Reasoning Quotes - Page 14

• That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass, and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together - for me to play bass and for him to play guitar

  Tom Araya

  Song, Guitar, Play

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• In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

  David Hume

  Wise, Men, Facts

  David Hume (1784). “Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects”, p.118

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• This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer or maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?

  Isaac Newton

  Believe, Taken, Law

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• Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Intuition, Firsts, Strategic

  Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.70, Vintage

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• You can see the rider serving the elephant when people are morally dumbfounded. They have strong gut feelings about what is right and wrong, and they struggle to construct post hoc justifications for those feelings. Even when the servant (reasoning) comes back empty-handed, the master (intuition) doesn't change his judgment.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Strong, Struggle, Elephants

  Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.50, Vintage

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• The mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. The rider is our conscious reasoning-the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes-the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Jobs, Elephants, Mind

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• I always think a great speaker convinces us not by force of reasoning, but because he is visibly enjoying the beliefs he wants us to accept.

  William Butler Yeats

  Thinking, Convince Us, Want

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• Audiences are always better pleased with a smart retort, some joke or epigram, than with any amount of reasoning.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Smart, Retorts, Audience

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1935). “The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography”, p.328, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• There is something about inside information which seems to paralyze a man's reasoning powers.

  Bernard Baruch

  Power, Men, Information

  "Baruch: My own story".

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• The whole of mathematics consists in the organization of a series of aids to the imagination in the process of reasoning.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Math, Organization, Imagination

  Alfred North Whitehead (1960). “A Treatise on Universal Algebra with Applications”, p.12, CUP Archive

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• The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive.

  Ayn Rand

  Independence, Mind, Needs

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.63, Penguin

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• Avoid the precepts of those thinkers whose reasoning is not confirmed by experience.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Experience, Thinker

  Leonardo da Vinci (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Leonardo da Vinci (Illustrated)”, p.969, Delphi Classics

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• I've been to Africa three times. All right? You can't bring Western reasoning into the culture. The same way you can't bring it into fundamental Islam.

  Bill O'Reilly

  Gdp, Islam, Three

  "Bill O’Reilly’s Sexism Got Him Booted, But His Racism Got Him Paid. Why?" by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 20, 2017.

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• Besides reasoning about matters of fact, men also make moral judgements.

  C. S. Lewis

  Men, Miracle, Matter

  C. S. Lewis (1996). “Miracles: A Preliminary Study”, Touchstone Books

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• Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds your stuff to any degree of fineness.

  Thomas Huxley

  Math, Stuff, Degrees

  Thomas Henry Huxley, Henrietta A. Huxley (1908). “Aphorisms and reflections”

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• Nothing has afforded me so convincing a proof of the unity of the Deity as these purely mental conceptions of numerical and mathematical science.

  Mary Somerville

  Math, Unity, Deities

  Kathryn A. Neeley, Mary Somerville (2001). “Mary Somerville: Science, Illumination, and the Female Mind”, p.180, Cambridge University Press

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• Perhaps the most surprising thing about mathematics is that it is so surprising.

  Edward Charles Titchmarsh

  Math, Logic, Surprising

  "Mathematical Maxims and Minims". Book by Nicholas J. Rose, 1986.

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• The best defense against logic is ignorance.

  Blaise Pascal

  Ignorance, Math, Defense

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• The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and man.

  Joseph de Maistre

  Math, Men, Numbers

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• A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than to an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence.

  Jean Francois Revel

  Ideas, Suggestions, Groups

  Jean François Revel (1991). “The Flight from Truth: The Reign of Deceit in the Age of Information”, Random House (NY)

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• Play stimulates the parts of the brain involved in both careful, logical reasoning and carefree, unbound exploration.

  Greg McKeown

  Logical Reasoning, Play, Brain

  "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less". Book by Greg McKeown, 2014.

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• There are three basic approaches to AI: Case-based, rule-based, and connectionist reasoning.

  Marvin Minsky

  Three, Cases, Approach

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• The fact is there are few more popular subjects than mathematics. Most people have some appreciation of mathematics, just as most people can enjoy a pleasant tune.

  G. H. Hardy

  Appreciation, Math, People

  G. H. Hardy (1992). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.86, Cambridge University Press

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• Our scientific world is our world of reasoning. It has its greatness and uses and attractions. We are ready to pay homage due to it. But when it claims to have discovered the real world for us and laughs at the worlds of all simple-minded men, then we must say it is like a general grown intoxicated with his power, usurping the throne of his king

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Kings, Real, Technology

  Rabindranath Tagore, Sahitya Akademi (1996). “The English writings of Rabindranath Tagore”

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• All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Science, Ideas

  Bertrand Russell (2001). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.45, Psychology Press

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