Harold Jeffreys famous quotes

The real difficulty about volcanism is not to see how it can start, but how it can stop.
-- Harold Jeffreys

#Real #Difficulty

What the use of P [the significance level] implies, therefore, is that a hypothesis that may be true may be rejected because it has not predicted observable results that have not occurred.
-- Harold Jeffreys

#Use #Levels #May

All suggested accounts of the origin of the solar system are subject to serious objections. The conclusion in the present state of the subject would be that the system cannot exist.
-- Harold Jeffreys

#Serious #Would Be #States

A formal and consistent theory of inductive processes cannot represent the operation of every human mind in detail; it will represent an ideal mind, but it will help the actual mind to approximate that ideal.
-- Harold Jeffreys

#Mind #Details #Helping

There are some current 'theories' that, when divested of begged questions, reduce to the non-controversial statement, 'Here are some facts and there may be some relation between them.'
-- Harold Jeffreys

#May #Facts #Controversial

Variation must be taken as random until there is positive evidence to the contrary.
-- Harold Jeffreys

#Taken #Variation #Evidence

An observation, strictly, is only a sensation. Nobody means that we should reject everything but sensations. But as soon as we go beyond sensations we are making inferences.
-- Harold Jeffreys

#Mean #Inference #Should

We have to come back to something like ordinary language after all when we want to talk "about" mathematics!
-- Harold Jeffreys

#Want #Ordinary #Language

The artist draws a picture of a rose very nicely with all attention and artistic sense, and yet it does not become as perfect as the real rose. If that is the real fact, how can we say that the real rose has taken its shape without Intelligence behind the beauty?

There's something to be said in favor of working in isolation in the real world.

I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me, but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

Well, I think that the image is a part of me. I wear the baggy pants, the hats, the whole nine. And you know, I may add a little for the excitement and the intrigue in the videos, but my family has told me that little air of mystery that surrounds me is for real.

I don't really want to write fiction at all. I don't see why fiction is necessary when we have real life already confusing enough.

I want to be a real artist to consumers. I want to be the real thing for them.

Certainly there is no contending against the Will of God; but still there is some difficulty in ascertaining, and applying it, to particular cases.

When energy prices go up, the difficulty of projecting demand also goes up - uncertainty goes up.

I had to escape the destruction of my fathers bankruptcy and all that difficulty.

After every difficulty, ask yourself two questions: 'What did I do right?' and 'What would I do differently?