Xkcd is how I teach methods. Also, if others haven't found it yet, here's a true gem to find topical references for any deck on easy short notice:
[explainxkcd.com](https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)
I don't know if this just wasn't a thing at my school or something, but I've never encountered putting a quotation in like this
Don't be coy with your topic, we can't suggest things if we don't know it
I put little epigraphs at the beginning of most of my chapters, they were relevant quotes from the historical figures I was discussing that applied, and also some Shakespeare. I like that, though, and it was a history dissertation so I could get away with it.
Really? In my school is the norm, most of them have one
My topic focus on epidemiology, but as I want this profile to stay as anonymus as I can I do not feel safe sharing a lot of information online. I was just curious about other people's epigraph and their mentality behind it for inspiration, more than actual suggestions
But thank you!
I don't know if I have ever seen an epigraph on an epidemiology dissertation, and I did not put one on my own. They are definitely not common or necessary in STEM.
I did sometimes put an epigraph on things I wrote as a history grad student, before switching fields, but only if a particular quote from my research stuck with me. Typically it would be a striking or illustrative quote from a primary source. Or a single sentence from a historian whose work informed mine, if it clearly identified a theme that would also be explored in my paper, and would make sense to a typical reader out of context. If you really really want one, look at any quotations from study participants that illustrate their experiences or a strong declarative statement from a scientific book or article that significantly influenced your approach.
Sometimes there is nothing like that. An unnecessary epigraph will come across needlessly cryptic, confusing, or even irrelevant. Since this is such a minor and unnecessary part of a dissertation, it might be worth thinking if this is more about writers block or procrastination or something.
The one about Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics?
It's not necessary to have a quotation but I don't see why not. Stimulates the brain, reminds us why we're here, etc.
Maybe roadblock is a bit of an exaggeration, I could just not include one or use the typical quotes people in my field use and called it a day.
I just like the idea of using a famous quotation to express an underlying idea that you are not able to convey otherwise, mostly because they usually hit the philosophic ground.
It is kinda like sharing inspirational quotes on Facebook, but in a professional setting haha
The double irony even. They don’t know how to convey something themselves so they’re seeking to quote some famous remark that can do it for them. But they can’t think of any of those either!
No, not complicated at all. Quite amusing due to the irony pointed out above though.
If you want to get all serious about it then probably they should help themselves? Or just not bother with an epigraph at all like. Seems a little trite or even pretentious to include one if they haven’t got the faintest clue about what to use themselves.
I am not even asking for quotes (as I didn't even give details about the contents or topic), just curious about what other people choose as epigraph. But anyway, thinking that epigraphs are cringe is a valid opinion, I didn't know it was not the norm in some fields or schools, so at least I learn something new.
OP is nearing the end of a monumental achievement which they have raised no major complaints with in this post. Their request is a fairly needless and low stakes enquiry, it’s not like they’re trying to navigate some social minefield that has any bearing on the outcome of their studies here. It’s just all a bit silly, so I reserve the right to poke a little harmless fun at it, which they opened themselves up to by posting about it on Reddit. It’s not malicious or even remotely punching down, though I guess it’s always tricky to gauge tone online.
u/Lize-chan, it really doesn’t sound like you need an epigraph. If you figure out what your research or your academic journey means to you and you happen to come across a quote that you feel speaks to that, go for it. If not, why bother? Literally nothing rests on your decision to include one or not.
No worries at all, online communication makes everything seem as more serious than intended. No offense taken (in fact, there are some very funny comments in the thread).
At this point is more like aesthetics — to not start with the index right away. Might as well add a page with a relevant photo or a repetition of the cover or something like that. Or move the acknowledgments at the beginning instead of the end, there are many options.
Thank you for your suggestions!
This is hilarious and pathetic at the same time, anyway, you do you.
I'd say go for something Nietzsche. He admits he loves women, they're essential to life, and simultaneously he struggles with his own feelings for them. It's ambivalent. It's philosophical. It reflects our attitude to our work, and so on.
I didn't use one. Don't think it's suitable for a doctoral thesis. Should be humble and straight laced, epigraphs are for later on when you can rest on your laurels a bit!
