Hypothetically Vs Theoretically Quotes

Theoretically, let's stipulate, for argument's sake, that there are a lot of powerful people at a university like this who believe things that aren't, strictly speaking, true."

Leftists, you mean."

Let's just call them people. Powerful people."

All right."

These powerful people believe things like: One culture is as good as another. Or, there's no such thing as good and evil. Therefore, if America is at odds or at war with someone, it must be America's fault. You only have to think about those statements for two minutes to see that they can't possibly be true. But these people think they should be true and they think they'll seem to be true if no one is allowed to say they're not true. So they attack anyone who says that they're not true. They call him names. Racist, sexist, phobic, offensive, whatever. They demand apologies from him. They make his life a misery, so no one wants to speak up."

So it's like the emperor's new clothes."

Right. Except instead of clothes, it's all the emperor's lies. And in an Empire of Lies, only a crazy man would speak the truth. ~ Andrew Klavan

Theoretically, the actor ought to be more sound in mind and body than other people, since he learns to understand the psychological problems of human beings when putting his own passions, his loves, fears, and rages to work in the service of the characters he plays. He will learn to face himself, to hide nothing from himself- and to do so takes AN INSATIABLE CURIOSITY ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION ~ Uta Hagen

Altogether, these observations suggest that several processes contribute to psychotic experience: the loss of familiarity with the world, hypothetically associated with noisy information processing; increased novelty detection mediated by the hippocampus; associated alterations of prefrontal cortical processing, which have reliably been associated with impairments in working memory and other executive functions; increased top-down effects of prior beliefs mediated by the frontal cortex that may reflect compensatory efforts to cope with an increasingly complex and unfamiliar world; and finally disinhibition of subcortical dopaminergic neurotransmission, which increases salience attribution to otherwise irrelevant stimuli. Furthermore, increased noise of chaotic or stress-dependent dopamine firing can reduce the encoding of errors of reward prediction elicited by primary and secondary reinforcers, thus contributing to a subjective focusing of attention on apparently novel and mysterious environmental cues while reducing attention and motivation elicited by common and natural and social stimuli. ~ Andreas Heinz

Theoretically, I grant you, there is no possibility of error in necessary reasoning. But to speak thus "theoretically," is to uselanguage in a Pickwickian sense. In practice, and in fact, mathematics is not exempt from that liability to error that affects everything that man does. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce

We live in a world that is dominated by science. And that's not a bad thing - not at all. But one of the problems with the scientific worldview is that it leads human beings to have an overwhelmingly theoretical relationship to the world. For example, I no longer accept my being in the world practically and then try to describe that or elucidate that; rather, I see the world theoretically as colors and objects and representations which are fed through my retina into the brain. ~ Simon Critchley

When I fell in love with you, you weren't ready for grown-up emotions... You were still trying your wings and I wanted to cage you. I wanted to bend you to my will. No one has the right to do that. A man and a woman can share some ambitions and dreams, but they need to keep their individuality and have goals of their own. I know that now. I didn't then. Or, if I knew it theoretically, I didn't apply it to us. ~ Anne Weale

On paper, the people now choose the party nominees for president. And yet, the process seems to have come full circle. [back to party bosses choosing] Voters theoretically get to pick the candidates, but in practice they rarely get the opportunity. In most cases, the contest is over in a few weeks after a burst of activity in a handful of states. How did the reform movement [late 60s, early 70s] get so far away from the plan? The answer is that there was no single plan, nor a single entity hat could craft a system to meet the original intent of the reformers. [To democratize the process] ~ Roger Lawrence Butler

It is random discharges of this type, set off by the creation of anti-galaxies in space, which have led to the depletion of the time store available to the materials of our own solar system. Just as a super-saturated solution will discharge itself into a crystalline mass, so the super-saturation of our solar system leads to its appearance in a parallel spatial matrix. As more and more time leaks away, the process of super-saturation continues, the original atoms and molecules producing spatial replicas of themselves, substance without mass, in an attempt to increase their foothold upon existence. The process is theoretically without end, and it may be possible for a single atom to produce an infinite number of duplicates of itself, and so fill the entire universe, from which simultaneously all time is expired, an ultimate macrocosmic zero beyond the wildest dreams of Plato and Democritus. ~ J.G. Ballard

To picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong. ~ Vladimir Lenin

I don't really know how music and comedy are similar. I try never to dissect it theoretically or academically. ~ Eric Andre

Men confide, lust rhetorically, copulate hypothetically with women of unacknowledged fantasy. ~ Aleksandar Hemon

