392 Quotes About Theory

A theory is nothing but a tool to know the reality. If a theory contradicts reality, it must be discarded at the earliest.

For starters, that’s a rather simple principle of Time Travel right there – and according to the pioneers of time travel, it’s one of the foundation stones of the Theory behind it. It’s something of a paradox – a mind-boggling annotation in the ever-puzzling and ever growing Anals of History. (Some readers may still be thinking that should be ‘Annals’ – however, the author of this work cannot be blamed for what you may think.)

... the human tendency to be seduced by a theory that supposedly explains everything.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

There ought not be two histories, one of political and moral action and one of political and moral theorizing, because there were not two pasts, one populated only by actions, the other only by theories. Every action is the bearer and expression of more or less theory-laden beliefs and concepts; every piece of theorizing and every expression of belief is a politcal and moral action.

... every hypothesis is a construction, and because of this it is an authentic theory. In so far as they merit that exigent name, ideas are never a mere reception of presumed realities, but they are constructions of possibilities; therefore they are pure bits of imagination, or fine ideas of our own...

The values of commodities are directly as the times of labour employed in their production, and are inversely as the productive powers of the labour employed.

By buying the power of the workman, the capitalist has, therefore, acquired the right to use of make that labouring power during the whole day or week.

I had a theory—even though I'd never told anyone, not even Kat—that love was about paying attention. It's the one thing you can't buy or fake or make up for at the last minute. So the things that meant the most to me were the little details that told you someone had been paying attention, memorizing your random preferences, letting you know they cared.