Philosophy & Thought: Reason & Logic Quotes

"Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence"

Brian Herbert, Author

"An objective truth and individual reason are feared above all"

Jimmy Johnson, Coach

"The intellectually sophisticated person is indifferent to all genuine individuality because relationships and reactions result from it which cannot be exhausted with logical operations"

Georg Simmel, Sociologist

"This is the great object held out by this association; and the means of attaining it is illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason, which will dispell the clouds of superstition and of prejudice"

Adam Weishaupt, Clergyman

"I did not bring Deism into Bavaria"

Adam Weishaupt, Clergyman

"I've encountered a lot of people who sound like critics but very few who have substantive criticisms. There is a lot of skepticism, but it seems to be more a matter of inertia than it is of people having some real reason for thinking something else"

K. Eric Drexler, Scientist

"Debate is the death of conversation"

Kitty O'Neill Collins, Politician

"What do we believe? Why do we believe it?"

Joey Skaggs, Celebrity

"Would that well-thinking people should be replaced by thinking ones"

Natalie Clifford Barney, Author

"I have encountered on this long road an enthusiasm for an Irishness which will be built on recognising again those sources from which spring the best of our reason and curiosity"

Michael D. Higgins, Politician

"This country is about, in my judgment, aggressive, open debate. There is an old saying: When everyone is thinking the same thing, no one is thinking very much"

Byron Dorgan, Politician

"G is Grace, the Flaming Star is the Torch of Reason. Those who possess this knowledge are indeed Illuminati"

Adam Weishaupt, Clergyman

"The human race will then become one family, and the world will be the dwelling of Rational Men"

Adam Weishaupt, Clergyman

"But alas, they are all sadly deficient, because they leave us under the domination of political and religious prejudices; and they are as inefficient as the sleepy dose of an ordinary sermon"

Adam Weishaupt, Clergyman

"If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic"

Albert Ellis, Psychologist

"Arguments, like children, should be like the subject that begets them"

Thomas Dekker, Dramatist

"Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world"

Albert Ellis, Psychologist

"Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray"

William Cowper, Poet

"Our passion and principals are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason"

Laurence Sterne, Novelist

"One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence"

Lewis Mumford, Sociologist

"Political debate with liberals is basically impossible in America today because liberals are calling names while conservatives are trying to make arguments"

Ann Coulter, Journalist

"Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism; and our second great philosopher was an agnostic"

Hu Shih, Philosopher

"Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt"

Vita Sackville-West, Novelist

"Chess is intellectual gymnastics"

Wilhelm Steinitz, Celebrity

"Most people suspend their judgment till somebody else has expressed his own, and then they repeat it"

Ernest Dimnet, Priest

"At the present day, the crude theory of the sexual impulse held on one side, and the ignorant rejection of theory altogether on the other side, are beginning to be seen as both alike unjustified"

Havelock Ellis, Psychologist

"I'm against sloppy, emotional thinking"

Herman Kahn, Scientist

"To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind"

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Writer

"I'm against fashionable thinking"

Herman Kahn, Scientist

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to"

Joseph Heller, Novelist

"I have a different way of thinking. I think synergistically. I'm not linear in thinking, I'm not very logical!"

Imelda Marcos, Celebrity

"The problem with emotion was that it was clearly something important, but,-at least according to the old philosophy,-it was something to overcome"

Donald Norman, Scientist

"The intellectual debility of contemporary conservatism is indicated by its silence on all important matters"

Christopher Lasch, Historian

"The left no longer stands for common sense, as it did in the days of Tom Paine"

Christopher Lasch, Historian

"Ordinary language carries with it conditions of meaning which it is easy to recognize by classifying the contexts in which the expression is employed in a meaningful manner"

Paul Ricoeur, Philosopher

"It is always possible to argue against an interpretation, to confront interpretations, to arbitrate between them and to seek for an agreement, even if this agreement remains beyond our reach"

Paul Ricoeur, Philosopher

"When a truth is necessary, the reason for it can be found by analysis, that is, by resolving it into simpler ideas and truths until the primary ones are reached"

Gottfried Leibniz, Philosopher

"Men act like brutes in so far as the sequences of their perceptions arise through the principle of memory only, like those empirical physicians who have mere practice without theory"

Gottfried Leibniz, Philosopher

"It follows from what we have just said, that the natural changes of monads come from an internal principle, since an external cause would be unable to influence their inner being"

Gottfried Leibniz, Philosopher

"I hold that the mark of a genuine idea is that its possibility can be proved, either a priori by conceiving its cause or reason, or a posteriori when experience teaches us that it is in fact in nature"

Gottfried Leibniz, Philosopher

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