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Quotes of the Day for 26 October 2003 - Proof

Last night I saw a local production of the play "Proof" by David Auburn, presented at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts. The posters said the play had won a Tony and a Pulitzer, and I thought the Pulitzer Prize was just for newspaper writing. As with everything I've seen at WICA, the play was stunning. It was, however, the first time that a play gave me a theme for the day's quotes.

All proofs rest on premises.
     - Aristotle, 384 - 322 BC

Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.
     - Blaise Pascal, 1623 - 1662

Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions.
     - Eric Temple Bell

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.
     - G. H. Lewes

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
     - John Michael Crichton

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
     - Paul Ambroise Valéry, 1871 - 1945

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