Quotes About Rigor

Faced by the mountainous heap of the minutiae of knowledge and awed by the watchful severity of his colleagues, the modern historian too often takes refuge in learned articles or narrowly specialized dissertations, small fortresses that are easy to defend from attack.

I do not ask the clemency of the court. I came into it to get justice, having failed in this, I demand the full rigors of the law.

You ought to try being cruel to some people.

Istoria e o voluptate foarte înÈ™el?toare È™i o disciplin? care nu-È™i salveaz? niciodat? pe cei mai riguroÈ™i adepÈ›i. Istoria nu ajut? s? supravieÈ›uiasc? decât pe acei care o fac, nu È™i pe cei care o cerceteaz? obiectiv. Cu cât eÈ™ti mai obiectiv, cu atât eÈ™ti mai trec?tor, mai muritor. Subiectivitatea, voinÈ›a personal?, elanul temperamental – numai acestea sunt p?strate în istorie.

For me, it was kind of like going into the military or something. And anybody - any male - who has ever worked in a French kitchen knows what I am talking about when I say that.

Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately it also brought mortis.

The Greek thinkers was no way of bridging the gap between the rectilinear and the curvilinear which would at the same time satisfy their strict demands of mathematical rigor and appeal to the clear evidence of sensory experience.

Thus the required rigor was found in the application of the concept of number, made formal by divorcing it from the idea of geometrical quantity

Such attempts lacked all semblance of mathematical rigor because of the lack at that time of satisfactory definitions of either the infinite of the infinitesimal. Arithmetic had not become sufficiently abstract and symbolic to free itself of spatial interpretations, for number was still interpreted metrically as a ratio of geometrical magnitudes.

He said he thought it was important to think through problems clearly, and for him, writing things down enforced a logical rigor that he thought was very important for leaders to have.

The essence of mathematics is in its freedom.

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.

Mathematical rigor is like clothing; in its style it ought to suit the occasion, and it diminishes comfort and restricts freedom of movement if it is either too loose or too tight.

We can see, now, that the social background of the Empire makes wars of conquest impossible for it. Under weak Emperors, it is torn apart by generals competing for a worthless and surely death-bringing throne. Under strong Emperors, the Empire is frozen into a paralytic rigor in which disintegration apparently ceases for the moment, but only at the sacrifice of all possible growth.

In fact, it was part of the Tyrannian military tradition that a little discomfort on the part of the soldier was good for discipline.

I must not get ahead of myself. If I do not narrate the events of my life with rigor and harmony, I will lose my way.

There is only one sort of discipline, perfect discipline.

Since one small observation can disprove a statement, while millions can hardly confirm it, disconfirmation is more rigorous than confirmation.

Hume came to warn us against such knowledge, and to stress the need for some rigor in the gathering and interpretation of knowledge

People who dismiss science in favor of religion sometimes confuse the challenge of rigorously understanding the world with a deliberate intellectual exclusion that leads them to mistrust scientists and, to their detriment, what they discover.

We just can't shake monogamy. It definitely demands a kind of rigor and discipline and selflessness. But it's also fun.

Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.

The scientific spirit, the contempt of tradition, the lack of discipline and the exaltation of the individual have very nearly made an end of art. It can only be restored by the love of beauty, the reverence for tradition, the submission to discipline and the rigor of self-control.

Is there not perhaps a contradiction between our feeling of freedom and the rigor, as we now understand it, with which things operate in the world?