James C. Maxwell Quotes

The grand assertion is that you must see the world through probability and that probability is the only guide you need.

I tried to develop some theories that took account of the uncertainty in the world and the complexity in the world.

Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities.

Probability is the very guide of life.

Skill is a function of chance. It’s an intuitive best-use of chance situations.

We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.

Almost all life depends on probabilities.

Random chance is not sufficient to explain random chance. ~Jubal Harshaw

A reasonable probability is the only certainty.

We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.

It is not surprising that in talking about uncertainty we should lean heavily on facts, just as the court of law does when interrogating witnesses. Facts form a sort of bedrock on which we can build the shifting sands of uncertainty.

Statistics may be defined as "a body of methods for making wise decisions in the face of uncertainty.

In mathematics, as in physics, so much depends on chance, on a propitious moment.

Mathematics, in its widest significance, is the development of all types of formal, necessary, deductive reasoning.

Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge: the serenity to accept the things we cannot predict, the courage to predict the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The statistician cannot excuse himself from the duty of getting his head clear on the principles of scientific inference, but equally no other thinking man can avoid a like obligation.

Still more astonishing is that world of rigorous fantasy which we call mathematics.

Bein logical gave me a reason to doubt

Scientists do not believe in fundamental and absolute certainties. For the scientist, certainty is never an end, but a search; not the ordering of certainty, but its exploration. For the scientist, certainty represents the highest degree of probability.

Probability is not about the odds, but about the belief in the existence of an alternative outcome, cause, or motive.

Arguments derived from probabilities are idle.

Statistics were magic like this: they could tell you with near-certainty that a thing would occur, without a hint of when or where.

It is dangerous to attach probability zero to anything other than a logical impossibility.

Mathematics and logic have been proved to be one; a fact from which it seems to follow that mathematics may successfully deal with non-quantitative problems in a much broader sense than was suspected to be possible.

The art of drawing conclusions from experiments and observations consists in evaluating probabilities and in estimating whether they are sufficiently great or numerous enough to constitute proofs. This kind of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than it is commonly thought to be. . . .