Plausibility Quotes

“It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.”
― Elmore Leonard, Freaky Deaky

“It may have happened, it may not have happened but it could have happened.”
― Mark Twain

“Anyone who thinks cryptozoology is the study of the impossible has never really taken a very good look at the so-called "natural world." Once you get past the megamouth sharks, naked mole rats, and spotted hyenas, then the basilisks, dragons, and cuckoos just don't seem that unreasonable. Unpleasant, yes, but unreasonable? Not really.”
― Seanan McGuire, Discount Armageddon

“He had a suspicion of plausible answers; they were so often wrong.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama

“Facts and values are entangled in science. It's not because scientists are biased, not because they are partial or influenced by other kinds of interests, but because of a commitment to reason, consistency, coherence, plausibility and replicability. These are value commitments.”
― Alva Noë

“Know how to rank your beliefs not according to their plausibility but by the harm they may cause.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“Paradoxes are less paradoxical in their reference to truth than most of the most plausible axioms.”
― Raheel Farooq

“This is the first rule of deception: repeated often enough, almost any statement, story, or smear can start to sound plausible.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“To what extent are such laboratory results generalizable to real traumatic experiences? Pezdek, Finger, and Hodge (1997) demonstrated the importance of event plausibility. Researchers were able to implant false memories of plausible events, such as being lost in a shopping mall, but were unsuccessful at causing participants to form false memories of implausible events, such as receiving an enema or participating in a religious ceremony from a tradition other than their own (Pezdek, Finger, & Hodge, 1997; Pezdek & Hodge, 1999). Besides failing to address event plausibility, laboratory experiments may also fail to capture emotions such as fear, shame, and betrayal that are often linked to interpersonal trauma."
KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING ABOUT TRAUMA: IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPY”
― Jennifer J. Freyd

“Probability is a light darted on the object, from the proofs, which for this reason are pertinently enough styled evidence. Plausibility is a native lustre issuing directly from the object. The former is the aim of the historian, the latter of the poet.”
― George Campbell, The Philosophy of Rhetoric

“Faith is timeless possibility.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“Such stories may predominate in daily life, but when literature starts taking cues from statistics, it seals its own fate.”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers