A Quote by Jorge Luis Borges

The dictionary is based on the hypothesis -- obviously an unproven one -- that languages are made up of equivalent synonyms.

Jorge Luis Borges

Quote Topics

Based Dictionary Equivalent Hypothesis Languages Made Obviously Up

Quote Author

Jorge Luis Borges
Argentinian - Poet
August 24, 1899 - June 14, 1986

There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

Enrico Fermi

Popular ideas about AIDS are based on a hypothesis that does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Nate Mendel

Providence and Manifest Destiny are synonyms often invoked to support arguments based on wishful thinking.

Frank Herbert

However the machine would permit us to test the hypothesis for any special value of n. We could carry out such tests for a sequence of consecutive values n=2,3,.. up to, say, n=100. If the result of at least one test were negative, the hypothesis would prove to be false; otherwise our confidence in the hypothesis would increase, and we should feel encouraged to attempt establishing the hypothesis, instead of trying to construct a counterexample.

Alfred Tarski

[Coining phrase "null hypothesis"] In relation to any experiment we may speak of this hypothesis as the "null hypothesis," and it should be noted that the null hypothesis is never proved or established, but is possibly disproved, in the course of experimentation. Every experiment may be said to exist only in order to give the facts a chance of disproving the null hypothesis.

Ronald Fisher

There's many scripting languages in the world, Perl is a little bit special because it is based more on some ideas from the way natural languages work.

Larry Wall

I bought a dictionary. First thing I did was, I looked up the word "dictionary", and it said "you're an asshole".

Demetri Martin

If we consistently act on the optimistic hypothesis, this hypothesis will tend to be realised; whilst by acting on the pessimistic hypothesis we can keep ourselves for ever in the pit of want.

John Maynard Keynes

There's two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

Enrico Fermi

The first objection to Darwinism is that it is only a guess and was never anything more. It is called a "hypothesis," but the word "hypothesis," though euphonious, dignified and high-sounding, is merely a scientific synonym for the old-fashioned word "guess." If Darwin had advanced his views as a guess they would not have survived for a year, but they have floated for half a century, buoyed up by the inflated word "hypothesis." When it is understood that "hypothesis" means "guess," people will inspect it more carefully before accepting it.

William Jennings Bryan

I have become interested in languages which I cannot make up, which I cannot create or even create in: I have become interested in languages which I can only come up upon (as I disappear), a pirate upon buried treasure. The dreamer, the dreaming, the dream. I call these languages, languages of the body.

Kathy Acker

It is usually the setting that decides whether a movie can be made in two languages. If the subject is rooted up North, then I make it in Hindi. But if the subject is common, then I am open to making the movie in multiple languages.

Mani Ratnam

Here's the point to be made - there are no synonyms. There are no two words that mean exactly the same thing.

Theodore Sturgeon

Travel the world, learn other languages, demand liberty, despise violence, read books, and keep a dictionary nearby.

Jeff B. Davis

The only way to learn a language properly, in fact, is to marry a man of that nationality. You get what they call in Europe a 'sleeping dictionary.' Of course, I have only been married five times, and I speak seven languages. I'm still trying to remember where I picked up the other two.