Charles Darwin - David Aaronovitch TV - William Shakespeare - Aristotle - Horizon TV - Peter Capaldi - The Recruit 2003 - Star Trek: Voyager TV - Ovid - Virgil - Bertrand Russell - Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner TV - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Bernard Beckett - David Spiegelhalter - Marcus du Sautoy TV - Isaac Asimov TV - Fyodor Dostoyevsky -
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica, Rule I: Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy
Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.
This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of Species; and it is since that time that it has very gradually with many fluctuations become weaker. But then arises the doubt – can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions? May not these be the result of the connection between cause and effect which strikes us as a necessary one, but probably depends merely on inherited experience? Nor must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the minds of children producing so strong and perhaps an inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake. Charles Darwin, Autobiography: Religious Belief
There is a practically universal demand for a causal story ... You require a causal link and you attach to that an incredible superstructure of cultural and religious thought. David Aaronovitch, The Big Questions: Is There Any Evidence For God? BBC 2012
We cannot cross the cause why we were born. William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost IV iii 216
There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things. William Shakespeare, Henry V V i 3-4, Fluellen
The cause is in my will: I will not come. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar II ii 71
It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul;
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!
It is the cause. William Shakespeare, Othello V ii 1
Never afflict yourself to know the cause. William Shakespeare, The History of King Lear I iv 285, Goneril
All men desire to know. Not all forms of knowledge are equal. The best is the pure and disinterested knowledge for the causes of things. Aristotle, Metaphysics
The Big Bang doesn’t quite work. So much so that people are now starting to think the unthinkable ... It’s all effect and no cause. Horizon: What Happened Before the Big Bang? BBC 2010
So begin with the experience and investigate the cause. Inside the Mind of Leonardo starring Peter Capaldi, Sky Arts 2013
We believe in good and evil ... Our cause is just. Our enemies everywhere. The Recruit 2003 starring Al Pacino & Colin Farrell & Bridget Moynahan & Gabriel Macht & Kenneth Mitchell & Mike Realba & Ron Lea & Karl Pruner & Jeanie Calleja et al, director Roger Donaldson
One of the most difficult concepts to grasp in temporal mechanics is that sometimes effect can precede cause. A reaction can be observed before the action which initiating it. Star Trek: Voyager s1e3: Parallax, Janeway to Tom et al, briefing room
The cause is hidden. The effect is visible to all. Ovid
Lucky is he who has been able to understand the causes of things. Virgil
The law of causality, I believe like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm. Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic, 1918
When I think of bad historical assumptions about correlation and causality I think of polio a hundred years ago ... There was a strong line of research that suggested that ice cream caused polio. Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics, Sky Atlantic, caption; viz also book
But when it comes to cause and effect, there is often a trap in such open-and-shut thinking … But we too embrace faulty causes, usually at the urging of an expert proclaiming a truth in which he has a vested interest. Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics
Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Unable to attribute misfortune to chance, unable to accept their ultimate insignificance within the greater scheme, the people looked for monsters in their midst. Bernard Beckett, Genesis
Our brains are hardwired to look for cause and effect. Professor David Spiegelhalter, Tails You Win: The Science of Chance, BBC 2012
Einstein’s theory respects the relationship between cause and effect. Professor Marcus du Sautoy, Faster than the Speed of Light
We run into trouble with cause and effect ... Travelling into the future is possible, but suppose you want to come back again? Isaac Asimov, Horizon: It’s About Time, BBC 1980
Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot
In short, the right given to one man to inflict corporal punishment on another is one of the ulcers of society, one of the most powerful destructive agents of every germ and every budding attempt at civilization, the fundamental cause of its certain and irretrievable destruction. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead