Parallel Quotes
More Parallel Quotes
The easiest and most popular way of practically refuting... any Fallacy is, by bringing forward a parallel case, where it leads to a manifest absurdity. A metaphysical objection may still be urged against many cases in which we thus reason from calculation of chances; an objection not likely indeed practically to influence any one, but which may afford the Sophist a triumph over those who are unable to find a solution.
— Richard Whately (1828) Elements of Rhetoric. p.52-53
Oversimplification isnowa commontermof reproach in academic discussions; everyone is against oversimplification. But there is no parallel term nearlyas frequently used to describe the opposite phenomenon, which surely occurs as often, if not more so.
— 1990 Authors of their Own Lives (edited by Berger), introduction.
Mars has global warming, but without a greenhouse and without the participation of Martians. These parallel global warmings -- observed simultaneously on Mars and on Earth -- can only be a straightline consequence of the effect of the one same factor: a long-time change in solar irradiance.
— as quoted by Lawrence Solomon in Look to Mars for the truth on global warming, National Post, January 26, 2007.
[Vathek] has, in parts, been called, but to some judgments, never is, dull: it is certainly in parts, grotesque, extravagant and even nasty. But Beckford could plead sufficient "local colour" for it, and a contrast, again almost Shakespearean, between the flickering farce atrocities of the beginning and the sombre magnificence of the end. Beckford's claims, in fact, rest on the half-score or even half-dozen pages towards the end: but these pages are hard to parallel in the later literature of prose fiction.
william thomas beckford— George Saintsbury, in A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller (eds.) The Cambridge History of English Literature (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1907-21) vol. 11, p. 321.
[The Labour Party]'s never been a socialist party, but it's always had socialists in it, just as there are some Christians in the Church, it's an exact parallel.
tony benn— Today Programme (10 February 2006)
Susan smiled at me, giving Molly the Female Once-Over--a process by which one woman creates a detailed profile of another woman based upon about a million subtle details of clothing, jewelry, makeup, and body type, and then decides how much of a social threat she might be. Men have a parallel process, but it's binary: Does he have beer? If yes, will he share with me?
jim butcher— Changes, Harry Dresden, Chapter 9 (2010)
Over the last few decades these radical religious broadcasters, who have essentially taken control of the airwaves, have built a parallel information and entertainment service that is piped into tens of millions of American homes as a way of essentially indoctrinating listeners and viewers with this very frightening ideology.
chris hedges— The Christian Right and the Rising Power of the Evangelical Political Movement
Sometimes I think your life and mine are under the protection of some supreme being or fate, because, after many years of parallel thought, we find ourselves in the positions we now occupy.
george s. patton— Letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower (May 1942), as quoted in Eisenhower : A Soldier's Life (2003) by Carlo D'Este, p. 301
It [Open Source] is a massively parallel drunkards' walk filtered by a Darwinian process.
bruce perens— [Innovation Goes Public]
For years I have told my students that I been trying to train executives rather than clerks. The distinction between the two is parallel to the distinction previously made between understanding and knowledge. It is a mighty low executive who cannot hire several people with command of more knowledge than he has himself.
carroll quigley— Conclusion, p. 420
If I get a parking ticket, there is always a parallel universe where I didn't. On the other hand, there is yet another universe where my car was stolen.
max tegmark— BBC Horizons - What is Reality? (January 17, 2011)
None but himself can be his parallel.
— Double Falsehood; or The Distrest Lovers (1727). Compare: "Quæris Alcidæ parem? Nemo est nisi ipse" (translated: "Do you seek Alcides' equal? None is, except himself"), Seneca, Hercules Furens, i. 1; 84.
The classical theorists resemble Euclidean geometers in a non-Euclidean world who, discovering that in experience straight lines apparently parallel often meet, rebuke the lines for not keeping straight as the only remedy for the unfortunate collisions which are occurring. Yet, in truth, there is no remedy except to throw over the axiom of parallels and to work out a non-Euclidean geometry.
john maynard keynes— Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 4, p. 16
I should describe mine own nature as tripartite, my interests consisting of three parallel and dissociated groups (a) Love of the strange and fantastic. (b) Love of the abstract truth and of scientific logick. (c) Love of the ancient and the permanent. Sundry combinations of these three strains will probably account for all my odd tastes and eccentricities.
h. p. lovecraft— Letter to Reinhardt Kleiner (7 March 1920), in Selected Letters I, 1911-1924 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 110
England was nothing, compared to continental nations until she had become commercial…until about the middle of the last century, when a number of ingenious and inventive men, without apparent relation to each other, arose in various parts of the kingdom, succeeded in giving an immense impulse to all the branches of the national industry; the result of which has been a harvest of wealth and prosperity, perhaps without a parallel in the history of the world.
Samuel Smiles— Lives of the Engineers (1862).
We don't have enough parallel universes to allow all uses of all junction types--in the absence of quantum computing the combinatorics are not in our favor...
larry wall— Usenet article <20031213210102.GE18685@wall.org> (2003)
Science and mathematics Run parallel to reality , they symbolize it, they squint at it, They never touch it: consider what an explosion Would rock the bones of men into little white fragments and unsky the world If any mind for a moment touch truth .
— Robinson Jeffers, in "The Silent Shepherds" (1958)
Closely related to the problem of the parallel postulate is the problem of whether physical space is infinite. Euclid assumes in Postulate 2 that a straight-line segment can be extended as far as necessary; he uses this fact, but only to find a larger finite length for example in Book I, Propositions 11, 16, and 20. For these proofs Heron gave new proofs that avoided extending the lines, in order to meet the objection of anyone who would deny that the space was available for the extension.
— Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, Oxford University Press, 1972
A parable is a form of writing that tells a story about common everyday things within the range of every individual's experience, and at the same time draws a subtle analogy between the ordinary facts of the story and the deeper meaning which lies parallel to the facts. Literally, the word parable means, "a comparison.
— Ervin Seale (1966) Learn to Live. p. 16
The parallel existence and mutual interaction of "state" and "market" in the modern world create "political economy"; without both state and market there could be no political economy.
— Chapter One, Nature of Political Economy, p. 8
In the thirteenth century Robert Grosseteste wrote a book on the rainbow that began an outburst of European speculation parallel to the equally rich Arab work.
— Philip Fisher, Wonder, the Rainbow, and the Aesthetics of Rare Experiences (1998)
All tremble at the rod, all are fearful of death. Drawing the parallel to yourself, neither kill nor get others to kill. (Verse 129)
— Translator: F. Max Müller (Quotes)
There are two paths in which the Christian follows Christ in this world, paths which are always parallel, and which often merge into one, the path of integrity, and the path of benevolence. In doing right and in doing good the Christian is a follower of Christ.
— Washington Gladden, p. 250. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
The league of nations founded by the prophet of Islam put the principle of international unity and human brotherhood on such universal foundations as to show candle to other nations. ... the fact is that no nation of the world can show a parallel to what Islam has done towards the realization of the idea of the League of Nations.
— Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, as quoted in Encyclopaedic Survey of Islamic Culture (1997) by Mohamed Taher, p. 260
The New Deal is plainly an attempt to achieve a working socialism and avert a social collapse in America; it is extraordinarily parallel to the successive "policies" and "Plans" of the Russian experiment. Americans shirk the word "socialism", but what else can one call it?
— H.G. Wells, The New World Order (1939).
Jung believed there was a large pattern to life , that it wasn't just chaos . Our song Synchronicity II is about two parallel events that aren't connected logically or causally, but symbolically.
— Sting, on the song Synchronicity II, as quoted in "Official Police business" by Jay Cocks, in TIME magazine (15 August 1983), p. 50
Sometimes I think your life and mine are under the protection of some supreme being or fate , because, after many years of parallel thought, we find ourselves in the positions we now occupy.
— George S. Patton, in a letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower (May 1942), as quoted in Eisenhower : A Soldier's Life (2003) by Carlo D'Este, p. 301
