Function Quotes - page 5

Darwinian natural selection only yields adaptation to changing local environments, and better function in an immediate habitat might just as well be achieved by greater simplicity in form and behavior as by ever-increasing complexity. (Stephen Jay Gould)
The engineer, and more generally the designer, is concerned with how things ought to be - how they ought to be in order to attain goals, and to function. View quote
Herbert Simon
The function of knowledge in the decision-making process is to determine which consequences follow upon which of the alternative strategies. View quote
Herbert Simon
Human talk is a centrifugal function, ever in flight outwards from what is on the talker's mind. View quote
Karen Blixen
Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth. View quote
Thomas Henry Huxley
The difference between a pessimistic and an optimistic mind is of such controlling importance in regard to every intellectual function, and especially for the conduct of life, that it is out of the question to admit that both are normal, and the great majority of mankind are naturally optimistic. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing... I am a recording instrument... I do not presume to impose "story "plot" "continuity"... Insofar as I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have limited function... I am not an entertainer. View quote
William S. Burroughs
The function of posterity is to look after itself. View quote
Dylan Thomas
Beware of thinkers whose minds function only when they are fueled by a quotation. View quote
Emil Cioran
Ballet is completely unnatural to the body, just being turned-out... it's not the way your body is supposed to function, so you actually train your body to be a different structure than you were born with. View quote
Neve Campbell
I am for richness of meaning rather than clarity of meaning; for the implicit function as well as the explicit function. (Robert Venturi)
The elegant study... is consistent with the themes of modern cognitive neuroscience. Every aspect of thought and emotion is rooted in brain structure and function, including many psychological disorders and, presumably, genius. The study confirms that the brain is a modular system comprising multiple intelligences, mostly nonverbal. View quote
Steven Pinker
The function of a blog is on some level to start a conversation that you're not involved in any more because you've already had your say. That thing of coming right off the news - did you see what I saw this morning, can you believe it? View quote
Nora Ephron
The impressionistic method leads into a complete splitting and dissolution of all areas involved in the composition, and color is used to create an overall effect of light. The color is, through such a shading down from the highest light in the deepest shadows, sacrified an degraded to a (black-and-white) function. This leads to the destructions of the color as color. View quote
Hans Hofmann
Depth, in a pictorial, plastic sense, is not created by the arrangement of objects one after another toward a vanishing point, in the sense of the Renaissance perspective, but on the contrary (and in absolute denial of this doctrine) by the creation of forces in the sense of push and pull . Nor is depth created by tonal gradation (another doctrine of the academician which, at its culmination, degraded the use of color to a mere function of expressing dark and light). View quote
Hans Hofmann
A political system seeking to function amongst ignorant, illiterate and barbaric people could have marvelous principles but could only succeed in being ignorant, illiterate and barbaric unless one addressed the people one by one and cured the ignorance, illiteracy and barbarism of each citizen. View quote
L. Ron Hubbard
Arthritis vanishes, myopia gets better, heart illness decreases, asthma disappears, stomachs function properly and the whole catalog of illnesses goes away and stays away. View quote
L. Ron Hubbard
Once I establish credit, I may be able to function. A man needs credit. Especially when he has no money. View quote
Hunter S. Thompson
It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it. View quote
Anaïs Nin
A great writer has a high respect for values. His essential function is to raise life to the dignity of thought, and this he does by giving it a shape. View quote
André Maurois
Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie-detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool the metal. That's all. (Lois McMaster Bujold)
Today the function of the artist is to bring imagination to science and science to imagination, where they meet, in the myth. View quote
Cyril Connolly
Unhappiness is our element. We come to believe we can't function without it. View quote
Erica Jong
The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation. View quote
George Santayana
Along with a dozen other students I had dissected a human cadaver and sorted its contents by size, color, function, and weight. There was nothing pleasant about the experience. Its only consolation was its truth and its only virtue was its utility. View quote
Robert Charles Wilson