Quotations about:
    experimentation


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When we look forward and try to project what may come out of a development, we are always wrong, because the by-products sometimes become far more important than the primary thing you started out to accomplish. Nevertheless, unintelligent motion is a great deal more important in research than intelligent standing still.

Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
“250 at Luncheon Honor Kettering,” New York Times (1936-11-11)
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Added on 1-Mar-24 | Last updated 29-Feb-24
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It is erroneous to tie down individual genius to ideal models. Each person should do that, not which is best in itself, even supposing this could be known, but that which he can do best, which he will find out if left to himself. Spenser could not have written Paradise Lost, nor Milton the Faerie Queene. Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
“Thoughts on Taste,” Edinburgh Magazine (1819-07)
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Added on 9-Feb-24 | Last updated 12-Feb-24
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So whatever you want to do, just do it. Don’t worry about making a damn fool of yourself. Making a damn fool of yourself is absolutely essential. And you will have a great time.

Gloria Steinem (b. 1934) American feminist, journalist, activist
Commencement address, Tufts University (1987-05-17)
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Added on 5-Sep-23 | Last updated 5-Sep-23
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The interest of the people as a whole [lies] in being able to join organizations, advocate causes, and make political “mistakes” without later being subjected to governmental penalties for having dared to think for themselves.

Hugo Black (1886-1971) American politician and jurist, US Supreme Court Justice (1937-71)
Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109, 144 (1959) [dissent]
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Added on 18-Aug-22 | Last updated 18-Aug-22
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Loyalty … is a realization that America was born of revolt, flourished in dissent, became great through experimentation.

Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
“Who Is Loyal to America?” Harper’s Magazine #1168 (1947-09)
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Reprinted in Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954)
 
Added on 2-Mar-22 | Last updated 4-Jul-23
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As long as you’re dancing, you can break the rules.
Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules.

Sometimes there are no rules.

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) American poet
“Three Things to Remember”
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Added on 16-Aug-19 | Last updated 16-Aug-19
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If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.

Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
 
Added on 18-Sep-15 | Last updated 18-Sep-15
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Not that indeed I imitated the sceptics, who only doubt for the sake of doubting, and pretend to be always uncertain; for, on the contrary, my design was only to provide myself with good ground for assurance, and to reject the quicksand and mud in order to find the rock or clay.

[Non que j’imitasse pour cela les sceptiques, qui ne doutent que pour douter, et affectent d’être toujours irrésolus; car, au contraire, tout mon dessein ne tendoit qu’à m’assurer, et à rejeter la terre mouvante et le sable pour trouver le roc ou l’argile.]

René Descartes (1596-1650) French philosopher, mathematician
Discourse on Method [Discours de la méthode], Part 3 (1637) [tr. Haldane & Ross (1911)]
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(Source (French)). Alternate translations:

Not that I therein imitated the Scepticks, who doubt onely to the end they may doubt, and affect to be always unresolved: For on the contrary, all my designe tended onely to fix my self, and to avoid quick-mires and sands, that I might finde rock and clay.
[tr. Newcombe ed. (1649)]

Not that in this I imitated the sceptics who doubt only that they may doubt, and seek nothing beyond uncertainty itself; for, on the contrary, my design was singly to find ground of assurance, and cast aside the loose earth and sand, that I might reach the rock or the clay.
[tr. Veitch (1901)]

For all that, I did not imitate the sceptics who doubt only for doubting's sake, and pretend to be always undecided; on the contrary, my whole intention was to arrive at a certainty, and to dig away the drift and the sand until I reached the rock or the clay beneath.
[tr. Huxley (1870)]

In doing this I was not copying the sceptics, who doubt only for the sake of doubting and pretend to be always undecided; on the contrary, my whole aim was to reach certainty -- to cast aside the loose earth and sand so as to come upon rock or clay.
[tr. Cottingham, Stoothoff (1985)]

 
Added on 28-Dec-12 | Last updated 4-Jun-22
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If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
(Attributed)
 
Added on 8-Jul-11 | Last updated 21-Feb-21
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The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Commencement Speech, Oglethorpe U. (22 May 1932)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 11-Apr-22
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Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.

Thomas Edison (1847-1931) American inventor and businessman
(Attributed)
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When told by an associate, Walter S. Mallory, that it was a shame that several months of work on new battery technology hadn't yielded any results. Recorded in Dyer and Martin, Edison: His Life and Inventions, Vol. 2, ch. 24 (1910) as an anecdote by Mallory.

More discussion about this quotation's origins and variants: I Have Gotten a Lot of Results! I Know Several Thousand Things That Won’t Work – Quote Investigator.
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 9-Aug-22
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