A Quote by Samuel Johnson

Conjecture as to things useful, is good; but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.

Samuel Johnson

Quote Topics

Conjecture Good Idle Know Things Useful Useless Very Would Would Be

Quote Author

Samuel Johnson
English - Writer
September 18, 1709 - December 13, 1784

The classes of problems which are respectively known and not known to have good algorithms are of great theoretical interest. [...] I conjecture that there is no good algorithm for the traveling salesman problem. My reasons are the same as for any mathematical conjecture: (1) It is a legitimate mathematical possibility, and (2) I do not know.

Jack Edmonds

Everybody liked better to conjecture how the thing was, than simply to know it; for conjecture soon became more confident than knowledge, and had a more liberal allowance for the incompatible.

George Eliot

I think everybody handles things very differently and you can conjecture, but until you're put in that situation, you really don't know.

Laura Linney

I believe in this being, not because I have any proper or direct knowledge of His existence, but I am at a loss to account for the existence and arrangement of the visible universe, and, being left in the wide sea of conjecture without a clue from analogy or experience, I find the conjecture of a God easy, obvious, and irresistible.

William Godwin

Every theory in philosophy, which is built on pure conjecture, is an elephant; and every theory that is supported partly by fact, and partly by conjecture, is like Nebuchadnezzar's image, whose feet were partly of iron, and partly of clay.

Thomas Reid

Physiognomy is not a guide that has been given us by which to judge of the character of men: it may only serve us for conjecture. [Fr., La physionomie n'est pas une regle qui nous soit donnee pour juger des hommes; elle nous peut servir de conjecture.]

Jean de la Bruyere

We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.

Charles Caleb Colton

We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things.

John Wesley Powell

People don't know what goes on in my private life, so they have to make conjecture from something that is photographed.

Ruth Wilson

If there are other worlds elsewhere in the universe, I would conjecture they are governed by the same laws of natural selection.

Richard Dawkins

The wisdom of God exceeds that of the wisest man, more than his wisdom exceeds that of a child. If a child were to conjecture how an army is to be formed in the day of battle--how a city is to be fortified, or a state governed--what chance has he to guess right? As little chance has the wisest man when he pretends to conjecture how the planets move in their courses, how the sea ebbs and flows, and how our minds act upon our bodies.

Thomas Reid

I'm very happy for others to engage in conjecture, but if I was ever conscious of what I'm thinking about when I'm writing, oh my God, I'd be totally lost.

Peter Morgan

Useful men, who do useful things, don't mind being treated as useless. But the useless always judge themselves as being important and hide all their incompetence behind authority.