Expression Quote by William John Macquorn Rankine

“[Modern scientific] theories can necessarily never be more than hypothetical, since their starting-point is wholly empirical, for facts in themselves are always susceptible of…

— René Guénon

“Simpler theories may be more convenient to work with, but they are not intrinsically more probable than complex ones.”

— Samir Okasha

Theoretical approaches have their place and are, I suppose, essential but a theory must be tempered with reality.

— Jawaharlal Nehru

The theoretical idea ... does not arise apart from and independent of experience; nor can it be derived from experience by a purely logical…

— Albert Einstein

Experience has shown repeatedly that a mathematical theory with a rich internal structure generally turns out to have significant implications for the understanding of…

— William Thurston

Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it.

— Stephen Hawking

“If theory means a reasonably systematic reflection of our guiding assumptions, it remains as indispensable as ever.”

— Terry Eagleton

I believed there were no Hypotheticals in the sense of consciously acting agents - conscious entities. There was only the process. The needles of…

— Robert Charles Wilson

Mathematics is purely hypothetical: it produces nothing but conditional propositions.

— Charles Sanders Peirce

A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the…

— Albert Einstein

I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions.

— David Antin

Certainly in order to understand the natural world one needs clarity, logic, and the capacity for theory building. But that understanding tends to improve…

— Talal Asad