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Favorite Quotes

"To guess is cheap; to guess wrong is expensive."

Ekkehard Brüning, BAST.

"Intellectuals should make themselves heard by putting forward their perceptions of what is right. Then let the politicians worry about what is possible."

Henry A. Kissinger, speaking as one of 76 Nobel laureates summoned by President Francois Mitterrand of France to discuss the problems of the 21st century.

"Thou shalt not sit with statisticians, nor commit a social science"

W. H. Auden, Under Which Lyre

The pen is mightier than the sword, but the editor is mightier still.

"Optimism is an ego-defensive response directed at reducing the degree of threat associated with adverse events."

(from an AAP manuscript)

"An injury is the result of an energy exchange between the human body and the environment in excess of body injury thresholds."

Haddon 1968 AJPH

(And a hurt is that which hurts?)

Most problems in life can be managed by making phone calls and writing checks. But when you encounter one that can't, watch out!

If seat belts are such fun to wear, why do we need laws to make people wear them? We don't have laws compelling people to eat chocolate.

In the era before the birth of experimental science, Greek philosophers thought that nature could be understood by pure thought alone, without the need for data. Nowadays there seem to be people who think that it can be understood with data alone, without the need for thought.

Leonard Evans.

This illustrates an intrinsic problem with complicated multivariate analysis. There are so many choices of variables and of transformations at the discretion of the analyst that the detached reader rarely has any way of knowing whether the analysis is performed to discover new information or to buttress prior beliefs.

Leonard Evans. Traffic Safety and the Driver, p.83

IN PRAISE OF NO. No may be the most efficient time saver in the English language. What it lacks in grace is more than offset by its brevity. You don't equivocate when you say no, though you may risk offense. Used with discretion and appropriate garnishes, No can save you hours of time. No returns responsibility to its rightful owner. No enables you to focus on your priorities. No protects you from your own good heart. Do not scorn the pungent clarity of No. It can be your ticket to success.

(Attributed to Pat Waller)

For an emperor when he writes a letter ought not to use rhetorical syllogisms or trains of reasoning, but ought to express only his own will; nor again should he be obscure, since he is the voice of the law, and lucidity is the interpreter of the law. Philostratus of Lemnos (useful in writing to authors!)

The ancient (emotional) limbic system in the brain is poorly integrated with the newer (thinking) neocortex. As a result, humans are capable of denying an obvious reality in order to champion a cause to which they are emotionally bound.

Review by Helen Fisher of book by Robin Fox. NYT Book Reviews 20 March 94 p.15

I am fond of fish, but, too, I am fond of bears' paws. If I cannot have both, then I prefer bear's paws. I care about life, but, too, I care about justice. If I cannot have both, then I choose justice.

Mencius 372-289 B. C. (Translated by W. A. C. H. Dobson in The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature)

Obviousness is to a certain extent a function of time. A. E.

If something can be explained, it can be explained clearly; if not it is not worth explaining.

(Wittgenstein)

The "3-key computer": First key, acquire data, Second key: analyze data, Third key: write paper.

Alexander to Aristotle: "Greetings. I understand that you have published your Acroatic lectures. How then shall I, who have heard these lectures be superior to anyone who can now read them?"

Aristotle to Alexander: "Greetings. Know, Alexander, that I have both published and not published my lectures. For no one who has not heard me will be able to understand them."

A mathematician is a machine that turns coffee into theorems.

Paul Erdös

Grief always comes in the mail.

Céline.

Trying to publish in refereed journals is not a path to positive feedback. If you want positive feedback, I recommend getting a dog.

No man is an island. True, but with a little effort a man can be a peninsula.

Out of our quarrels with others, we make rhetoric; out of our quarrels with ourselves, we make poetry.

(Attributed to Yeats)

The height of audacity in serving up pure nonsense, in stringing together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had previously been known only in mad-houses, was finally reached in Hegel, and became the instrument of the most barefaced general mystification that has ever taken place, with a result which will appear fabulous to posterity and will remain as a monument to German stupidity.

(Schopenhauer, as quoted in NY Times 4:7 14 May 2000, reviewing the work of Paul Strathern "Socrates in 90 minutes".)

I tell people "If you choose cheaper energy, you're killing your kids." That's a bit over the top, but it gets their attention.

("public service" ad in NY Times 7/10/00)

"Three slight, unpunctuated monologues remind one how useful punctuation is."

Review of book about Paul Bowles, NY Times.

Old age is like shipboard life: minor accomplishments occupy a full day.

When I was a boy, a person got old, then got sick, then died. Now, a person gets old, gets sick, and then they keep you sick."

Henry Forder [Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, University of Aukland]