Quotes & Sayings About Logic

The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life, which, though startling to the apprehension, is, in fact, that which the habitual sense of its repeated combinations has extinguished in us. It strips, as it were, the painted curtain from this scene of things. I confess that I am one of those who are unable to refuse my assent to the conclusions of those philosophers who assert that nothing exists but as it is perceived. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Do you think chance is really just the logic of God? — Georges Bernanos

For millennia philosophers and saints have tried to reason out a logical scheme for the universe ... until Hilda came along and demonstrated that the universe is not logical but whimsical, its structure depending solely on the dreams and nightmares of non-logical dreamers. — Robert A. Heinlein

I found out I had a real love for comedy and comedy writing. The logic was, there weren't too many female comedians, so I thought I might as well try a field that had fewer competitors than the field I was in, which was acting, singing and dancing. — Rita Rudner

A trial is still an ordeal by battle. For the broadsword there is the weight of evidence; for the battle-ax the force of logic; for the sharp spear, the blazing gleam of truth; for the rapier, the quick and flashing knife of wit. — Lloyd Paul Stryker

It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable. — Franz Kafka

Intellectually, we may appreciate that loving ourselves would give us a firm foundation but for most of us this is a leap of logic, not a leap of the heart. — Sharon Salzberg

And human instinct is ancient and reliable, utterly mysterious and possibly capable of great genius. I believe that refined, fluent instincts are a person's most valuable asset. My own instincts have repeatedly guided me against the grain of logic and probability. When I have trusted and followed their direction, they have never been wrong. I don't know how or why. But I know that every significant experience-positive or negative-sharpens them and makes them more accurate. — Augusten Burroughs

By comparison, the Integrated Human model of human nature, in addition to the two elements of our previous model, includes: A conscious analytic system, known as the slow brain (where logic resides) A subconscious intuitive system, or fast brain The full range of motivational drives (of which the drive to acquire is only one) Basic ideas of moral behavior, or moral intuitions Distinguishing characteristics, or personality traits Together, these elements of our nature provide all of the fundamental functions necessary for living life as a complete, Integrated Human - and they are the springboard for the development of leadership character. As our research data has shown, the ability to leverage all of these areas influence leadership's ability to achieve positive organizational outcomes. — Fred Kiel

Prejudices are rarely overcome by argument; not being founded in reason they cannot be destroyed by logic. — Tryon Edwards

Stories are there to be told, and each story changes with the telling. Time changes them. Logic changes them. Grammar changes them. History changes them. Each story is shifted side-ways by each day that unfolds. Nothing ends. The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself. At the heart of all this is the possibility, or desire, to create a piece of art that talks to the human instinct for recovery and joy. — Colum McCann

But an absolute value is not proven by logic or metaphysical arguments; it is accepted, believed (even when not discussed), and hedged about with taboos to protect it. — Rene Girard

Westcliff sees an odd sort of logic in why you would finally be the one to win St. Vincent's heart. He says a girl like you would appeal to ... hmm, how did he put it? ... I can't remember the exact words, but it was something like ... you would appeal to St. Vincent's deepest, most secret fantasy."
Evie felt her cheeks flushing while a skirmish of pain and hope took place in the tired confines of her chest. She tried to respond sardonically. "I should think his fantasy is to consort with as many women as possible."
A grin crossed Lillian's lips. "Dear, that is not St. Vincent's fantasy, it's his reality. And you're probably the first sweet, decent girl he's ever had anything to do with."
"He spent quite a lot of time with you and Daisy in Hampshire," Evie countered.
That seemed to amuse Lillian further. "I'm not at all sweet, dear. And neither is my sister. Don't say you have been laboring under that misconception all this time? — Lisa Kleypas

Dictionopolis is the place where all the words in the world come from. They're grown right here in our orchards."
"I didn't know that words grew on trees," said Milo timidly.
"Where did you think they grew?" shouted the earl irritably. A small crowd began to gather to see the little boy who didn't know that letters grew on trees.
"I didn't know they grew at all," admitted Milo even more timidly. Several people shook their heads sadly.
"Well, money doesn't grow on trees, does it?" demanded the count.
"I've heard not," said Milo.
"Then something must. Why not words?" exclaimed the undersecretary triumphantly. The crowd cheered his display of logic and continued about its business. — Norton Juster

