Just as the introduction of the irrational numbers ... is a convenient myth [which] simplifies the laws of arithmetic ... so physical objects are postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux of existence... The conceptional scheme of physical objects is [likewise] a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part.

For me the problem of induction is a problem about the world: a problem of how we, as we are now (by our present scientific lights), in a world we never made, should stand better than random, or coin-tossing chances changes of coming out right when we predict by inductions. . . .

Physics investigates the essential nature of the world, and biology describes a local bump. Psychology, human psychology, describes a bump on the bump.

No two of us learn our language alike, nor, in a sense, does any finish learning it while he lives.

Theory may be deliberate, as in a chapter on chemistry, or it may be second nature, as in the immemorial doctrine of ordinary enduring middle-sized physical objects.

Just as the introduction of the irrational numbers ... is a convenient myth [which] simplifies the laws of arithmetic ... so physical objects are postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux of existence... The conceptional scheme of physical objects is [likewise] a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part.

Unscientific man is beset by a deplorable desire to have been right. The scientist is distinguished by a desire to be right.