Admits Quotes
More Admits Quotes
An exact science is one that admits loss.
genesis p-orridge— The German Order
You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.
Barack Obama— ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos (15 August 2004).
When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.
bertrand russell— "Skepticism"
"What are your fees?" inquired Guyal cautiously. "I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue."
jack vance— Chapter 6, "Guyal of Sfere"
Nature admits no lie.
thomas carlyle— 1850 Latter-Day Pamphlets, no.5.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
john dryden— 1678 MacFlecknoe (published1682), l.19-24.
If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.
— 1957 Address to the nation on Israel's invasion of Egypt, 20 Feb.
The function just found cannot, it is true, express rigorously the probabilities of the errors: for since the possible errors are in all cases confined within certain limits, the probability of errors exceeding those limits ought always to be zero, while our formula always gives some value. However, this defect, which every analytical function must, from its nature, labor under, is of no importance in practice, because the value of our function decreases so rapidly... that it can safely be considered as vanishing. Besides, the nature of the subject never admits of assigning with absolute rigor the limits of error.
carl friedrich gauss— Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientum (1809) Tr. Charles Henry Davis as Theory of the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies moving about the Sun in Conic Sections (1857)
Once a paper admits any principle of censorship for survival, the we-don't-want-to-do-it-but-we-don't-want-to-lose-the-printer kind of censorship, it jeopardizes the integrity of its editorial principle. It's better to print and be damned, because you'll be damned anyway.
Germaine Greer— "The million-dollar Underground" (July 1969), p. 15
We are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not.
theodore kaczynski— "Oversocialization", item 25
Law is a thing which is insensible, and inexorable, more beneficial and more profitious to the weak than to the strong; it admits of no mitigation nor pardon, once you have overstepped its limits.
livy— Book II, sec. 3
The study of theology as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and admits of no conclusion. Not any thing can be studied as a science without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.
thomas paine— Chapter III: Conclusion
Nature admits no lie.
thomas carlyle— Latter Day Pamphlet, No. 5. (1850).
The rest to some faint meaning make pretense, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
john dryden— l. 19-24. (Mac Flecknoe (1682))
When a dad admits he is wrong or asks for help, he allows the child to see him- or herself as adequate even when she or he is also wrong. It encourages children to make suggestions and, therefore, to discover their creativity because they have a chance of making a contribution.
warren farrell— p. 120. (Part IV: Where do we go from here)
A work of this sort admits no conclusion.
david harvey— Afterword, p.446
Avarice, the spur of industry, is so obstinate a passion, and works its way through so many real dangers and difficulties, that it is not likely to be scared by an imaginary danger, which is so small, that it scarcely admits of calculation. Commerce, therefore, in my opinion, is apt to decay in absolute governments, not because it is there less secure, but because it is less honourable.
David Hume— Essay 12 : Of Civil Liberty
Many a man can save himself if he admits he's done wrong and takes his punishment.
henrik ibsen— Torvald Helmer, Act I
The world admits bears in pits do it, Even Pekingeses at the Ritz do it, Let's do it, let's fall in love.
Cole Porter— "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love"
The Phrygians ... select a natural hillock, run a trench through the middle of it, dig passages, and extend the interior space as widely as the site admits. Over it they build a pyramidal roof of logs fastened together, and this they cover with reeds and brushwood, heaping up very high mounds of earth above their dwellings. Thus their fashion in houses makes their winters very warm and their summers very cool.
vitruvius— Chapter I, Sec. 5
Dear God I've heard your name from teachers , family and friends, you made the universe and so will live on when it ends. Everyone I know admits they’ve never seen your face , they’re not sure where you live and have no map to the place.
dawud wharnsby— "Dear God"
And, but herself, admits no parallel.
Philip Massinger— Philip Massinger, Duke of Milan, Act IV, scene 3.
(Game theory is) essentially a structural theory. It uncovers the logical structure of a great variety of conflict situations and describes this structure in mathematical terms. Sometimes the logical structure of a conflict situation admits rational decisions; sometimes it does not.
— Anatol Rapoport Prisoner's dilemma: A study in conflict and cooperation. co-authored by Albert S. Chammah. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1965. p. 196
Everyone admits that "the truth hurts" but no one applies this adage to himself -and as soon as it begins to hurt us, we quickly repudiate it and call it a lie. It is this tendency toward self-deception (more than any active sin) that makes human progress slow and almost imperceptible.
— Sydney J. Harris, On the Contrary (1964)
Mechanism... provides us with no grasp of the specific characteristics of organisms, of the organization of organic processes among one another, of organic 'wholeness', of the problem of the origin of organic 'teleology', or of the historical character of organisms... We must therefore try to establish a new standpoint which as opposed to mechanism takes account of organic wholeness, but... treats it in a manner which admits of scientific investigation.
— Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Modern Theory of Development (1933)
So Two Cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three.
— E. M. Forster, "What I Believe", ibid, p229.
In our fluctuations of feeling, it is well to remember that Jesus admits no change in His affections; your heart is not the compass Jesus saileth by.
— P. 93. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
