a wide range of such forms."

"If men were but to read the New Testament with the same tone and emphasis, with which they do other books, and were to keep out of mind the idea of its being sacred, they would be disgusted with the credulity, and the want of intellect, reason and judgment, that is apparent in it."

"The New Age movement looks like a mixed bag. I see much in it that seems good: It's optimistic; it's enthusiastic; it has the capacity for belief. On the debit side, I think one needs to distinguish between belief and credulity."

"Credulity is belief in slight evidence, with no evidence, or against evidence."

"You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things."

"There was yet another disadvantage attaching to the whole of Newton’s physical inquiries, … the want of an appropriate notation for expressing the conditions of a dynamical problem, and the general principles by which its solution must be obtained. By the labours of LaGrange, the motions of a disturbed planet are reduced with all their complication and variety to a purely mathematical question. It then ceases to be a physical problem; the disturbed and disturbing planet are alike vanished: the ideas of time and force are at an end; the very elements of the orbit have disappeared, or only exist as arbitrary characters in a mathematical formula."

"We are driven by the usual insatiable curiosity of the scientist, and our work is a delightful game. I am frequently astonished that it so often results in correct predictions of experimental results. How can it be that writing down a few simple and elegant formulae, like short poems governed by strict rules such as those of the sonnet or the waka, can predict universal regularities of Nature? Perhaps we see equations as simple because they are easily expressed in terms of mathematical notation already invented at an earlier stage of development of the science, and thus what appears to us as w:Eleganceelegance of description really reflects the interconnectedness of Nature's laws at different levels."

"Aryabhata's work, called Aryabhatiya, is composed of three parts, in only the first of which use is made of a special notation of numbers. It is an alphabetical system in which the twenty-five consonants represent 1-25, respectively; other letters stand for 30, 40, …., 100 etc. The other mathematical parts of Aryabhata consists of rules without examples. Another alphabetic system prevailed in Southern India, the numbers 1-19 being designated by consonants, etc."

"Women suffer more from disappointment than men, because they have more of faith and are naturally more credulous."

"If elephants didn’t exist, you couldn’t invent one. They belong to a small group of living things so unlikely they challenge credulity and common sense. Compared to them, we are primitive, hanging on to a stubborn, unspecialised, five-fingered state, clever but destructive. They are models of refinement, nature’s archangels, the oldest and largest land mammals, touchstones to our imagination"

"Some jerk infected the Internet with an outright lie. It shows how easy it is to do and how credulous people are."

"Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths to their private parts."

"One would think that a system loaded with such gross and vulgar absurdities as Scripture religion is could never have obtained credit; yet we have seen what priest craft and fanaticism can do, and credulity believe."

"I prefer credulity to skepticism and cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all"

"I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has."

"How I suffered when I had to preach to you those pious lies that I detest in my heart. What remorse your credulity caused me! A thousand times I was on the point of breaking out publicly and opening your eyes, but a fear stronger than myself held me back, and forced me to keep silence until my death."

"The man who is free from credulity, but knows the uncreated, who has cut all ties, removed all temptations, renounced all desires, he is the greatest of men."

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

"One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything."

"The history of credulity would be the most singular page in the great history of mankind. From those vast beliefs which have founded religions and empires, down to the inventions that garnish the last new murder, there has always been a tendency in the human mind to believe with as little expense of the reasoning faculty as possible."

"A little doubt is better than total credulity."

"There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur; so many immediate evils are to be avoided, and so many present gratifications obtained, by craft and delusion that very few of those who are much entangled in life have spirit and constancy sufficient to support in the steady practice of open veracity."

"Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's strength."

"I will not avoid doing what I think is right, though it should draw on me the whole artillery that falsehood and malice can invent, or the credulity a deluded population can swallow."

"One man received a thought and accepted it without examination. Another received a thought and tested its truth. Which of them acted with greater reverence?"

"Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."

"The raising of storms by witches is attested by so many, that I think it needless to recite them. The theologian Meric Casaubon argued – in his 1668 book Of "Credulity and Incredulity", that witches must exist because, after all, everyone believes in them. Anything that a large number of people believe must be true."

"The characteristic of the present age is craving credulity."

"It may be a very happy state and a little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.- Better than always doubting and doubting, and seeing difficulties and disagreeables in everything."

"When people are bewildered they tend to become credulous."

"There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch."

"The credulity of the church is decreasing, and the most marvelous miracles are not either 'explained,' or allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the translators, or hide in the drapery of allegory."

"The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity."

"If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery."

"The mysteries, on belief in which theology would hang the destinies of mankind, are cunningly devised fables whose origin and growth are traceable to the age of Ignorance, the mother of credulity."

"The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism."

"All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind."

"What is history, after all, but the record of the periodical crusades for or against some bogey which believing men have evolved out of their credulity and fear?"

"The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs."

"Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."

"The most imaginative people are the most credulous, for them everything is possible."

"Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue; and he who is spontaneously suspicious may justly be charged with radical corruption."

"When an apparent miracle happened.it proved divine mission to the credulous, and proved a contract with the devil to the skeptical."