They were opposite in so many ways, but it was the kind of difference that was balancing-her softness with his steel, his instinct and her logic. He was teaching her by example to have courage in the face of fear, and she badly wanted to help him give voice to his grief and understand it was all right to feel pain. — Melissa Cutler

Logic can often be reversed, but the effect does not precede the cause. — Gregory Bateson

Here in Turin you can write because past and future have greater prominence than the present, the force of past history and the anticipation of the future give a concreteness and sense to the discrete, ordered images of today. Turin is a city which entices the reader towards vigour, linearity, style. It encourages logic, and through logic it opens the way toward madness. — Italo Calvino

An historian is a kind detective in search of the fact - remote or otherwise - that brings to a set of events apparently unconnected with each other, the link that unites them, their justification, their logic.

You cannot imagine what great delights this profession affords. It's as if, in every incunablum, consumed by worms and steeped in boredom, in every inarticulate scrawl, in every collection of forgotten chronicles, there presides a mischievous sprite, winking at you, who at the appropriate time confers on you your reward in the form of renewed wonder. — Jacques Yonnet

I had already established, as you know, that it was logically impossible for Kenneth to be distressed by anything that might occur between Ned and myself; but Kenneth, being an artist, has perhaps not studied logic and is unaware of the impossibility. — Sarah Caudwell

Howard's enchanting Hospice obeys its own magical inner logic with excellent prose and a sadness that will split open hearts. You have in your hands a story that is inquisitive, gripping, and triumphant. — Deb Olin Unferth

Moral scepticism can no more be refuted or proved by logic than intellectual scepticism can. When we stick to it that there is truth (be it of either kind), we do so with our whole nature, and resolve to stand or fall by the results. The sceptic with his whole nature adopts the doubting attitude; but which of us is the wiser, Omniscience only knows. — William James

We in the USA have been depending on prayers, pleading, and self-abasement to a deity to bring us magical advantages, and have been encouraged to attribute our prosperity and general success among nations, to that sort of action. In my opinion, hard work and dedication to logic and reason ought to be recognized as the reasons for our achievements, not appeals to a mythical friend-in-the-sky. We got where we are in spite of, not because of, those incantations. — James Randi

We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.
Such is the logic of patriotism. — Emma Goldman

Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere. — Albert Einstein

The truth is, that common-sense, or thought as it first emerges above the level of the narrowly practical, is deeply imbued with that bad logical quality to which the epithet metaphysical is commonly applied; and nothing can clear it up but a severe course of logic. — Charles Sanders Peirce

Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business ... the public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products. — Noam Chomsky

Truth is on the side of compassion. — Christina Hoff Sommers

Logic has its use and metaphysics has its use, but neither of them is of much help in the making of a creed. — Thomas De Witt Talmage

The theoretician believes in logic and believes that he despises dreams, intuition, and poetry. He does not recognize that these three fairies have only disguised themselves in order to dazzle him ... He does not know that he owes his greatest discoveries to them. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

We must recover the whole sense of gift, of gratuitousness, of solidarity. Rampant capitalism has taught the logic of profit at all costs, of giving to get, of exploitation without looking at the person ... and we see the results in the crisis we are experiencing! This Home is a place that teaches charity, a "school" of charity, which instructs me to go encounter every person, not for profit, but for love. — Pope Francis

Pleasure has no logic; it never treads in its own footsteps. — Alexander Smith

There's a logic to dreams that doesn't necessarily follow linear narrative. You don't know why things happen, it's your subconscious pushing you, to give you information. — Justin Theroux

In every enterprise ... the mind is always reasoning, and, even when we seem to act without a motive, an instinctive logic still directs the mind. Only we are not aware of it, because we begin by reasoning before we know or say that we are reasoning, just as we begin by speaking before we observe that we are speaking, and just as we begin by seeing and hearing before we know what we see or what we hear. — Claude Bernard

