“A theory not only explains the world we see, it lets us imagine other ...” — Alison Gopnik Quote

A theory not only explains the world we see, it lets us imagine other worlds, and, even more significantly, lets us act to create those worlds. Developing everyday theories, like scientific theories, has allowed human beings to change the world.

If you just, pretty much, take a random 15-month-old, just sit and watch them for 10 minutes and count out how many experiments, how much thinking you see going on, and it will put the most brilliant scientist to shame.

Knowing what to expect from a teacher is a really good thing, of course: It lets you get the right answers more quickly than you would otherwise.

One of the best ways of understanding human nature is to study children. After all, if we want understand who we are, we should find out how we got to be that way.

For all my friends in the media who like quotes, mark this quote down. From this day on I'd like to be known as 'The Big Aristotle' because Aristotle once said, 'Excellence is not a singular act; it's a habit. You are what you repeatedly do.'

When I show up to act in a movie for somebody else, I just want to be nice and helpful and do what they want because I know how difficult it is to make a movie. I don't want to cause any problems. So you show up and do your job, and I think if a director understands that, you don't make a lot of demands.

My mother was an introvert and quite religious. And we were brought up in the church. And when she learned that I wanted to act, she simply said: 'You cannot live here and do that.'

I was certainly a better actor after my five years in Hollywood. I had learned to be natural - never to exaggerate. I found I could act on the stage in just the same way as I had acted in a studio: using my ordinary voice, eliminating gestures, keeping everything extremely simple.