Philosophy & Thought: Reason & Logic Quotes

"I agree with Chomsky in almost nothing. When it comes to innate structures and so on, I'm very skeptical"

Clifford Geertz, Scientist

"An absolute can only be given in an intuition, while all the rest has to do with analysis"

Henri Bergson, Philosopher

"The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism"

George Jean Nathan, Editor

"We do not live to think, but on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving"

Jose Ortega Y Gasset, Philosopher

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further"

Richard Dawkins, Scientist

"There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?"

Richard Dawkins, Scientist

"I like to figure things out and solve problems"

Temple Grandin, Educator

"Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments"

Sidney Hook, Philosopher

"The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration"

Allan Bloom, Philosopher

"Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country"

Sinclair Lewis, Novelist

"Psychology which explains everything explains nothing, and we are still in doubt"

Marianne Moore, Poet

"All our work, our whole life, is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them"

Felix Frankfurter, Judge

"We often repent of our first thoughts, and scarce ever of our second"

Horace Walpole, Author

"There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear"

Rose Kennedy, Author

"Intuition is reason in a hurry"

Holbrook Jackson, Writer

"The head of every family will be what Abraham was, the patriarch, the priest and the unlettered lord of his family, and Reason will be the code of laws to all mankind"

Adam Weishaupt, Clergyman

"Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20 - 20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go"

Robert M. Pirsig, Philosopher

"Absence of proof is not proof of absence"

William Cowper, Poet

"The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control their emotions by the application of reason"

Marya Mannes, Journalist

"The logic of validation allows us to move between the two limits of dogmatism and skepticism"

Paul Ricoeur, Philosopher

"But in simple substances the influence of one monad over another is ideal only"

Gottfried Leibniz, Philosopher

"Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it"

Edward de Bono, Psychologist

"Question everything"

Maria Mitchell, Scientist

"In the clashes between ignorance and intelligence, ignorance is generally the aggressor"

Paul Harris, Lawyer

"Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven"

Edward de Bono, Psychologist

"A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition"

Jose Bergamin, Writer

"Emotions have taught mankind to reason"

Luc de Clapiers, Writer

"In fact, words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better"

John B. S. Haldane, Scientist

"No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking"

J. P. Morgan, Businessman

"Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand"

Frederick II, Royalty

"A moment's thinking is an hour in words"

Thomas Hood, Poet

"A system is in equilibrium when the forces constituting it are arranged in such a way as to compensate each other, like the two weights pulling at the arms of a pair of scales"

Rudolf Arnheim, Artist

"The whole object of the Prophets and the Sages was to declare that a limit is set to human reason where it must halt"

Maimonides, Philosopher

"Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason"

Henry Fielding, Novelist

"Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous"

Georg C. Lichtenberg, Scientist

"It is, from another angle, an attack on requiring proof in philosophy. And it's also the case, I guess, that my temperament is to like interesting, new, bold ideas, and to try and generate them"

Robert Nozick, Philosopher

"Philosophers are people who do violence, but have no army at their disposal, and so subjugate the world by locking it into a system"

Robert Musil, Writer

"Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled"

Michael Crichton, Author

"Experience by itself is not science"

Edmund Husserl, Philosopher

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all"

Hypatia, Philosopher

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