I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style. — Louis Aragon

The strategy of power has long seemed founded on the apathy of the masses. The more passive they were, the more secure it was. But this logic is only characteristic of the bureaucratic and centralist phase of power. And it is this which today turns against it: the inertia it has fostered becomes the sign of its death. — Jean Baudrillard

Sometimes his expired faith in rational logic revives itself long enough to believe in points ... but in the end he always ends up feeling like an asshole for thinking any of the pain he either inflicts or endures has meaning beyond the senseless fact of its existence. — Anthony Marra

The solution of logical problems must be neat for they set the standard of neatness. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Nothing is so deceptive as human reasoning, - nothing so slippery and reversible as what we have decided to call 'logic.' The truest compass of life is spiritual instinct. — Marie Corelli

The cosmic game changed forever in 1992. Before then, logic told us that there had to be other planets besides the nine (if you still count poor Pluto) in our solar system, but until that year, when two astronomers detected faint, telltale radio signals in the constellation Virgo, we had no hard evidence of their existence. — Thomas Mallon

When I studied how to think in school, I was taught that the first rule of logic was that a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. That last note, "in the same respect," says a lot. As soon as you change the frame of reference, you've changed the truthiness of a once immutable fact. — Alan Alda

I can feel it, logic is trying to distract me but my heart it's screaming it's him. — Nikki Rowe

Men works by preference, not by logic. — Soseki Natsume

What a writer does is to try to make sense of life. I think that's what writing is, I think that's what painting is. It's seeking that thread of order and logic in the disorder, and the incredible waste and marvelous profligate character of life. What all artists are trying to do is to make sense of life. — Nadine Gordimer

The true function of logic ... as applied to matters of experience ... is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of hitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world may be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world is — Bertrand Russell

Beyond our perceptional distortions, there is a problem with logic itself. How can someone have no clue yet be able to hold a set of perfectly sound and coherent viewpoints that match the observations and abide by every single possible rule of logic? Consider that two people can hold incompatible beliefs based on the exact same data. Does this mean that there are possible families of explanations and that each of these can be equally perfect and sound? Certainly not. One may have a million ways to explain things, but the true explanation is unique, whether or not it is within our reach. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In every political community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. Here, then, is a lesson in safe logic. — Phil Ochs

The good thing in chess is that very often the best moves are the most beautiful ones. The beauty of logic. — Boris Gelfand

This may seem labouring the obvious, but in Japan one meets intelligent people who claim that 'logic' is something invented in the West to allow Westerners to win discussions. Indeed, the belief is widespread that the Japanese can as happily do without logic now as they supposedly have for centuries past. — Karel Van Wolferen

One of the most common ways to overcome resistance to change is to educate people about it beforehand. Communication of ideas helps people see the need for and the logic of a change. The education process can involve one-on-one discussions, presentations to groups, or memos and reports. — John P. Kotter

The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I always feel that I am a traveler, going somewhere and to some destination.
If I tell myself that the somewhere and the destination do not exist, that seems to me very likely and reasonable enough.
The brothel keeper, when he kicks anyone out, has similar logic, argues it well, and is always right, I know. So at the end of the course I shall find my mistake. Be it so. I shall find then that not only the Arts, but everything else as well, were only dreams, that one's self was nothing at all. — Vincent Van Gogh

Logic is overrated and superfluous when it comes to love. — Christina Dodd

The fact is, we do not learn how to think. Schools impart to us, ever more zealously, knowledge of which we can use only the smallest part; it burdens our memory, and only tempers our intelligence with a commonplace logic, which one would think ought to equip us for the struggle of life. This hot-house culture does not form our judgment; on the contrary, it troubles it by giving us ready-made opinions to digest, without teaching us to appreciate their accuracy. — Dr. PAUL DEBOIS

Further, the same Arguments which explode the Notion of Luck, may, on the other side, be useful in some Cases to establish a due comparison between Chance and Design: We may imagine Chance and Design to be, as it were, in Competition with each other, for the production of some sorts of Events, and many calculate what Probability there is, that those Events should be rather be owing to the one than to the other. — Abraham De Moivre

If we were rational enough to judge what we are fed based on what we are fed, those in the business of selling us hope (i.e., public speakers, presidents, priests, etc.) wouldn't wear suits. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

With method and logic one can accomplish anything! — Agatha Christie

It's like I am inside this ethereal sphere wherein exists no logic, no reasoning, no typicality, no explanations, no realism, no comparisons, nothing ordinary, and no normalcy. And then if you are to understand me, you have to step into my realm and leave all of those things behind. I'm not typical. I'm not ordinary. And I'm not normal. And I never will be . So I don't see the point of waking up in the morning and wishing to be so. — C. JoyBell C.

