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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 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.
The 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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