There is no clear-cut distinction between example and theory

“There was, for example, the theory that A'Tuin had come from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, into nowhere,…

— Terry Pratchett

“A good example of the archetypal ideas which the archetypes produce are natural numbers or integers. With the aid of the integers the shaping…

— K. V. Laurikainen

Don't be an example in someone else's theory, write yours using your own examples.

— Anonymous

One can hardly appreciate how academia has perverted its highest tasks and "ideals" without pondering long and hard the implications of Jacques Barzun's House…

— Kenny Smith

But the idols of the Market Place are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through their alliances with…

— Francis Bacon

There is a distinction, but no opposition, between theory and practice. Each to a certain extent supposes the other. Theory is dependent on practice;…

— Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet

The fact -- not theory -- that evolution has occurred and the Darwinian theory as to how it occurred have become so confused in…

— George Gaylord Simpson

If theory is the role of the architect, then such beautiful proofs are the role of the craftsman. Of course, as with the great…

— Michael Atiyah

The tropical rain forests are a telling example. Once cut down, they rarely recover. Rainfall drops, deserts spread, the climate warms.

— James Lovelock

To the extent that we've got a fiscal crisis right now, part of it is prompted by a bullheaded insistence on the part of…

— Barack Obama

When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well (perhaps indispensably)…

— Stephen Jay Gould

For example, if the big bang had been one-part-in-a billion more powerful, it would have rushed out too fast for the galaxies to form…

— Robert Lanza

Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten…

— Haruki Murakami

[Donald] Trump and all the Republicans believe in the theory of trickle down economics which is a theory discredited even by the author himself…

— Debbie Wasserman Schultz

But actually theory is very practical. Gravity is a theory, for example. It allows you to predict that if you step off a cliff…

— Clayton Christensen