Philosophy & Thought: Reason & Logic Quotes

"Admittedly great though these reasons be, they are not the principal grounds, that is, those which may rightfully claim for themselves the privilege of the highest admiration"

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Writer

"It is right that we be concerned with the scientific probity of metaphysics"

Gabriel Marcel, Philosopher

"Emotion is Negro, just as reason is Hellenic"

Léopold Sédar Senghor, President

"That, if a straight line falling on two straight lines makes the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which the angles are less than two right angles"

Euclid, Scientist

"In right-angled triangles the square on the side subtending the right angle is equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle"

Euclid, Scientist

"And the whole is greater than the part"

Euclid, Scientist

"Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another"

Euclid, Scientist

"Think wrongly if you please, but in all cases, think for yourself"

Charles Seymour, Historian

"I am at war... with the principal personage of traditional philosophy, that abstract subject who masquerades as everyone and anyone, but is really a male subject in disguise"

Pam Gems, Playwright

"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy"

David Brooks, Politician

"Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality"

Richard Courant, Mathematician

"The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things"

Giambattista Vico, Philosopher

"Thoughtful people of different political philosophies can disagree, but in a very agreeable manner"

Bob Ehrlich, Politician

"Intelligent design itself does not have any content"

George Gilder, Writer

"The Copernican revolution brought about by Kant was, I think, the most important single turning point in the history of philosophy"

Bryan Magee, Author

"Superstitions and belief in magic are perennial in just the same way as religion, and something near to being universal among mankind; and why this is so may be interesting, but in most cases the beliefs themselves are devoid of interesting content, at least to me"

Bryan Magee, Author

"We started this mostly from an intellectual place"

Melinda Gates, Clergyman

"The more one listens to ordinary conversations, the more apparent it becomes that the reasoning faculties of the brain take little part in the direction of the vocal organs"

Edgar Rice Burroghs, Writer

"The philosophers of the Middle Ages demonstrated both that the Earth did not exist and also that it was flat. Today they are still arguing about whether the world exists, but they no longer dispute about whether it is flat"

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Explorer

"Usually it is uses of words, not words in themselves, that are properly called vague"

J. L. Austin, Philosopher

"To say that man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man's decisions are based on his rational process. That I don't believe at all"

Rex Stout, Writer

"Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims"

Morris Raphael Cohen, Philosopher

"The farther reason looks, the greater is the haze in which it loses itself"

Johann G. Hamann, Philosopher

"Physics is nothing but the ABCs. Nature is an equation with an unknown, a Hebrew word which is written only with consonants to which reason has to add the dots"

Johann G. Hamann, Philosopher

"Indeed, if a chief question does remain: how is the power to think possible? - The power to think right and left, before and without, with and above experience? Then it does not take a deduction to prove the genealogical priority of language"

Johann G. Hamann, Philosopher

"Learn to think impartially"

Joseph Chamberlain, Politician

"An attitude of philosophic doubt, of suspended judgment, is repugnant to the natural man. Belief is an independent joy to him"

William Minto, Writer

"No philosopher understands his predecessors until he has re-thought their thought in his own contemporary terms"

Peter Frederick Strawson, Philosopher

"In examining the evidence of the Christian religion, it is essential to the discovery of truth that we bring to the investigation a mind freed, as far as possible, from existing prejudice, and open to conviction"

Simon Greenleaf, Judge

"The Bourbon King was first ambassador of reason and human happiness"

Heinrich Mann, Novelist

"Common sense is judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race"

Giambattista Vico, Philosopher

"Convictions do not imply reasons"

Margaret Deland, Novelist

"I believe in criticism"

Paul Anka, Musician

"When we say that philosophy tries to clear up the meanings of concepts, we do not mean that it is simply concerned to substitute some long phrase for some familiar word"

Charles D. Broad, Philosopher

"If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability"

Vannevar Bush, Scientist

"Every theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy that orders experience into the framework it provides"

Ruth Hubbard, Scientist

"Logic is the last scientific ingredient of Philosophy; its extraction leaves behind only a confusion of non-scientific, pseudo problems"

Rudolf Carnap, Philosopher

"It is an excellent rule to be observed in all disputes, that men should give soft words and hard arguments; that they should not so much strive to vex as to convince each other"

John Wilkins, Clergyman

"Now one of two things is true: Either a republic is a desirable form of government, or else it is not"

Anna Howard Shaw, Activist

"The philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food"

William Winwood Reade, Historian

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