Whenever anyone says, 'theoretically,' they really mean, 'not really.' ~ Dave Parnas

It has made me better loving you ... it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter. I used to want a great many things before, and to be angry that I did not have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied. I flattered myself that I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid sterile hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I really am satisfied, because I can't think of anything better. It's just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight, and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life, and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but now that I can read it properly I see that it's a delightful story. ~ Henry James

You might jump in at this point and say: Hey. Guy. (It's Mark.) Okay, Mark. If the same day is repeating over and over again, if every morning it just goes back to the beginning automatically, with everything exactly the way it was, then you could basically do whatever you want, am I right? I mean, sure, you could go to the library, but you could go to the library naked and it wouldn't even matter, because it would all be erased the next day like a shaken Etch A Sketch. You could, I don't know, rob a bank or hop a freight train or tell everybody what you really think of them. You could do anything you wanted.
Which was, yes, theoretically true. But honestly, in this heat, who has the energy? What I wanted was to sit on my ass somewhere air-conditioned and read books. ~ Lev Grossman

An institution theoretically devoted to providing comfort to those in need (the church) is in trouble because it has embraced the same pressure cooker we find everywhere else. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

Vampires can live a very long time, theoretically forever, which means their idea of getting down to business can be damn leisurely. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

JAY: No really. Be secure. Pretend I'm a sperm cell. Here. I take the string out of the ... hood of my sweatshirt, affix it to my behind for a tail, like so ...
LENORE: What in God's name are you doing?
JAY: Pretend, Lenore. Be an ovum. Be strong. Let me hypothetically batter at you. Batter batter. Surrender to the unreal of the real interior.
LENORE: Are you supposed to be a sperm, wriggling your sweatshirt-string like that?
JAY: I can feel the strength of your membrane, Lenore. ~ David Foster Wallace

The clock doesn't matter in baseball. Time stands still or moves backwards. Theoretically, one game could go on forever. Some seem to. ~ Herb Caen

Energy is matter, and vice versa, and if you can control energy through your mind, theoretically the rest follows. ~ L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Having nothing else to do or think about, he began to work out theoretically the life cycle of the bugs, and, with the aid of the Britannica, try to determine specifically which bugs they were. ~ Philip K. Dick

The ruling of men is the effort to direct the individual actions of many persons toward some end. This end theoretically should be the greatest good of all, but no human group has ever reached this ideal because of ignorance and selfishness. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

We may exhort ourselves to read tolerantly, we may quote Coleridge on the willing suspension of disbelief until we think ourselves totally suspended in a relativistic universe, and still we will find many books which postulate readers we refuse to become, books that depend on 'beliefs' or 'attitudes' ... which we cannot adopt even hypothetically as our own. ~ Wayne C. Booth

The world is broken up by tribalism - the British, the German, the Swiss, the Hindu, the Buddhist, are tribes. See the fact that they are tribes, glorified as nations, and that this tribalism is creating havoc in the world, bringing wars in the world. Each tribe thinks in its own culture opposed to other cultures. But tribalism is the root, not the culture. Observing the fact of that is the action that frees the brain from the condition of tribalism. You see actually, not theoretically or ideationally, the fact that tribalism glorified as nations is one of the causes of war. That is a fact. There are other causes of war, economics and so on, but one of the causes is tribalism. When you see that, perceive that, and see that cannot bring about peace, the very perception frees the brain from its conditioning of tribalism.

One of the factors of contention throughout the world is religion. You are a Catholic, I am a Muslim, based on ideas, propaganda of hundreds or thousands of years; the Hindu and the Buddhist ideas are of thousands of years. We have been programmed like a computer. That programming has brought about great architecture, great paintings, great music, but it has not brought peace to mankind. When you see the fact of that, you do not belong to any religion. When there are half a dozen gurus in the same place, they bring about misery, contradiction, conflict: "My guru is better than yours; my group is more sanctified than yours; I have been initiated, you ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

The present combination of corporate or commercial control theoretically answerable to politically appointed Boards of Governors is not in any sense a democratic enough procedure to control the power the broadcasters have. ~ Tony Benn

Oh, please. I heard barnyard animal noises coming from your room the other night and someone shouting 'Pull my reins, bitch!' I realize you're twenty-one-years old and theoretically an adult, but if I have to hear that shit one more time when I'm trying to sleep, I will beat you like a red-headed step child," she warns. ~ Tara Sivec

