Logic

"While the Hindu elaborates his argument, the Moslem sharpens his sword."

"He whose will and desire in conversation is to establish his own opinion, even though what he says is true, should recognize that he is sick with the devil's disease."

"The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it."

"When Bishop Berkeley said, "there was no matter," And proved it—'twas no matter what he said."

"'Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch, For one would not retreat, nor t'other flinch."

"I've heard old cunning stagers Say, fools for arguments use wagers."

"Whatever Sceptic could inquire for, For every why he had a wherefore."

"He'd undertake to prove, by force Of argument, a man's no horse. He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, And that a Lord may be an owl, A calf an Alderman, a goose a Justice, And rooks, Committee-men or Trustees."

"And there began a lang digression About the lords o' the creation."

""Or he might say: 'Whereas some recluses and brahmins, while living on the food offered by the faithful, engage in wrangling argumentation, (saying to one another): "You don't understand this doctrine and discipline. I am the one who understands this doctrine and discipline." — "How can you understand this doctrine and discipline?" — "You're practising the wrong way. I'm practising the right way." — "I'm being consistent. You're inconsistent." — "What should have been said first you said last, what should have been said last you said first." — "What you took so long to think out has been confuted." — "Your doctrine has been refuted. You're defeated. Go, try to save your doctrine, or disentangle yourself now if you can" — the recluse Gotama abstains from such wrangling argumentation.'"

"Where we desire to be informed 'tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own."

"In argument Similes are like songs in love: They must describe; they nothing prove."

"Demosthenes, when taunted by Pytheas that all his arguments "smelled of the lamp," replied, "Yes, but your lamp and mine, my friend, do not witness the same labours.""

"Discors concordia."

"Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument About it and about: but evermore Came out by the same door wherein I went."

"There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat."

"Seria risu risum, seriis discutere."

"Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument, He'll bray you in a mortar."

"I always admired Mrs. Grote's saying that politics and theology were the only two really great subjects."

"The daughter of debate That still discord doth sow."

"How agree the kettle and the earthen pot together?"

"The noble Lord (Stanley) was the Prince Rupert to the Parliamentary army—his valour did not always serve his own cause."

"I am bound to furnish my antagonists with arguments, but not with comprehension."

"Much might be said on both sides."

"Ah, don't say that you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong."

"Ignorantia non est argumentum."

"You can't win an argument by being right, either"

"Agreed to differ."

"Soon their crude notions with each other fought; The adverse sect denied what this had taught; And he at length the amplest triumph gain'd, Who contradicted what the last maintain'd."

"One single positive weighs more, You know, than negatives a score."

"In some places he draws the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument."

"And do not mix the truth with falsehood or conceal the truth while you know (it)."

"Let no one say that in this case it is possible for “truth” in its turn by the help of the press to get the better of lies and errors. You who speak thus, do you venture to maintain that men regarded as a crowd are just as quick to seize upon truth which is not always palatable as upon falsehood which always is prepared delicately to give delight? … Or do you venture even to maintain that “truth” can just as quickly be understood as falsehood, which requires no preliminary knowledge, no schooling, no discipline, no abstinence, no self-denial, no honest concern about oneself, no patient labor?"

"Say, "Indeed, those who invent falsehood about Allah will not succeed.""

"That is because Allah is the Truth, and that which they call upon other than Him is falsehood, and because Allah is the Most High, the Grand."

"And (they are) those who do not testify to falsehood, and when they pass near ill speech, they pass by with dignity."

"From a drop of water, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other."

"These, briefly, are the key elements of the stereotype: logic cripples and constrains; it forces one into narrow and mechanical modes of thought that cut one off from a vast range of superior thoughts, feelings and perceptions; logic is an enemy of wit and humor (Mr. Spock's face was always an impassive mask); logic makes us dull and pedantic (Mr. Spock always spoke in a monotone); logic presupposes a simple-minded, black-and-white, yes-no conception of the world. ... Logic misses the point of half the things we ordinarily say and cannot match the insight of the humblest person's common sense."

""I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing." "Oh," says man, "but the Babel fish is a dead give-away, isn't it? It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't." "Oh, I hadn't thought of that," says God, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Ah, that was easy," says man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing. Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys."

"“It’s logical,” Sario said. “Lots of people don’t like coping with logic when it dictates hard decisions. That’s a problem with people, not logic.”"

"Adherents of formal logic may be compared to a maker of porcelain dishes who would contend that he was simply paying attention to the form of his dishes, pots, and vases, but that he did not have anything to do with the raw material."

"It is with logic as it is with other sciences. They draw wisdom from the mysterious source of plain experience. Agriculture, e. g., aims to teach the farmer how to cultivate the soil; but fields were tilled long before any agricultural college had begun its lectures. In the same way human beings think without ever having heard of logic. But by practice they improve their innate faculty of thought, they make progress, they gradually learn to make better use of it. Finally, just as the farmer arrives at the science of agriculture, so the thinker arrives at logic, acquires a clear consciousness of his faculty of thought and a professional dexterity in applying it."

"Pierce wrote as a logician and James as a humanist."

"We know that mathematicians care no more for logic than logicians for mathematics. The two eyes of exact science are mathematics and logic: the mathematical sect puts out the logical eye, the logical sect puts out the mathematical eye; each believing that it can see better with one eye than with two."

"The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait."

"The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious."

"Utility and necessity of logic - It would be a mistake to imagine that, above and beyond what is called the Natural Logic of sound common sense, the study of the Science of Logic is absolutely necessary for right reasoning. Men reasoned rightly before Aristotle ever formulated a canon of logic. It was, in fact, by an analysis of such reasonings that he discovered those canons: they could never have been discovered otherwise. Here as elsewhere the art came before the science; theory followed practice. A man may reason rightly without knowing a single rule of the syllogism; or, conversely, he may know all the details of logic and be an indifferent guide to truth just as a first-rate geometrician may be a failure as an engineer. But still, just as his knowledge of geometry will enable the geometrician to detect the defects in a piece of engineering, so too will an explicit knowledge of the canons of reasoning enable us to discover more readily where the fallacy of a misleading argument lies. Without professing to guard us infallibly from error, logic familiarizes us with the rules and canons to which right reasoning processes must conform, and with the hidden fallacies and pitfalls to which such processes are commonly exposed."

"You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it."

"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

"Logic is a large drawer, containing some useful instruments, and many more that are superfluous. A wise man will look into it for two purposes, to avail himself of those instruments that are really useful, and to admire the ingenuity with which those that are not so, are assorted and arranged."