Calculation Quotes

All which is beautiful and noble is the result of reason and calculation. (Charles Baudelaire)
A skyscraper is at the same time a triumph of the machine and a tremendous emotional experience, almost breath-taking. Not merely its height but its mass and proportions are the result of an emotion, as well as of calculation. View quote
George Gershwin
The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity. View quote
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. ... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor. View quote
Nikola Tesla
The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable. View quote
Thomas Carlyle
That mysterious independent variable of political calculation, Public Opinion. View quote
Thomas Henry Huxley
The more progress physical sciences make, the more they tend to enter the domain of mathematics, which is a kind of centre to which they all converge. We may even judge the degree of perfection to which a science has arrived by the facility with which it may be submitted to calculation. View quote
Adolphe Quetelet
Even the simplest calculation in the purest mathematics can have terrible consequences. Without the invention of the infinitesimal calculus most of our technology would have been impossible. Should we say therefore that calculus is bad? View quote
Stanislaw Ulam
I would confront the thieves, I thought, and the self-evident justice of my case would cause them to crumble before me. I don't know why I expected such extravagant results from the application of mere justice. That kind of calculation is seldom borne out by worldly events. View quote
Robert Charles Wilson
I've done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not. View quote
Fran Lebowitz
To a degree which is difficult to determine, the esoteric impulse in twentieth-century music, literature and the arts reflects calculation. It looks to the flattery of academic and hermeneutic notice. Reciprocally, the academy turns towards that which appears to require its exegetic, cryptographic skills. (George Steiner)
Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. The calculation of intrinsic value, though, is not so simple. As our definition suggests, intrinsic value is an estimate rather than a precise figure, and it is additionally an estimate that must be changed if interest rates move or forecasts of future cash flows are revised. View quote
Warren Buffett
In [Aristotle's] formal logic, thought is organized in a manner very different from that of the Platonic dialogue. In this formal logic, thought is indifferent toward its objects. Whether they are mental or physical, whether they pertain to society or to nature, they become subject to the same general laws of organization, calculation, and conclusion - but they do so as fungible signs or symbols, in abstraction from their particular "substance." This general quality (quantitative quality) is the precondition of law and order - in logic as well as in society - the price of universal control. View quote
Herbert Marcuse
With English literature, if you do a bit of shonky spelling, no one dies, but if you're half-way through a maths calculation and you stick in an extra zero, everything just crashes into the ravine. View quote
Mark Haddon
Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight. View quote
Henry R. Luce
The circumstances of human society are too complicated to be submitted to the rigor of mathematical calculation. View quote
Marquis de Custine
The results of philanthropy are always beyond calculation. View quote
Mary Ritter Beard
Calculation has its advantages, but no one likes naked calculation. View quote
Rich Lowry
You could argue that war is always an irrational act, and yet many states enter into military conflict out of rational calculation or national interest or the stability or longevity of their regime. View quote
William Kirby
We also remember the brilliant flight of the American super-genius Paul Morphy, who in a couple of years (1857-59) conquered both the New and the Old Worlds. He revealed a thunderous blend of pragmatism, aggression and accurate calculation to the world -- qualities that enabled America to accomplish a powerful spurt in the second half of the 19th century. View quote
Paul Morphy
We evolved to be good at learning and using rules of thumb, not at searching for ultimate causes and making fine distinctions. Still less did we evolve to spin out long chains of calculation that connect fundamental laws to observable consequences. Computers are much better at it! (Frank Wilczek)
In the end the question is: Who is to be master, man or his machines? As long as the control over technology rests primarily on economic calculation, the victor is not likely to be man. View quote
Robert Heilbroner
Even human relations become a matter of cost benefit calculation. Clearly this is the way the conquistadors viewed the worlds that they set out to conquer.It is the peculiar feature of modern capitalism to create social arrangements that essentially force us to think this way. View quote
David Graeber
The miraculous powers of modern calculation are due to three inventions : the Arabic Notation, Decimal Fractions and Logarithms. View quote
Florian Cajori
Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life. View quote
Henri-Frédéric Amiel