Quotes by William Kingdon Clifford

About William Kingdon Clifford:

William Kingdon Clifford is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in his honour. The operations of geometric algebra have the effect of mirroring, rotating, translating, and mapping the geometric objects that are being modelled to new positions. Clifford algebras in general and geometric algebra in particular, have been of ever increasing importance to mathematical physics, geometry, and computing. Clifford was the first to suggest that gravitation might be a manifestation of an underlying geometry. In his philosophical writings he coined the expression "mind-stuff".
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It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

William Kingdon Clifford

In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wr...

William Kingdon Clifford

Remember that [scientific thought] is the guide of action; that the truth which it arrives at is not that which we can ideally contemplate without error, but that which we may act upon without fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought ...

William Kingdon Clifford

's Elements has been for nearly twenty-two centuries the encouragement and guide of that scientific thought which is one thing with the progress of man from a worse to a better state. The encouragement; for it contained a body of knowledge that was r...

William Kingdon Clifford

… scientific thought does not mean thought about scientific subjects with long names. There are no scientific subjects. The subject of science is the human universe; that is to say, everything that is, or has been, or may be related to man.

William Kingdon Clifford

The aim of scientific thought, then, is to apply past experience to new circumstances; the instrument is an observed uniformity in the course of events. By the use of this instrument it gives us information transcending our experience, it enables us ...

William Kingdon Clifford

This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation.

William Kingdon Clifford

To consider only one other such witness: the followers of the Buddha have at least as much right to appeal to individual and social experience in support of the authority of the Eastern saviour.

William Kingdon Clifford

A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions.

William Kingdon Clifford

When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that.

William Kingdon Clifford

In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts.

William Kingdon Clifford

The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.

William Kingdon Clifford

If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done from the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dis...

William Kingdon Clifford

Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. A awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.

William Kingdon Clifford

Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.

William Kingdon Clifford

We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.

William Kingdon Clifford

If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future.

William Kingdon Clifford

An atmosphere of beliefs and conceptions has been formed by the labours and struggles of our forefathers, which enables us to breathe amid the various and complex circumstances of our life.

William Kingdon Clifford

Our lives our guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.

William Kingdon Clifford

Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it.

William Kingdon Clifford

Author Bio

  • NameWilliam Kingdon Clifford
  • DescriptionEnglish mathematician and philosopher
  • BornMay 4, 1845
  • DiedMarch 3, 1879
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionMathematician; Philosopher
  • AwardsFellow Of The Royal Society