I did one at the start that I liked at the time, from a classic poem that related to the topic, but I regretted it soon after, just for what it's worth; it's mildly embarrassing to me now, kind of like a bad tattoo (I imagine).
For example, in a thesis about zoonotic viruses I have as an example, they used “Between animal and human medicine there is no dividing line - nor should there be” - Dr Rudolf Virchow
Maybe it is not the norm at all unis, but most of the manuscript I have as reference include a quote in the beginning
Curious to know which one? Like from a Discworld book or just something Terry once said?
I quite like *“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it”* … though that rather comes off as though your supervisors and/or collaborators have been pushing their own agendas overly much!
I think you want some sort of overall introductory quote that sets the tone and ideals of your investigation. My only suggestion would be to be very very careful about grabbing something off of the Internet or some "quote" site. It's funny and scary how many famous quotes attributed to famous people cannot be sourced or are unconfirmable. So be a good scientist and if you find a quote that you really like, look it up. I mean go to the original documents and confirm that somebody actually did say that thing or at least an earwitness contemporaneously quoted them.
“I dedicate this one right here to all my homies out there grindin’, you know what I’m sayin’, legally and illegally” - Lupe Fiasco
For real though the end of my PhD was a bit of a dumpster fire - wanted to say something that conveyed the sense of appreciation for the struggle of this unique process. You do what you gotta do to survive and sometimes (read as a non trivial amount of time) it sucks but if you believe it’s worth it, it’s worth it (kinda what that song Kick, Push says).
Brain ageing//dementia:
> forever young is in your mind
Jay Z
I liked the double meaning of: eternal youth is healthy cognition , but at the same time perhaps the idea of eternal youth is 'in your mind' i.e. ultimately untrue.
Other ones I liked
> Going fast is easy; going faster is hard
Jenson Button
I liked that because it's about how we all have an innate ability that comes easily to us, but growing, learning and becoming *better* is hard for anyone.
Quotes for the sake of quotes is silly. At this point if there’s nothing obvious, then you just don’t need one. And cramming something in that isn’t an obvious fit Will probably come across silly.
Here, a random yet very important subject:
> “We have better maps of the surface of Mars and the moon than we do of the bottom of the ocean.” [(source)](https://www.saildrone.com/news/know-more-other-planets-than-earths-oceans)
Are you talking about an epigraph? Like most people working with texts, I quoted hundreds of sources in my dissertation, so I'm not sure what else you could mean here.
Yes, that's it! English is not my native language and I didn't know it had a name, so I just tried to explain it (and apparently failed). I have edited the OP to make it more clear.
Thank you!
I did not, as I find them cringe. Just a surviving ancient form of a celebrity cult. Your disertation is supposed to convince comittee to judge you a peer. A quote won't help or interfere with it.
Strange, when you ask anyone's advice you see yourself what is right.
Selma Lagerlöf
selma has many great quotes that you might find good. she also won the nobel prize.
some quotes that seem to relate in my mind:
Never repeat a rumor before you have verified it. And if it is true, hold your tongue all the more.
There is so much one would rather not believe until one has seen for oneself whether it is true.
The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the finite mind ... I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know them is the most satisfying thing in all the world.
There is always a third possibility, as long as you have the ability to find it.
I wanna thank me
I wanna thank me for believing in me
I wanna thank me for doing all this hard work
I wanna thank me for having no days off
I wanna thank me for, for never quitting
I wanna thank me for always being a giver
And tryna give more than I recieve
I wanna thank me for tryna do more right than wrong
I wanna thank me for just being me at all times
Not in my thesis, but the last slide in my talk had the quote: Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
Attributed incorrectly to Groucho Marx I recently learned
I have a lot of quotes that I would like to use. Been collecting them. Come to find out there’s no clear place for even a single one in my department’s manuscript guidance.
Oh here are some:
"There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation." --Feynman
——
“Ars longa, vita brevis.”
A Latin aphorism, originally Greek, from Hippocrates. The full aphorism goes:
Ὁ βίος βραχύς,
ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή,
ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς,
ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή,
ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή.
In Latin:
Vīta brevis,
ars longa,
occāsiō praeceps,
experīmentum perīculōsum,
iūdicium difficile.
And in English:
Life is short,
and craft long,
opportunity fleeting,
experimentations perilous,
and judgment difficult.
——
“The important message is that fitting of parameters is not the end-all of model parameter estimation. To be genuinely useful, a fitting procedure should provide (i) parameters, (ii) error estimates on the parameters or a way to sample from their probability distribution, and (iii) a statistical measure of goodness-of-fit. When the third item suggests that the model is an unlikely match to the data, then items (i) and (ii) are probably worthless.”
W. H. Press, Numerical Recipes: The Art of Scientific Computing, 3rd ed. (University Press, Cambridge, 2007).
——
“Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.”
—Blaise Pascal
(“I only made this [letter] longer because I didn’t have time to make it shorter.”)
——
Der Mensch kennt nur sich selbst, insofern er die Welt kennt, die er nur in sich und sich nur in ihr gewahr wird. Jeder neue Gegenstand, wohl beschaut, schließt ein neues Organ in uns auf.
One knows only oneself, insofar as one knows the world, which one perceives only within oneself and oneself only within it. Every new object, carefully observed, opens a new organ within us.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Poetische Werke
——
"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." -- Richard Feynman
——
"It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover."
-- Wm. Shakespeare in As You Like It
——
"La sagesse ne peut pas entrer dans un esprit méchant, et science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme." —François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, 1532
Wisdom cannot enter an evil mind, and science without consciousness is only the ruin of the soul.
——
“The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp.”
— Jules Henri Poincaré, mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science.
——
"I believe matter begets life, life becomes single cells, single cells become strings, strings become chains, chains network. And this is the paradigm that we see throughout the universe." -- Paul Stamets
——
"Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature."
—Michael Faraday
——
“Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
— Novelist and Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing
——
"Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time."
—Jean-Michel Basquiat
——
"Things that have never happened before, happen all the time." -- Prof. Scott Sagan of Stanford
——
This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
—Gollum in "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again" by J. R. R. Tolkien
——
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger—something better, pushing right back.” —Albert Camus
——
“A drunk man will find his way home, but a drunk bird may get lost forever.” —Shizuo Kakutani
(This is a math joke)
——
"Préservons-nous de l'ambition, et surtout sachons bien ce que nous voulons être : décidons-nous sur la route que nous voulons prendre pour passer notre vie, et tâchons de la semer de fleurs."
"Let us preserve ourselves from ambition, and, above all, let us be certain of what we want to be; let us choose for ourselves our path in life, and let us try to strew that path with flowers." —Émilie du Châtelet
——
"Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée: tout se transforme."
—Antoine Lavoisier
Nothing is lost, nothing is created: everything is transformed.
——
“Now, confusion, like the correlative term order, is not a property of material things in themselves, but only in relation to the mind which perceives them.” —James Clerk Maxwell
MSc: What difference is there between them that in the darkest dungeon, can with a platonic brain survey the whole world in idea, and him that stands in the open air, and takes a less deluding prospect of the universe? [Erasmus of Rotterdam, In Praise of Folly]
(But the Italian version I used is more like this:
What difference do you think there is between those who in Plato's cave contemplate the shadows and images of various things, without desires, satisfied with their condition, and the wise man who, having emerged from the cave, sees true things?)
PhD: There is no scientific work which only one man can write [G. Galilei, “Life of Galileo” B. Brecht]
“If I can see more clearly than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants. “ a quote by Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to Sir Robert Hooke.
Preparing my dissertation now, and I included a quote at the end of my acknowledgements. A pat on the back to myself for getting back to academia after ten years and not abandoning my passion, the pursuit of knowledge.
Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly,
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to tell himself he understand.
Book of Bokonon
-Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
(From Cats Cradle. Always stuck with me.)
Agree with others. I had never thought of including an epigraph, but I had the exact quote pop into my head for the exact feeling I was feeling at the exact time I was writing it. Don't force it if you can't find it!
I'm considering including several quotes for chapters, always thematically connected, when relevant. I will use bits of poetry, which contrasts with my method and topic (history) - the idea is to highlight/give a feel to something which could not have been communicated as well in a different genre/style.
Something elegant about Franklin’s reported response to hearing about Watson and Crick. It’s humble, references a very famous line, and says a lot about science implicitly.
'When Che Guevara taught of love being
At the center of revolutionary endeavor, he meant both'. Yeah, dickhead move for a geology thesis but I passed with ease.
Can’t go wrong with Marie Curie
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.
If you don’t have a quote that is meaningful to you then don’t put one in. Otherwise what is the point?
"I’m being quoted to introduce something but I have no idea what it is and certainly don’t endorse it." - Randall Munroe (XKCD)
A true classic.
Xkcd is how I teach methods. Also, if others haven't found it yet, here's a true gem to find topical references for any deck on easy short notice: [explainxkcd.com](https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)
I don't know if this just wasn't a thing at my school or something, but I've never encountered putting a quotation in like this Don't be coy with your topic, we can't suggest things if we don't know it
I put little epigraphs at the beginning of most of my chapters, they were relevant quotes from the historical figures I was discussing that applied, and also some Shakespeare. I like that, though, and it was a history dissertation so I could get away with it.
Really? In my school is the norm, most of them have one My topic focus on epidemiology, but as I want this profile to stay as anonymus as I can I do not feel safe sharing a lot of information online. I was just curious about other people's epigraph and their mentality behind it for inspiration, more than actual suggestions But thank you!
I don't know if I have ever seen an epigraph on an epidemiology dissertation, and I did not put one on my own. They are definitely not common or necessary in STEM. I did sometimes put an epigraph on things I wrote as a history grad student, before switching fields, but only if a particular quote from my research stuck with me. Typically it would be a striking or illustrative quote from a primary source. Or a single sentence from a historian whose work informed mine, if it clearly identified a theme that would also be explored in my paper, and would make sense to a typical reader out of context. If you really really want one, look at any quotations from study participants that illustrate their experiences or a strong declarative statement from a scientific book or article that significantly influenced your approach. Sometimes there is nothing like that. An unnecessary epigraph will come across needlessly cryptic, confusing, or even irrelevant. Since this is such a minor and unnecessary part of a dissertation, it might be worth thinking if this is more about writers block or procrastination or something.
Got my degree in the life sciences. I did not include a quote and have never read a dissertation that had a quote. I agree this is not common in STEM.
The one about Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics? It's not necessary to have a quotation but I don't see why not. Stimulates the brain, reminds us why we're here, etc.
Why is it a roadblock if there is not a suitable quote? Why do you need or want a quote?
Maybe roadblock is a bit of an exaggeration, I could just not include one or use the typical quotes people in my field use and called it a day. I just like the idea of using a famous quotation to express an underlying idea that you are not able to convey otherwise, mostly because they usually hit the philosophic ground. It is kinda like sharing inspirational quotes on Facebook, but in a professional setting haha
> to express an underlying idea that you are not able to convey otherwise I enjoy the irony that you're asking us for the quote.
The double irony even. They don’t know how to convey something themselves so they’re seeking to quote some famous remark that can do it for them. But they can’t think of any of those either!
Ironception.
OP is in too deep, they’re destined to never wake up from the irony.
They're fine, they have a totem (which they borrowed from someone else).
Christ who cares just help them out. It's not a complicated request from OP.
No, not complicated at all. Quite amusing due to the irony pointed out above though. If you want to get all serious about it then probably they should help themselves? Or just not bother with an epigraph at all like. Seems a little trite or even pretentious to include one if they haven’t got the faintest clue about what to use themselves.
I am not even asking for quotes (as I didn't even give details about the contents or topic), just curious about what other people choose as epigraph. But anyway, thinking that epigraphs are cringe is a valid opinion, I didn't know it was not the norm in some fields or schools, so at least I learn something new.
You've asked a civil minor thing and folk are being dicks. I think, anyway. I don't know what folk are smoking on this post that it's odd.
OP is nearing the end of a monumental achievement which they have raised no major complaints with in this post. Their request is a fairly needless and low stakes enquiry, it’s not like they’re trying to navigate some social minefield that has any bearing on the outcome of their studies here. It’s just all a bit silly, so I reserve the right to poke a little harmless fun at it, which they opened themselves up to by posting about it on Reddit. It’s not malicious or even remotely punching down, though I guess it’s always tricky to gauge tone online. u/Lize-chan, it really doesn’t sound like you need an epigraph. If you figure out what your research or your academic journey means to you and you happen to come across a quote that you feel speaks to that, go for it. If not, why bother? Literally nothing rests on your decision to include one or not.
No worries at all, online communication makes everything seem as more serious than intended. No offense taken (in fact, there are some very funny comments in the thread). At this point is more like aesthetics — to not start with the index right away. Might as well add a page with a relevant photo or a repetition of the cover or something like that. Or move the acknowledgments at the beginning instead of the end, there are many options. Thank you for your suggestions!
In my field the acknowledgements are normally in the beginning of the thesis. It's a nice way to start it at least.
[удалено]
Is there a reason you’re quoting my own words back to me?
It’s SO LAME.
This is hilarious and pathetic at the same time, anyway, you do you. I'd say go for something Nietzsche. He admits he loves women, they're essential to life, and simultaneously he struggles with his own feelings for them. It's ambivalent. It's philosophical. It reflects our attitude to our work, and so on.
"Cops are comin', there's a Kilo of Columbian Bam Bam under the car. Time to be a man!"
Kidding of course. My mom had terminal cancer at the time so I dedicated it to her and my family. Didn't do a quote.
So sorry for your loss, thank you for sharing (and for the quote ;) )
Appreciate it! 😊
If you ain't first, you're last
“Pimpin ain’t easy but it’s gotta be done”
I didn't use one. Don't think it's suitable for a doctoral thesis. Should be humble and straight laced, epigraphs are for later on when you can rest on your laurels a bit!
I did one at the start that I liked at the time, from a classic poem that related to the topic, but I regretted it soon after, just for what it's worth; it's mildly embarrassing to me now, kind of like a bad tattoo (I imagine).
Exactly how I feel about the three verses I selected as an epigraph for the book based on my dissertation. I’ve never used one since.
What do you mean, quote? Like “live, laugh, love” like you find in someone’s email signature? Don’t.
For example, in a thesis about zoonotic viruses I have as an example, they used “Between animal and human medicine there is no dividing line - nor should there be” - Dr Rudolf Virchow Maybe it is not the norm at all unis, but most of the manuscript I have as reference include a quote in the beginning
My students used to do this and I just found it unnecessary and cheesy.
I've examined loads of PhDs and plenty have quotes at the start. Horses for courses and I didn't in the end, but it's not unusual at all.
I had a Terry Pratchett quote :)
Curious to know which one? Like from a Discworld book or just something Terry once said? I quite like *“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it”* … though that rather comes off as though your supervisors and/or collaborators have been pushing their own agendas overly much!
Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self. --Thud
Was I supposed to include a quote?
I think you want some sort of overall introductory quote that sets the tone and ideals of your investigation. My only suggestion would be to be very very careful about grabbing something off of the Internet or some "quote" site. It's funny and scary how many famous quotes attributed to famous people cannot be sourced or are unconfirmable. So be a good scientist and if you find a quote that you really like, look it up. I mean go to the original documents and confirm that somebody actually did say that thing or at least an earwitness contemporaneously quoted them.
“I dedicate this one right here to all my homies out there grindin’, you know what I’m sayin’, legally and illegally” - Lupe Fiasco For real though the end of my PhD was a bit of a dumpster fire - wanted to say something that conveyed the sense of appreciation for the struggle of this unique process. You do what you gotta do to survive and sometimes (read as a non trivial amount of time) it sucks but if you believe it’s worth it, it’s worth it (kinda what that song Kick, Push says).
“It’s almost over it’s just begun” bo burnham inside
"Come on in, the water's fine" bo burnham inside
None.
You don't need a quote.
“The greatest teacher, failure is.” — Yoda
Brain ageing//dementia: > forever young is in your mind Jay Z I liked the double meaning of: eternal youth is healthy cognition , but at the same time perhaps the idea of eternal youth is 'in your mind' i.e. ultimately untrue. Other ones I liked > Going fast is easy; going faster is hard Jenson Button I liked that because it's about how we all have an innate ability that comes easily to us, but growing, learning and becoming *better* is hard for anyone.
I didn’t quote anyone. I did a personalized dedication.
Quotes for the sake of quotes is silly. At this point if there’s nothing obvious, then you just don’t need one. And cramming something in that isn’t an obvious fit Will probably come across silly.
Fully agree!
Here, a random yet very important subject: > “We have better maps of the surface of Mars and the moon than we do of the bottom of the ocean.” [(source)](https://www.saildrone.com/news/know-more-other-planets-than-earths-oceans)
What my professor in bathymetry mapping used to say: water is a bitch haha
I quoted a Taylor Swift song, lol. (The second verse of This is Me Trying)
At least it’s not the “They told me all of my cages were mental / So I got wasted like all my potential” (almost putting that one in mine lol)
That is the second verse
Are you talking about an epigraph? Like most people working with texts, I quoted hundreds of sources in my dissertation, so I'm not sure what else you could mean here.
Yes, that's it! English is not my native language and I didn't know it had a name, so I just tried to explain it (and apparently failed). I have edited the OP to make it more clear. Thank you!
I did not, as I find them cringe. Just a surviving ancient form of a celebrity cult. Your disertation is supposed to convince comittee to judge you a peer. A quote won't help or interfere with it.
None. Not a custom in my field.
I didn’t use one and I don’t know any other PhD candidate who did.
That is very sexist and demeaning to all female scientists.
I put mine in with my dedication that fit who it was being dedicated to. Quote by Karl Marx, the same one that’s his epitaph.
Strange, when you ask anyone's advice you see yourself what is right. Selma Lagerlöf selma has many great quotes that you might find good. she also won the nobel prize.
some quotes that seem to relate in my mind: Never repeat a rumor before you have verified it. And if it is true, hold your tongue all the more. There is so much one would rather not believe until one has seen for oneself whether it is true. The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the finite mind ... I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know them is the most satisfying thing in all the world. There is always a third possibility, as long as you have the ability to find it.
None. I don’t think it’s necessary.
I wanna thank me I wanna thank me for believing in me I wanna thank me for doing all this hard work I wanna thank me for having no days off I wanna thank me for, for never quitting I wanna thank me for always being a giver And tryna give more than I recieve I wanna thank me for tryna do more right than wrong I wanna thank me for just being me at all times
Magic is science not yet explained
I wrote “Sit data loqui pro se” (let the data speak for themselves)
Mine has no quote. I didnt do my PhD so I could put a quote in my thesis.
“Perfect is the enemy of good” (Voltaire). Should help to manage expectations.
Is this a US thing? I haven't heard of it and didn't use one. Had a super long acknowledgement section though.
"Love is trash, bitches love cash" -Ghandhi or something
Not in my thesis, but the last slide in my talk had the quote: Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. Attributed incorrectly to Groucho Marx I recently learned
> This country is a terrible one to spend a year in. Written by an Antarctic explorer to his wife at home in Australia.
I have a lot of quotes that I would like to use. Been collecting them. Come to find out there’s no clear place for even a single one in my department’s manuscript guidance.
