Quotes about Precision

As ages passed, people learned from their ancestors. The more accurately you knew the position and movements of the Sun and Moon and stars, the more reliably you could predict when to hunt, when to sow and reap, when to gather the tribes. As precision of measurement improved, records had to be kept, so astronomy encouraged observation and mathematics and the development of writing.

Would you say, "Billy, be home by the time the Earth has rotated enough so as to occult the Sun below the local horizon"? Billy would be long gone before you're finished.

Rather than seeing ourselves as insignificant specks in the immensity of the cosmos, we can consider that immensity an indicator of our worth. It seems the Creator invested a great deal—a universe of 50 billion trillion stars, plus a hundred times more matter, all fine-tuned to mind-boggling precision—for us.

First be sure that you know exactly what you want to say. Then be sure you have said exactly that.

The carpenter's rule is "measure twice, cut once.

Truth by definition excludes.

We have a conception that God is a haphazard God with no set of rules of life and salvation. Ask the astronomer if God is a haphazard God. He will tell you that every star moves with precision in its celestial path.

My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.

Truth is to be used as a scalpel, not a club.

You correct an error by bringing truth to it.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short." [ Letter to Harrison Blake ; November 16, 1857]

The way for a person to develop a style is to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that.