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

There is no great religion without a great schism. All of them have it. And that's because you're dealing with something called faith. And faith is not something you can prove; faith is personal opinion. Uh, when you're dealing with something with certainty, like, y'know, science or logic, you don't have the
there's no wiggle room; that's why history is not filled with warring math cults, y'know, because you can settle the issue; you can prove something to be right or wrong, and that's the end of the argument: next case. Whereas, when you're dealing with faith, you can forever argue your point, or another point, because you're dealing with intangibles. Personally, I think, faith is what you ask of somebody when you don't have the goods to prove your point. — Tom Quinn

As a piece of writing, The Elementary Particles feels like a bad, self-conscious pastiche of Camus, Foucault and Bret Easton Ellis. And as a philosophical tract, it evinces a fiercely nihilistic, anti-humanistic vision built upon gross generalizations and ridiculously phony logic. It is a deeply repugnant read. — Michiko Kakutani

An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else. — C.S. Lewis

Childhood's logic never asks to be proved (all conclusions are absolute). — Maya Angelou

Most likely, logic is capable of justifying mathematics to no greater extent than biology is capable of justifying life. — Yuri Manin

Philosophy may serve as the bridge between theology and science. All atheism is a philosophy, but not all philosophy is atheism. Philosophy ('love of wisdom') is simply a tool depending on how one uses it, and in some cases, logically understanding the nature of God and existence. — Criss Jami

Logic is doubtless unshakable, but it cannot withstand a man who wants to go on living. — Franz Kafka

The world of shapes, lines, curves, and solids is as varied as the world of numbers, and it is only our long-satisfied possession of Euclidean geometry that offers us the impression, or the illusion, that it has, that world, already been encompassed in a manageable intellectual structure. The lineaments of that structure are well known: as in the rest of life, something is given and something is gotten; but the logic behind those lineaments is apt to pass unnoticed, and it is the logic that controls the system. — David Berlinski

Iran's strong logic and firm diplomacy is the guideline for all government officials in negotiations on country's peaceful nuclear program with foreigners, quite resolutely. — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

It means leaving behind your physical body. Leaving the cage of your physical flesh, breaking free of the chains, and letting pure logic soar. Giving a natural life to logic. That's the core of free thought. — Haruki Murakami

Life is only logical, and to think it's a gift is depressing. — Konrad

I was always a visual person. I could see things visually. I had a harder time with numbers and logic, and I always had more of an artistic sensibility. So that I could do. And it was something that I really loved. — Bruce Davison

You have to play the logic of a character. — Emily Watson

Mankind has two immense problems, they forget to use logic and begin at the root of each trouble. — K.R. Royal

Perhaps the most that can be said is that HCM had become a prisoner of his own creation, a fly in amber, unable in his state of declining influence to escape the inexorable logic of a system that sacrificed the fate of individuals to the "higher morality" of the master plan. — William J. Duiker

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. — Leonard Nimoy

I laugh, mirthless, a mad laugh. I savor the scowl on her face, the hate in her eyes. She was like a machine; she was cold and emotionless, bound by logic alone. And I broke her. — Veronica Roth

He is a true fugitive who flies from reason. — Marcus Aurelius

I think a lot of the logic of Google+ is much better in terms of notification of messages to you, in terms of how you post. One very obvious feature is that with Google+, after you post something, you can edit it forever. That is true of both posts and comments. I edit almost every post I make and almost every comment I make. — Guy Kawasaki

I never thought that others would take my theories so much more seriously than I did. — Albert Einstein

The much vaunted male logic isn't logical, because they display prejudices against half the human race that are considered prejudices according to any dictionary definition. — Eva Figes

