Analogy Quotes

I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.

Then I strip the pants away from each leg, like peeling a banana. That's it, the perfect metaphor: peeling a banana.

I tend to approach things from a physics framework. And physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.

The map is not the territory... The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map.

Physics is to mathematics what sex is to masturbation.

If you have distance from the events, then your story can work as an analogy or parable rather than its literal narrative.

I have loved you woman as surely as I have named you rust and sand and nylon.

Talking about the past is like a cat's trying to explain climbing down a ladder.

I think it's a great story, the story of Babel. I think anyone can direct it as an analogy for a lot of different situations.

Mr. Janet Reno? I think Mr. Janet Reno... I think he's one of the best hunting dogs in the world.

Talking to Yogi Berra about baseball is like talking to Homer about the Gods.

I think that metaphor really is a key to explaining thought and language. The human mind comes equipped with an ability to penetrate the cladding of sensory appearance and discern the abstract construction underneath - not always on demand, and not infallibly, but often enough and insightfully enough to shape the human condition. Our powers of analogy allow us to apply ancient neural structures to newfound subject matter, to discover hidden laws and systems in nature, and not least, to amplify the expressive power of language itself.

He [Dewey] looks like the little man on the wedding cake.

Faith is knowing there is an ocean because you have seen a brook.

Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. The tale is the map that is the territory. You must remember this.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me.

I thought I did play one villain, Hitler, [who is] like Lecter in some ways, but he's a mythical figure, anyway.

You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language.

Writing a record is like dating a few men at once. You take them to the same restaurants to see if they measure up, and at some point you decide who you like best.

I don't ever get too literal.

I think the Cold War works as a great analogy or simile for different kinds of conflict. It's funny, when you look back at it, it's one of the last times that the boundaries were clear. Now, as we see on 'Homeland,' there are no clear boundaries and enemies.

He looks much more like a lobster than most lobsters do.

Life is like underwear, should be changed twice a day.

He talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages