#provisional

The thought came over me that never would one full and absolute moment, containing all the others, justify my life, that all of my instants would be provisional phases, annihilators of the past turned to face the future, and that beyond the episodic, the present, the circumstantial, we were nobody. ↗

— Jorge Luis Borges

#self #time #life

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. ↗

— Stephen Jay Gould

#apples #assent #classrooms #confirmed #degree

In the Steven F. Austin Colony, which was the first colony, Texans first established a provisional government in 1835 with the intention of writing a declaration of independence soon after. ↗

— Michael McCaul

#austin #colony #declaration #established #first

For me, this world of questions and the provisional, this chase after an answer that was always put off to the next day, all that was euphoric. I lived in the future. ↗

— Francois Jacob

#always #answer #chase #day #euphoric

We wait here to meet the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam to discuss together a ceremony of orderly transfer of power so as to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed in the population. ↗

— Duong Van Minh

#avoid #bloodshed #ceremony #discuss #government

I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change. ↗

— A. R. Ammons

#appreciate #change #clarity #gradual #here

In this context, social consensus, and institutions that embody this consensus, must be made effective in order for democratization not to be abused as a provisional instrument to establish an anti-democratic regime. ↗

— Recep Tayyip Erdogan

#consensus #context #democratization #effective #embody

My Irish passport makes me look like a chief of staff for the Provisional IRA. ↗

— Jack Higgins

#ira #irish #like #look #makes