Full Idea
We have come to recognise that in a scientific theory even a whole sentence is ordinarily too short a text to serve as an independent vehicle of empirical meaning.
Gist of Idea
In scientific theories sentences are too brief to be independent vehicles of empirical meaning
Source
Willard Quine (Five Milestones of Empiricism [1975], p.70)
Book Reference
Quine,Willard: 'Theories and Things' [Harvard 1981], p.70