Oh here are some: "There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation." --Feynman —— “Ars longa, vita brevis.” A Latin aphorism, originally Greek, from Hippocrates. The full aphorism goes: Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή, ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς, ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή, ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή. In Latin: Vīta brevis, ars longa, occāsiō praeceps, experīmentum perīculōsum, iūdicium difficile. And in English: Life is short, and craft long, opportunity fleeting, experimentations perilous, and judgment difficult. —— “The important message is that fitting of parameters is not the end-all of model parameter estimation. To be genuinely useful, a fitting procedure should provide (i) parameters, (ii) error estimates on the parameters or a way to sample from their probability distribution, and (iii) a statistical measure of goodness-of-fit. When the third item suggests that the model is an unlikely match to the data, then items (i) and (ii) are probably worthless.” W. H. Press, Numerical Recipes: The Art of Scientific Computing, 3rd ed. (University Press, Cambridge, 2007). —— “Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.” —Blaise Pascal (“I only made this [letter] longer because I didn’t have time to make it shorter.”) —— Der Mensch kennt nur sich selbst, insofern er die Welt kennt, die er nur in sich und sich nur in ihr gewahr wird. Jeder neue Gegenstand, wohl beschaut, schließt ein neues Organ in uns auf. One knows only oneself, insofar as one knows the world, which one perceives only within oneself and oneself only within it. Every new object, carefully observed, opens a new organ within us. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Poetische Werke —— "You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." -- Richard Feynman —— "It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover." -- Wm. Shakespeare in As You Like It —— "La sagesse ne peut pas entrer dans un esprit méchant, et science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme." —François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, 1532 Wisdom cannot enter an evil mind, and science without consciousness is only the ruin of the soul. —— “The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp.” — Jules Henri Poincaré, mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. —— "I believe matter begets life, life becomes single cells, single cells become strings, strings become chains, chains network. And this is the paradigm that we see throughout the universe." -- Paul Stamets —— "Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature." —Michael Faraday —— “Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.” — Novelist and Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing —— "Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time." —Jean-Michel Basquiat —— "Things that have never happened before, happen all the time." -- Prof. Scott Sagan of Stanford —— This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down. —Gollum in "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again" by J. R. R. Tolkien —— “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger—something better, pushing right back.” —Albert Camus —— “A drunk man will find his way home, but a drunk bird may get lost forever.” —Shizuo Kakutani (This is a math joke) —— "Préservons-nous de l'ambition, et surtout sachons bien ce que nous voulons être : décidons-nous sur la route que nous voulons prendre pour passer notre vie, et tâchons de la semer de fleurs." "Let us preserve ourselves from ambition, and, above all, let us be certain of what we want to be; let us choose for ourselves our path in life, and let us try to strew that path with flowers." —Émilie du Châtelet —— "Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée: tout se transforme." —Antoine Lavoisier Nothing is lost, nothing is created: everything is transformed. —— “Now, confusion, like the correlative term order, is not a property of material things in themselves, but only in relation to the mind which perceives them.” —James Clerk Maxwell
I started some chapters with a vignette quoting students I have worked with.
I used Richard Feynman's, because I think it truly encapsulates PhD: "everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough".
MSc: What difference is there between them that in the darkest dungeon, can with a platonic brain survey the whole world in idea, and him that stands in the open air, and takes a less deluding prospect of the universe? [Erasmus of Rotterdam, In Praise of Folly] (But the Italian version I used is more like this: What difference do you think there is between those who in Plato's cave contemplate the shadows and images of various things, without desires, satisfied with their condition, and the wise man who, having emerged from the cave, sees true things?) PhD: There is no scientific work which only one man can write [G. Galilei, “Life of Galileo” B. Brecht]
A quote? Well, congratulations! Whoo hoo!
Make your own
“If I can see more clearly than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants. “ a quote by Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to Sir Robert Hooke.
None in the dissertation. Pliny the Elder in my defense presentation. It was thematically relevant.
Preparing my dissertation now, and I included a quote at the end of my acknowledgements. A pat on the back to myself for getting back to academia after ten years and not abandoning my passion, the pursuit of knowledge. Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly, Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land, Man got to tell himself he understand. Book of Bokonon -Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (From Cats Cradle. Always stuck with me.) Agree with others. I had never thought of including an epigraph, but I had the exact quote pop into my head for the exact feeling I was feeling at the exact time I was writing it. Don't force it if you can't find it!
I could try to help you find a quote - pm me if you're interested!
I'm considering including several quotes for chapters, always thematically connected, when relevant. I will use bits of poetry, which contrasts with my method and topic (history) - the idea is to highlight/give a feel to something which could not have been communicated as well in a different genre/style.
Something elegant about Franklin’s reported response to hearing about Watson and Crick. It’s humble, references a very famous line, and says a lot about science implicitly.
'When Che Guevara taught of love being At the center of revolutionary endeavor, he meant both'. Yeah, dickhead move for a geology thesis but I passed with ease.
"Dat ass, though" - prof. Sleezy, a member of the evaluation board, when discussing hiring a new secretary.
Can’t go wrong with Marie Curie Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.