Well quotes
From Motley Bytes Wiki
Contents
Tycho_Brahe
Instruments of Copernicus
“If Nicolaus Copernicus, the distinguished and incomparable master, in this work had not been deprived of exquisite and faultless instruments, he would have left us this science far more well-established.”
- Source: Letter Tycho Brahe (20 Jan 1587) to Christopher Rothman, chief astronomer of the Landgrave of Hesse.
Francis_Chisholm
Chisholm's 2nd Law of Human Interaction
“Chisholm's 2nd Law of Human Interaction. When things are going well, something will go wrong.
Corollary 1: When things just can’t get any worse, they will.
Corollary 2: Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.”
- Source: From the essay “The Chisholm Effect” by Francis P. Chisholm, included in the anthology “A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown: Essays for a Scientific Age” edited by Robert A. Baker, published by Prentice Hall in 1982. ISBN: 0138526087, ISBN: 978-0138526085.
David_Epstein
Ill-Defined Problems
“Human intuition, it appears, is not very well engineered to make use of the best tools when faced with what the researchers called ‘ill-defined problems.’”
- Source: David Epstein in the book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World”. Published 2019 by Riverhead Books. Chapter 5, page 106. ISBN 978-0735214484.
Problems
“In familiar problems, the space is ‘well-structured’ — marked with clear roads, so to speak — so one merely need follow known routes... For unfamiliar challenges, or ‘ill-structured’ problems, the problem space is so vast and uncharted that imposing some structure — deciding where to begin and how to advance — becomes the challenge.”
- Source: David Epstein in the book “Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better”. Published 2026 by Riverhead Books. Page 29. ISBN 978-0593715734 (Ebook).
- Keywords: Familiar_quotes Problem_quotes Space_quotes Well_quotes Structure_quotes Mark_quotes Clear_quotes Road_quotes Mere_quotes Need_quotes Follow_quotes Know_quotes Route_quotes Unfamiliar_quotes Challenge_quotes Ill_quotes Vast_quotes Uncharted_quotes Impose_quotes Decide_quotes Begin_quotes Where_quotes How_quotes Advance_quotes Become_quotes
Scientific Method Constraints
“Well-conceived constraints, like those at the heart of the scientific method, compel us to stop, think, and test. In other words, they force us to learn.”
- Source: David Epstein in the book “Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better”. Published 2026 by Riverhead Books. Page 43. ISBN 978-0593715734 (Ebook).
Heraclitus
Wish
“For men to have whatever they wish, would not be well. Sickness makes health pleasant and good; hunger, satiety; weariness, rest.”
- Source: Heraclitus from the book “The Fragments of the work of Heraclitus of Ephesus on Nature” translated by G. T. W. Patrick, published in 1889 by N. Murray of Baltimore, Maryland. Fragment CIV. Page 109. Fragment originally written by Heraclitus circa 475 BCE.
- See Also:
- Keywords: Wish_quotes Whatever_quotes Well_quotes Sick_quotes Health_quotes Hunger_quotes Satiety_quotes Weary_quotes Rest_quotes
Kenneth_W_Kolence
Large System Evolution
“Large systems must evolve, and cannot be produced all at one time. You must have an initial small core system that works really well.”
- Source: Kenneth W. Kolence in a report entitled Software Engineering: Report of a Conference Sponsored by the NATO Science Committee. Chaired by Friedrich Ludwig Bauer. Edited by P. Naur; B. Randell. Conference held 1968-10-07 through 1968-10-11 in Garmisch, Germany. OCLC: 35337842. See http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/index.html ; http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1968.PDF ; https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1102020 ; https://books.google.com/books/about/Software_engineering.html?id=Uc9QAAAAYAAJ . Page 61.
JRR_Tolkien
Know Half
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
- Source: From the book “The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings”, written by {J. R. R. Tolkien}, first published by {George Allen and Unwin} in 1954. E-book edition published by Harper Collins in 2022. ISBN 978-0547952017. Words of the character Bilbo. Book One, chapter 1, page 64.
- Keywords: Know_quotes Half_quotes Well_quotes Like_quotes Less_quotes Deserve_quotes
Alan_Turing
Can Machines Think
“The question, ‘Can machines think?’ should be replaced by ‘Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?’... The original question, ‘Can machines think?’ I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.”
- Source: From the paper entitled “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” by Alan Turing. Published in 1950 in “Mind”, volume 49, number 236.
Waldo_and_Boussard
LLM Performance
“GPTs [Generative Pre-trained Transformers] based on LLMs [Large Language Models] perform well on prompts that are more popular and have reached a consensus, yet they struggle with controversial topics or topics with limited data.”
- Source: From the journal article entitled “GPTs and Hallucination”, in Communications of the ACM, volume 68, number 1, 2025-01. DOI:10.1145/3703757.
Gerald_Weinberg
Think Well
“Most people don't think nearly as well as they could.”
- Source: Weinberg, Gerald (2011-04-07). An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (Kindle Location 76). Weinberg & Weinberg. Kindle Edition.
- Keywords: Thinking_quotes People_quotes Well_quotes Potential_quotes
E_O_Wilson
True Character
“True character arises from a deeper well than religion.”
- Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998). The Unity of Knowledge (1998). Vintage Books. ISBN: 9780679450771. ISBN: 9780679768678.
- Keywords: True_quotes Character_quotes Arise_quotes Deep_quotes Well_quotes Religion_quotes
