logic quotes

We must accept what science tells us, that man was born from the earth. But, more logical than the scientists who lecture us, we must carry this lesson to its conclusion: that is to say, accept that man was born entirely from the world – not only his flesh and bones but his incredible power of thought.

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza’s God, it won’t love us in return.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

To hold an idea and convince ourselves we arrived at it rationally, we go in search of evidence to support our view.

I call him free who is led solely by reason.

What I like about the jokes, to me it’s a lot of logic, no matter how crazy they are. It has to make absolute sense, or it won’t be funny.

Trying to understand the way nature works involves a most terrible test of human reasoning ability. It involves subtle trickery, beautiful tightropes of logic on which one has to walk in order not to make a mistake in predicting what will happen. The quantum mechanical and the relativity ideas are examples of this.

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

Dr. Karel Culik is an outstanding applied mathematician, a specialist in algebra, logic, computer sciences and mathematical linguistics. In 1965, he visited the linguistics research program at MIT, and we have worked together on several projects since.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.

One cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem.

When I get logical, and I don’t trust my instincts – that’s when I get in trouble.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

Several excuses are always less convincing than one.

Law is mind without reason.

A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so.

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.