measurement quotes

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Numbers are the product of counting. Quantities are the product of measurement. This means that numbers can conceivably be accurat... - MORE Numbers are the product of counting. Quantities are the product of measurement. This means that numbers can conceivably be accurate because there is a discontinuity between each integer and the next. Between two and three there is a jump. In the case of quantity, there is no such jump; and because jump is missing in the world of quantity, it is impossible for any quantity to be exact. You can have exactly three tomatoes. You can never have exactly three gallons of water. Always quantity is approximate.

Gregory Bateson

numbers | quantity

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A machine is characterized by sustained, autonomous action. It is set up by human hands and then is more or less set loose from hu... - MORE A machine is characterized by sustained, autonomous action. It is set up by human hands and then is more or less set loose from human control. It is designed to come between man and nature, to affect the natural world without requiring or indeed allowing humans to come into contact with it. Such is the clock, which abstracts the measurement of time from the sun and the stars: such is the steam engine, which turns coal into power to move ships or pump water without the intervention of human muscles. A tool, unlike a machine, is not self-sufficient or autonomous in action. It requires the skill of a craftsman and, when handled with skill, permits him to reshape the world in his way.

J. David Bolter

machines | tools

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That's the great danger of sectarian opinions, they always accept the formulas of past events as useful for the measurement of fut... - MORE That's the great danger of sectarian opinions, they always accept the formulas of past events as useful for the measurement of future events and they never are, if you have high standards of accuracy.

John Dos Passos

ideology | opinions

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True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them. True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

works of art | aesthetics

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Alas, the penis is such a ridiculous petitioner. It is so unreliable, though everything depends on it—the world is balanced on i... - MORE Alas, the penis is such a ridiculous petitioner. It is so unreliable, though everything depends on it—the world is balanced on it like a ball on a seal's nose. It is so easily teased, insulted, betrayed, abandoned; yet it must pretend to be invulnerable, a weapon which confers magical powers upon its possessor; consequently this muscleless inchworm must try to swagger through temples and pull apart thighs like the hairiest Samson, the mightiest ram.

William Gass

body | men

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If he say so, may his pernicious soul
Rot half a grain a day! He lies to the heart. If he say so, may his pernicious soul
Rot half a grain a day! He lies to the heart.

Shakespeare

damnation | lies | lying

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