Frank P. Ramsey famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

We are in the ordinary position of scientists of having to be content with piecemeal improvements: we can make several things clearer, but we cannot make anything clear.
-- Frank P. Ramsey

#Science #Ordinary #Improvement
Logic issues in tautologies, mathematics in identities, philosophy in definitions; all trivial, but all part of the vital work of clarifying and organising our thought.
-- Frank P. Ramsey

#Philosophy #Hard Work #Issues
Science, history and politics are not suited for discussion except by experts. Others are simply in the position of requiring more information; and, till they have acquired all available information, cannot do anything but accept on authority the opinions of those better qualified.
-- Frank P. Ramsey

#Acceptance #Information #Experts
My picture of the world is drawn in perspective and not like a model to scale. The foreground is occupied by human beings and the stars are all as small as three-penny bits. I don't really believe in astronomy, except as a complicated description of part of the course of human and possibly animal sensation. I apply my perspective not merely to space but also to time. In time the world will cool and everything will die; but that is a long time off still and its present value at compound discount is almost nothing.
-- Frank P. Ramsey

#Stars #Believe #Animal
What we can't say we can't say, and we can't whistle it either.
-- Frank P. Ramsey
[I attach] little importance to physical size. I don't feel the least humble before the vastness of the heavens. The stars may be large, but they cannot think or love; and these are qualities which impress me far more than size does.
-- Frank P. Ramsey

#Stars #Humble #Science

I am putting together a secular bible. My Genesis is when the apple falls on Newton's head.
I value science--none can prize it more, It gives ten thousand motives to adore: Be it religious, as it ought to be, The heart it humbles, and it bows the knee.
Now then, Pooh," said Christopher Robin, "where's your boat?" "I ought to say," explained Pooh as they walked down to the shore of the island, "that it isn't just an ordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it's a Boat, and sometimes it's more of an Accident. It all depends." "Depends on what?" "On whether I'm on the top of it or underneath it.
It is not just the history of the Hawaiian islands but the significance of the ordinary people whose lives - many quite extraordinary - make up that history.
To me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.
Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary.
Temporarily in 1934 I became a department head in the German Labor Front and dealt with the improvement of labor conditions in German factories. Then I was in charge of public works on the staff of Hess. I gave up both these activities in 1941.
The radio was an improvement on the telegraph but it didn't have the same exponential, transformative effect.
All improvement in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures.
In the phusical sense, 'playing a fret less instrument in tune' is an impossibility. Hence what we call 'playing in tune' is no more than an extremely rapid skilfully carried out improvement of the originally inexactly located pitch.

Frank P. Ramsey famous quotes

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