Reasoning Quotes - Page 4

• It is not therefore the business of philosophy, in our present situation in the universe, to attempt to take in at once, in one view, the whole scheme of nature; but to extend, with great care and circumspection, our knowledge, by just steps, from sensible things, as far as our observations or reasonings from them will carry us, in our enquiries concerning either the greater motions and operations of nature, or her more subtile and hidden works. In this way Sir Isaac Newton proceeded in his discoveries.

  Colin Maclaurin

  Philosophy, Knowledge, Science

  Colin Maclaurin (1750). “An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries. 2. Ed”, p.20

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lord, enlighten thou our enemies. Sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers: we are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom; their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength.

  John Stuart Mill

  Giving, Perception, Enemy

  John Stuart Mill (1864). “Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical”, p.77

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Insomnia is an indication, not a chaos. Its like ache. Youre not going to provide a patient ache medicine without figuring out whats reasoning the pain.

  Judith Owen

  Pain, Insomnia, Medicine

  4 Copy quote

• Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

  James Harvey Robinson

  Wisdom, Believe, Intellectual

  James Harvey Robinson (1939). “The Mind in the Making”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Each Act of Parliament intended to address harassment and discrimination has faced objections on the basis of 'you'll never be able to prove...' and 'there's too much legislation already...'. In no case has this line of reasoning ever been sustained.

  Tim Field

  Bullying, Addresses, Lines

  24 Copy quote

• Reason can wrestle and overthrow terror.

  Euripides

  Math, Logic, Reason

  Euripides (2013). “Euripides V: Bacchae, Iphigenia in Aulis, The Cyclops, Rhesus”, p.142, University of Chicago Press

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Controlling the position of one's body and keeping a straight back are not contemplation, but can in fact become an obstacle to contemplation. ...when leaving the body 'uncontrolled' is spoken of, what is meant is simply allowing the body to remain in an authentic, uncorrected condition, in which it is not necessary to modify or improve anything. This is because, since all our attempts at correcting the body come from the reasoning mind, they are all false and artificial.

  Namkhai Norbu

  Leaving, Mind, Body

  19 Copy quote

• I could not accept that organizational interpretations, based on shifting human reasoning, could ever be made equal in authority to the actual statements found in God's unchangeable Word.

  Raymond Franz

  Shifting, Authority, Accepting

  11 Copy quote

• For a long time the objects that mathematicians dealt with were mostly ill-defined; one believed one knew them, but one represented them with the senses and imagination; but one had but a rough picture and not a precise idea on which reasoning could take hold.

  Henri Poincare

  Science, Ideas, Long

  5 Copy quote

• Man is made for science; he reasons from effects to causes, and from causes to effects; but he does not always reason without error. In reasoning, therefore, from appearances which are particular, care must be taken how we generalize; we should be cautious not to attribute to nature, laws which may perhaps be only of our own invention.

  James Hutton

  Taken, Science, Men

  James Hutton (1788*). “Theory of the earth; or an investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution and restoration of land upon the globe. (From. the Trans., Roy. soc. of Edinb.).”, p.65

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• The basis of the discovery is imagination, careful reasoning and experimentation where the use of knowledge created by those who came before is an important component.

  Bengt I. Samuelsson

  Knowledge, Science, Discovery

  6 Copy quote

• In the final, the positive, state, the mind has given over the vain search after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws - that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and observation, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. What is now understood when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some general facts.

  Auguste Comte

  Knowledge, Mean, Science

  "Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writings".

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Mathematics are Friends to Religion, inasmuch as they charm the Passions, restrain the Impetuosity of the Imagination, and purge the Mind from Error and Prejudice. Vice is Error, Confusion, and false Reasoning; and all Truth is more or less opposite to it. Besides, Mathematical Studies may serve for a pleasant Entertainment for those Hours which young Men are apt to throw away upon their Vices; the Delightfulness of them being such as to make Solitude not only easy, but desirable.

  John Arbuthnot

  Passion, Science, Men

  Martin Strong, John Arbuthnot (1745). “An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning: In a Letter from a Gentleman in the City, to His Friend at Oxford”, p.8

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.

  Antoine Lavoisier

  Nature, Science, Deception

  1789 Traiteele mentaire de la chimie ('Elements of Chemistr y', translated by Robert Kerr).

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• The knowledge of Natural-History, being Observation of Matters of Fact, is more certain than most others, and in my slender Opinion, less subject to Mistakes than Reasonings, Hypotheses, and Deductions are; ... These are things we are sure of, so far as our Senses are not fallible; and which, in probability, have been ever since the Creation, and will remain to the End of the World, in the same Condition we now find them.

  Hans Sloane

  Mistake, Knowledge, Science

  5 Copy quote

• I have found power in the mysteries of thought, exaltation in the changing of the Muses; I have been versed in the reasonings of men; but Fate is stronger than anything I have known.

  Euripides

  Fate, Men, Stronger

  "Alcestis". Play by Euripides, 438 BCE.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The soul enjoys silence and peace, not by many reasonings, but by simply contemplating the truth.

  Peter of Alcantara

  Silence, Soul, Enjoy

  19 Copy quote

• Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings, and a system of measures, correspondingly erroneous.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Human Nature, False Hope, Occasions

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2007). “The Federalist Papers”, p.257, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The theoretical side of physical chemistry is and will probably remain the dominant one; it is by this peculiarity that it has exerted such a great influence upon the neighboring sciences, pure and applied, and on this ground physical chemistry may be regarded as an excellent school of exact reasoning for all students of the natural sciences.

  Svante Arrhenius

  School, Science, Excellence

  Svante Arrhenius (1912). “Theories of Solutions”

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• Facts are certainly the solid and true foundation of all sectors of nature study ... Reasoning must never find itself contradicting definite facts; but reasoning must allow us to distinguish, among facts that have been reported, those that we can fully believe, those that are questionable, and those that are false. It will not allow us to lend faith to those that are directly contrary to others whose certainty is known to us; it will not allow us to accept as true those that fly in the face of unquestionable principles.

  Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur

  Faith, Nature, Believe

  52 Copy quote

• To instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens...this brings us to the point at which are to commence the higher branches of education . . . . To develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and order.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Men, Rights

  "Early history of the University of Virginia : as contained in the letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph C. Cabell, hitherto unpublished". Book by Thomas Jefferson, 1856.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• All perceiving is also thinking, all reasoning is also intuition, all observation is also invention.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Thinking, Perception, Intuition

  Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye”, p.5, Univ of California Press

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Liberty, Citizens

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.299, Rowman & Littlefield

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• For chemistry is no science form'd à priori; 'tis no production of the human mind, framed by reasoning and deduction: it took its rise from a number of experiments casually made, without any expectation of what follow'd; and was only reduced into an art or system, by collecting and comparing the effects of such unpremeditated experiments, and observing the uniform tendency thereof. So far, then, as a number of experimenters agree to establish any undoubted truth; so far they may be consider'd as constituting the theory of chemistry.

  Herman Boerhaave

  Art, Science, Numbers

  11 Copy quote

• [My Book] will endeavour to establish the principle[s] of reasoning in ... [geology]; and all my geology will come in as illustration of my views of those principles, and as evidence strengthening the system necessarily arising out of the admission of such principles, which... are neither more nor less than that no causes whatever have from the earliest time to which we can look back, to the present, ever acted, but those now acting; and that they never acted with different degrees of energy from that which they now exert.

  Charles Lyell

  Book, Science, Views

  7 Copy quote