Precision Quotes

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist. (Vladimir Nabokov)
I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along. View quote
Bertrand Russell
In the landscape of extinction, precision is next to godliness. View quote
Samuel Beckett
I'd take precision any day over power; as far as being tactical you know you have to see what's going on in there and also understand that for every punch that you or your opponent throws there's always a counter shot or two which you have to be ready to fire or defend. View quote
Alexis Arguello
Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give the data authenticity. View quote
Norman Ralph Augustine
Useful undertakings which require sustained attention and vigorous precision in order to succeed often end up by being abandoned, for, in America, as elsewhere, the people move forward by sudden impulses and short-lived efforts. View quote
Alexis de Tocqueville
In love, as in gluttony, pleasure is a matter of the utmost precision. View quote
Italo Calvino
No skill, no special apti­tude, no vividness of imagination or precision of thinking would go unrecognized because the child who possessed it was of one sex rather than the other. No child would be relentlessly shaped to one pattern of behavior, but instead there should be many patterns, in a world that had learned to allow to each individual the pattern which was most congenial to his gifts. View quote
Margaret Mead
Birds are the most accomplished aeronauts the world has ever seen. They fly high and low, at great speed, and very slowly. And always with extraordinary precision and control. View quote
David Attenborough
And there is, I am certain, among the Iraqi people a respect for the care and the precision that went into the bombing campaign. (Donald Rumsfeld)
It seems clear that the Bible belongs to an area of language in which metaphor is functional, and where we have to surrender precision for flexibility. View quote
Northrop Frye
Both pure and applied science have gradually pushed further and further the requirements for accuracy and precision. However, applied science, particularly in the mass production of interchangeable parts, is even more exacting than pure science in certain matters of accuracy and precision. View quote
Walter A. Shewhart
The outstanding feature of behavior is that it is often quite easy to recognize but extremely difficult or impossible to describe with precision. View quote
Anatol Rapoport
Many of the points made by the antiwar movement have been consciously assimilated by the Pentagon and its lawyers and advisers. Precision weaponry is good in itself, but its ability to discriminate is improving and will continue to improve. Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect. View quote
Christopher Hitchens
Hockey is an art. It requires speed, precision, and strength like other sports, but it also demands an extraordinary intelligence to develop a logical sequence of movements, a technique which is smooth, graceful and in rhythm with the rest of the game. View quote
Jacques Plante
Someone like myself, who claimed to be a real madman, living and organized with a Pythagorean precision.. View quote
Salvador Dalí
One can prove or refute anything at all with words. Soon people will perfect language technology to such an extent that they'll be proving with mathematical precision that twice two is seven. View quote
Anton Chekhov
No one has ever used historical examples, near or remote, with the detail, precision, and directness to be found in every page of Shaw. View quote
Jacques Barzun
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. View quote
Igor Stravinsky
The habit of ubiquitous interventionism, combining pinprick strikes by precision weapons with pious invocations of high principle, would lead us into endless difficulties. Interventions must be limited in number and overwhelming in their impact. (Margaret Thatcher)
It is clear, then, that the idea of a fixed method, or of a fixed theory or rationality, rests on too naive a view of man and his social surroundings. To those who look at the rich material provided by history, and who are not intent on impoverishing it in order to please their lower instincts, their craving for intellectual security in the form of clarity, precision, "objectivity", "truth", it will become clear that there is only one principle that can be defended under all circumstances and in all stages of human development. It is the principle: anything goes. View quote
Paul Karl Feyerabend
If physics leads us today to a world view which is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning, 2,500 years ago... This time, however, it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism. View quote
Fritjof Capra
I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists - proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision. View quote
Thomas Edison
But quality of work can be expected only through personal satisfaction, dedication and enjoyment. In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensible luxury, but a simple necessity. View quote
Niklaus Wirth