When dealing with Arab society, [we are dealing with] a production system that is in competition with others (and not with a theoretical opposition between specific economic rationalities), a social structure that must at all times prove its viability in the world arena (and not with its inner logic, which is theoretically as total, as elegant, and plausible as that of any other society whatever), a practical politics that is in perpetual disequilibrium (and not with elaborate theories about the best form of government), a language that must constantly prove its creativity and capacity for adaptation in competition with other languages in an accelerating evolutionary situation (and not with a theory of the language at a given moment of its evolution). ~ Abdallah Laroui

The Chicago literary tradition is born not out of its Universities, but out of the sports desk and the city desk of its newspapers. Hemingway revolutionized English prose. His inspiration was the telegraph, whose use, at Western Union, taught this: every word costs something,
This, of course, is the essence of poetry, which is the essence of great prose. Chicagoan literature came from the newspaper, whose purpose, in those days, was to Tell What Happened. Hemingway's epiphany was reported, earlier, by Keats as " 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty' --that is all ye know earth, and all ye need to know." I would add to Keats' summation only this: "Don't let the other fellow piss on your back and tell you it's raining."
I believe one might theoretically forgive one who cheats at business, but never one who cheats at cards; for business adversaries operate at arm's length, the cardplayer under the strict rules of the game, period.
That was my first political epiphany.
And now, I have written a political book.
What are the qualifications for a Political Writer?
They are, I believe, the same as those of an aspiring critic: an inability to write for the Sports Page. ~ David Mamet

It seems to me that this is theoretically right, for whatever the question under discussion -- whether religious, philosophical, political, or economic; whether it concerns prosperity, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, cooperation, property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population, finance, or government -- at whatever point on the scientific horizon I begin my researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion: The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty. ~ Frederic Bastiat

Now the police dreams that one look at the gigantic map on the office wall should suffice at any given moment to establish who is related to whom and in what degree of intimacy; and, theoretically, this dream is not unrealizable although its technical execution is bound to be somewhat difficult. If this map really did exist, not even memory would stand in the way of the totalitarian claim to domination; such a map might make it possible to obliterate people without any traces, as if they had never existed at all. ~ Hannah Arendt

Children who are brought up with one parent or another parent or shared parenthood, when there has been a divorce and hatred within families, it breeds a tremendous amount of instability in the life of a child. And many of these children end up in the homosexual movement. Even if they don't, they take so much baggage into their marriages, that they are unable sometimes, at least theoretically unable, to stand against all of the cultural forces that would disrupt them and their families. ~ Erwin W. Lutzer

As they embrace, she kisses him full on the mouth. And suddenly sticks her tongue right in. She has done this before, often. It's one of those drunken long shots which just might, at least theoretically, once in ten thousand tries, throw a relationship right out of its orbit and send it whizzing off on another. Do women ever stop trying? No. But, because they never stop, they learn to be good losers. ~ Christopher Isherwood

Give me some credit. Eduardo is one of our own. Finding him is all that matters. Besides, if I'd decided to pull Carver's spine out of his body, I would've done it already." "Can you actually do that?" Curran frowned. "I don't know. I mean theoretically if you broke the spine above the pelvis, you could, but then there are ribs . . . I'll have to try it sometime." Okay, then. That was not disturbing. Not at all. "What do you suppose normal people talk about on their car rides? ~ Ilona Andrews

All faults or defects, from the slightest misconduct to the most flagitious crime, Pantocyclus attributed to some deviation from perfect Regularity in the bodily figure, caused perhaps (if not congenital) by some collision in a crowd; by neglect to take exercise, or by taking too much of it; or even by a sudden change of temperature, resulting in a shrinkage or expansion in some too susceptible part of the frame. Therefore, concluded that illustrious Philosopher, neither good conduct nor bad conduct is a fit subject, in any sober estimation, for either praise or blame. For why should you praise, for example, the integrity of a Square who faithfully defends the interests of his client, when you ought in reality rather to admire the exact precision of his right angles? Or again, why blame a lying, thievish Isosceles when you ought rather to deplore the incurable inequality of his sides?

