Quotes About Reasoning

I often question your actions, but rarely your reasoning. And this isn't one of those rare instances.

We think about what to do, and muster considerations and arguments in favor of one course or another. How are we to think about that?

Finding a mechanism does not bypass the problem of induction.

To process thoughts well is a matter of being able to avoid confusion, detect ambiguities, keep things in mind one at a time, make reliable arguments, become aware of alternatives, and so on.

Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid loved so much, is one of a mathematician's finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit than any chess play: a chess player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game.

Proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.

God is love. His plan for creation can only be rooted in love. Does not that simple thought, rather than erudite reasoning, offer solace to the human heart?

Academically, the Duke had often reasoned that a man for whom life holds no chance of happiness cannot too quickly shake life off. Now, of a sudden, there was for that theory a vivid application.

There comes a point where emotions must give way to objective facts.

Your assignment,' he bellowed at Kelly, 'was to make a persuasive argument. Demanding to know whether detractors of your position are on crack is not arguing persuasively.

For a variety of reasons, we may have lost faith in our ability to think and reason things out. Believing lies, lying to ourselves (denial), chaos, stress, low self-esteem, and a stomach full of repressed emotions may cloud our ability to think. We become confused. That doesn't mean we can't think.

Do you have a brain?" And if the answer was yes, then she said, "Then you could have thought your way out of it.

No, not A reason. Reason itself. I want to work something out in my own mind. I want to arrive at a conclusion because I've thought it through, not because I've been told to believe it.

Thus, in sum, we say that to have a true investment there must be present a true margin of safety. And a true margin of safety is one that can be demonstrated by figures, by persuasive reasoning, and by reference to a body of actual experience.

It is the mark of an educated mind to expect that amount of exactness which the nature of the particular subject admits. It is equally unreasonable to accept merely probable conclusions from a mathematician and to demand strict demonstration from an orator.

The intelligent investor will remember the wise words of financial analyst Mark Schweber: "The one question never to ask a bureaucrat is 'Why?

we say that to have a true investment there must be present a true margin of safety. And a true margin of safety is one that can be demonstrated by figures, by persuasive reasoning, and by reference to a body of actual experience.

Sharpe did not expect them to provide an answer, but he wanted them to think through the steps, to know the argument, so that when he provided the solution, they would agree.

Any ceremony performed in the absence of reasonable knowledge as to cause and effect is magic.

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know

It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.

Man is a rational animal. So at least we have been told. Throughout a long life I have searched diligently for evidence in favor of this statement. So far, I have not had the good fortune to come across it.

Philosophy is an unusually ingenious attempt to think fallaciously.

Logic was, formerly, the art of drawing inferences; it has now become the art of abstaining from inferences, since it has appeared that the inferences we feel naturally inclined to make are hardly ever valid.