Tests

This is a test. Take notes. … these sections may be taken out of numerical sequence: rearrange to suit yourself for optimum clarity. ~ Harlan Ellison

Tests, examinations, or "exams", are assessments intended to measure specific aspects of the qualities of something or someone, and can range from tests of general capabilities, knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness, to those of classification in regard to various other criteria, including beliefs, habits, practices, and adaptability.

Quotes

Alphabetized by author

Humanity is in "final exam" as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in Universe. ~ Buckminster Fuller

• I believe this thought, of the possibility of death — if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going.
  • Lewis Carroll, in Sylvie and Bruno (1889), Preface

• I've got a message out there for those people who have abandoned you and written you off. You are NOT inferior. Your grades may be. Your school may have been. But you can turn all that around and make liars out of those bastards in exactly one hour, when you take that test, pass it, and win!
  • Joe Louis Clark, as portrayed in the film Lean on Me (1989), written by Michael Schiffer

• The United States strongly seeks a lasting agreement for the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests. We believe that this would be an important step toward reduction of international tensions and would open the way to further agreement on substantial measures of disarmament.
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a letter to Nikita Khrushchev, (13 April 1959, published 20 April 1959)

• This is a test. Take notes. This will count as 3/4 of your final grade. Hints: remember, in chess, kings cancel each other out and cannot occupy adjacent squares, are therefore all-powerful and totally powerless, cannot affect each other, produce stalemate. Hinduism is a polytheistic religion; the sect of Atman worships the divine spark of life within Man; in effect saying, "Thou art God." Provisos of equal time are not served by one viewpoint having media access to two hundred million people in prime time while opposing viewpoints are provided with a soapbox on the corner. Not everyone tells the truth. Operational note: these sections may be taken out of numerical sequence: rearrange to suit yourself for optimum clarity. Turn over your test papers and begin.
  • Harlan Ellison, in the first lines of his novelette, The Deathbird (1974)

• This conference was worse than a Rorschach test: There's a meaningless inkblot, and the others ask you what you think you see, but when you tell them, they start arguing with you!
  • Richard Feynman in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, in the chapter "Is Electricity Fire?"

• Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment. . . . Humanity is in "final exam" as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in Universe.
  • Buckminster Fuller, in Critical Path (1981)

• Most people can bear adversity; but if you wish to know what a man really is give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never used it except on the side of mercy.
  • Robert G. Ingersoll, (1883), Unity: Freedom, Fellowship and Character in Religion, Volume 11, Number 3, The Exchange Table, True Greatness Exemplified in Abraham Lincoln, by Robert G. Ingersoll (excerpt), Quote Page 55, Column 1 and 2, Chicago, Illinois. (Google Books Full View)

• Doubt is useful, it keeps faith a living thing. After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith until it has been tested.
  • David Magee, in Life of Pi (2012), based on Yann Martel's 2001 novel.

• I agree as to the doubtful value of competitive examination. The qualities which you really want, viz., self-control, self-reliance, habits of accurate thought, integrity and what you generally call trustworthiness, are not decided by competitive examination, which test little else than the memory.
  • Florence Nightingale, letter to Lord Stanley (May 17, 1857), published in Florence Nightingale on Wars and the War Office: Collected Works of Florence Nightingale. Vol. 15 (2011), edited by Lynn McDonald, p. 265. (online on google books)

• Don't tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of a year preparing him to fill out a few bubbles on a standardized test; we know that's not true.
  • Barack Obama National Education Association Speech, 2007

• As far as I can see, this is a system that has enriched multiple companies and that pays and fires teachers with a cattle birthing formula, confuses children with talking pineapples, and has the same kind of rules regarding transparency as Brad Pitt had for Fight Club.
  • John Oliver [1] Last Week Tonight: Standardized Testing (3 May 2015)

• There was a lot of protest after Bravo, from countries like India, for example. India was the first country which came forward and proposed at the United Nations that all of these nuclear tests should be stopped, that there should be a complete ban on nuclear testing.
  • Martha Smith, historian, in "Martha Smith on: The Impact of the Bravo Test" a PBS interview for Race for the Superbomb on American Experience.

• All submit to them where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis in the soul,
  Not traditions, not the outer authorities are the judges,
  They are the judges of outer authorities and of all traditions,
  They corroborate as they go only whatever corroborates themselves, and touches themselves;
  For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far and near without one exception.
  • Walt Whitman, in "Tests" (1860) in the "Autumn Rivelets" section of the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass.