WIST Quotations

Descartes, René -- Discourse on Method [Discours de la méthode], Part 2 (1637) [tr. Cottingham, Stoothoff (1985)]

Dave — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 02:57:17 +0000

But in my college days I discovered that nothing can be imagined which is too strange or incredible to have been said by some philosopher.

[Mais ayant appris dès le collège qu’on ne sauroit rien imaginer de si étrange et si peu croyable, qu’il n’ait été dit par quelqu’un des philosophes.]

René Descartes (1596-1650) French philosopher, mathematician
Discourse on Method [Discours de la méthode], Part 2 (1637) [tr. Cottingham, Stoothoff (1985)]
(Source)

See Cicero. (Source (French)). Alternate translations:

For having learnt from the very School, That one can imagin nothing so strange or incredible, which had not been said by some one of the Philosophers.
[tr. Newcombe ed. (1649)]

But I had become aware, even so early as during my college life, that no opinion, however absurd and incredible, can be imagined, which has not been maintained by some on of the philosophers.
[tr. Veitch (1901)]

But I had been taught, even in my College days, that there is nothing imaginable so strange or so little credible that it has not been maintained by one philosopher or another.
[tr. Haldane, Ross (1911)]

One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.

Marias, Javier -- “Javier Marías, The Art of Fiction No. 190,” Interview with Sarah Fay, The Paris Review (Winter 2006)

Dave — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 13:54:53 +0000

Life is a very bad novelist. It is chaotic and ludicrous.

Javier Marías (b. 1951) Spanish novelist, translator, columnist
“Javier Marías, The Art of Fiction No. 190,” Interview with Sarah Fay, The Paris Review (Winter 2006)
(Source)

See also Twain.

Haldane, J.B.S. -- “On Being the Right Size,” Possible Worlds and Other Papers (1927)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) English geneticist [John Burden Sanderson Haldane]
“On Being the Right Size,” Possible Worlds and Other Papers (1927)

Sometimes attributed to Arthur Stanley Eddington.