Theoretically, this doctrine is unquestionable; but it has practical drawbacks. In dealing with an Isosceles, if a rascal pleads that he cannot help stealing because of his unevenness, you reply that for that very reason, because he cannot help being a nuisance to his neighbours, you, the Magistrate, cannot help sentencing him to be consumed - and there's an end of the matter. But in little domestic difficulties, where the penalty of consumption, or death, is out of the question, this theory of Configuration sometimes comes in awkwardly; and I must confess that occasionally when one o ~ Edwin A. Abbott

Okay," I said. "Just a normal afternoon and two normal people."
She nodded. "And so ... hypothetically, if these to people likes each other, what would it take to get the stupid guy to kiss the girl, huh?"
"Oh ... " I felt like one of Apollo's sacred cows-slow, dumb, and bright red. "Um ... ~ Rick Riordan

What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh. ~ Steve Martin

Without needing to be theoretically instructed, consciousness quickly realizes that it is the site of variously contending discourses. ~ Seamus Heaney

I write poems. I'm often laughed at for doing so. My friends and foes, who were born in 1980's or even later aren't savvy with this concept of the reading and writing poems. They're probably not at fault because while they were being brought up in their respective environments, they weren't really taught how to appreciate poetry. Sadly, those same indifferent souls are now raising their children in the same robotic way, keeping them away from an art form as pure as poetry. Anyway, on the path my life, my poems, written and unwritten, are spread throughout like breadcrumbs. Alas! I'm savouring these breadcrumbs alone because no one has chosen to walk by me, maybe because they're skeptic about the taste of these crumbs. They've hypothetically assumed that these crumbs, these poems are bitter. Sigh! They aren't courageous enough to gather the strength to actually taste them. Perhaps this way, the real sweetness of my crumbs, of my poems stays obscured to them. But I haven't let them crush this sweetness beneath their feet and that's why, I've chosen to walk alone instead. How can I not savour these crumbs if I already know that they're leading me to the apex of my life? How can I not write poems if a voice inside me is constantly pecking my hands to give it a form? This voice is my meditation. This voice is my shadow, a shadow which is stubborn enough to remain intact even when I'll be gone. This voice is my concrete, the concrete that I'm made up of. This voice is my power, the ~ Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal

Each human life hypothetically saved by implementing these [radiation] regulations costs about $2.5 billion. Such costs are absurd and immoral, especially when compared to the costs of saving lives by immunization against measles, diphtheria and pertussis, which in developing countries range between $50 and $99 per one human life saved. ~ Zbigniew Jaworowski

Household was making loans at a faster pace than ever. A big source of its growth had been the second mortgage. The document offered a fifteen-year, fixed-rate loan, but it was bizarrely disguised as a thirty-year loan. It took the stream of payments the homeowner would make to Household over fifteen years, spread it hypothetically over thirty years, and asked: If you were making the same dollar payments over thirty years that you are in fact making over fifteen, what would your "effective rate" of interest be? It was a weird, dishonest sales pitch. The borrower was told he had an "effective interest rate of 7 percent" when he was in fact paying something like 12.5 percent. "It was blatant fraud," said Eisman. "They were tricking their customers. ~ Michael Lewis

Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way
through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems, and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them. I could watch him play and find out the things I wanted to know. Also, I could see a lot of things that I didn't know about at all. ~ John Coltrane

Not winning a tournament is not an option for me, unless it's no longer theoretically possible - then of course winning becomes impossible. But up to that point, not winning is just not an option. ~ Magnus Carlsen

Hypothetically speaking," Robert said, "if the attack happens, and Roland retaliates, what will you do about it?"
"She is a princess of Shinar." My aunt burst into existence in the middle of the kitchen. "It is by the grace of her mercy you are still breathing."
Robert stumbled back. Raphael's hands went to his knives. Andrea bared her teeth, cradling Baby B. You could hear a pin drop.
"I have family in town for the wedding," I said into the silence. "My aunt, Eahrratim, the Rose of Tigris."
Curran covered his face with his hand. ~ Ilona Andrews

The actor, like the modern man of reason, must have his place determined and his lines memorized before he goes on stage. (...) The public itself has been soothed to such an extent by scripted debates imbued with theoretically "right" answers that it no longer seems to respond positively to arguments which create doubt. Real doubt creates real fear. (...)
De Gaulle found a sensible compromise, given the times. He reserved his public thinking for the printed page and on those pages he allowed himself to ask fundamental questions. But when he spoke, it was either with reason or with emotion - that is to say, with answers or with mythology. He divided himself between the man of letters, who knows how to live with doubt, and the man of state, who is the epitome of certainty. the brilliance of this approach could be seen in the frustration and sometimes fury of the opposing elites.
The truism today is that mythological figures and men of power should not think in public. They should limit themselves to affirming truths. Stars, after all, are rarely equipped to engage in public debate. They would abhor the idea that the proper way to deal with confusion in society is to increase that confusion by asking uncomfortable questions until the source of the difficulties is exposed. ~ John Ralston Saul