That's what it felt like. Passed through is the only way I can express it. Like my body had passed clean through a stone wall. At what exact point I felt like I'd made it through, I can't recall, but suddenly I noticed I was already on the other side. I was convinced I'd made it through. I don't know about the logic or the process or the method involved - I was simply convinced of the reality that I'd passed through.
After that, I didn't have to think anymore. Or, more precisely, there wasn't the need to try to consciously think about not thinking. All I had to do was go with the flow and I'd get there automatically. If I gave myself up to it, some sort of power would naturally push me forward. — Haruki Murakami

During dreaming, we're tuned inward, we experience vivid visual imagery, our conventional logic system is turned down, and social norms are loosened, all of which can lead to making more creative associations than we make when we're awake and our brain is censoring the illogical," she says. — Andrea Rock

This battle for 'common-sense' gun control laws pits emotion and passion against logic and reason. All too often in such a contest, logic loses. So, expect more meaningless, if not harmful, 'gun control' legislation. Good news - if you're a crook. — Larry Elder

We will convert the entire world to Islam with our logic. We are confident that the Islamic logic, culture, and discourse can prove their superiority in all fields over all schools of thought and theories. — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Scholars don't have blood flowing in their veins," said Hamlet. "When they're wounded, they bleed logic, and when all of it is gone, their brains die, and they become ... soldiers. — Orson Scott Card

The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself - not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day. — Michael J. Behe

Necessity is an independent concept. It has a different structure from logic, morals, or meaning. Its function lies entirely in the role it plays. What doesn't play a role shouldn't exist. What necessity requires does need to exist. That's what you call dramaturgy. — Haruki Murakami

In life two negatives don't make a positive. Double negatives turn positive only in math and formal logic. In life things just get worse and worse and worse. — Robert McKee

Murder is a horror, but an often necessary horror, never criminal, which it is essential to tolerate in a republican State. Is it or is it not a crime? If it is not, why make laws for its punishment? And if it is, by what barbarous logic do you, to punish it, duplicate it by another crime? — Marquis De Sade

Such revolutions in formal learning and felt experience needed new modes to express their understanding, beyond sonorous Ciceronian periods and the rigid structure of heroic couplets. It needed something looser, longer, and above all historical, which could not only link events, data, ideas, and context through time, but in which history could itself serve as an informing principle. The age craved creation stories in which the logic and moral order were manifest in and through the unfolding of the story. — Lydia Pyne

You can't really learn God's hope like you learn the logic of an argument or the details of a story. It's more like learning to belly laugh. You catch hope from someone who has it down in their gut. — Shane Claiborne

Refusing to listen to him any longer, Julian backs up. "Whenever you realize working together is in Summer's best interest, come find me, Boy Scout. Until then, I'll just pretend you don't exist." Then he walks away.
Gage glares at Julian's retreating form. His hand scrapes through his hair as he fumes. A guttural roar of rage crawls up his throat, and he kicks the sand.
Damn him and his stupid logic. He's right. And Gage knows he's right. But that doesn't mean he has to like it. — Laura Kreitzer

He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense. — Julian Barnes

A good proof is one that makes us wiser. — Yuri Manin

Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs (lesser developed countries)? I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that ... I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted; their air quality is vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. — Lawrence Summers

Yes, that's right ... love should come before logic ... Only then will man come to understand the meaning of life. — Fyodor Dostoevsky

Language skill requires a bit of knowledge about how we answer the question: How do you know that Blumph is true? Plus a smidgen of Logic. B.S. Detecting gives you this because without it, Pogo's Owl may be talking about you: "You may as well quit your thinkin'. It ain't improvin' your talkin' none. — Mary Thompson

Those philosophers who believe in the absolute logic of truth have never had to discuss it on close terms with a woman. — Cesare Pavese

At the logic of fashion, such once-popular perversions as pedophilia and sodomy will become derided cliches, as amusing as pottery ducks on suburban walls. — J.G. Ballard

This is where the will to grapple with our hard and pressing environmental problems begins: in relationship to something other that you love beyond any utility, beyond any logic. — Susan Freinkel

For he who lives as passion directs will not hear argument that dissuades him, nor understand it if he does; and how can we persuade one in such a state to change his ways? — Aristotle.