Literary notes about variable (AI summary)
The term "variable" is employed in literature across a wide spectrum of meanings, illustrating both measurable differences and metaphorical change. In scientific and natural histories, it often characterizes physical or biological traits—such as degrees of organ development, fertility, and secondary sexual characters—emphasizing that these qualities can differ within a species [1][2][3][4][5]. Philosophers and poets, on the other hand, have harnessed the word to evoke notions of mutability and uncertainty in human behavior or fate, as seen in reflections on hope, emotion, and the capricious nature of existence [6][7][8][9][10]. In technical and linguistic contexts, “variable” denotes changeable elements like numerical values or even spellings, underscoring a constant interplay between stability and flux in language and computation [11][12][13][14][15].
- That their fertility, besides being eminently susceptible to favourable and unfavourable conditions, is innately variable.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - Rudimentary organs, from being useless, are not regulated by natural selection, and hence are variable.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - I think it will be admitted by naturalists, without my entering on details, that secondary sexual characters are highly variable.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - SPECIFIC CHARACTERS MORE VARIABLE THAN GENERIC CHARACTERS.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - Rudimentary parts, as is generally admitted, are apt to be highly variable.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - Royalty never executes the evasion-plan, yet never abandons it; living in variable hope; undecisive, till fortune shall decide.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
— from The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare - He sorrows now, repents, and prays contrite, My motions in him; longer than they move, His heart I know, how variable and vain, Self-left.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton - He sorrows now, repents, and prayes contrite, My motions in him, longer then they move, His heart I know, how variable and vain Self-left.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton - reign'd With intermix'd and variable fate,
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Otherwise variable spellings (such as Leipzig, Leipsig and Leipsic) have been retained.
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein - Integration of Functions of a Single Variable.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - If the derivative is zero for all values of the variable, the function is constant.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - The sign for the variable vowel is -o | e-
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane - A variable is a changeable value with a fixed name.
— from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum