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I know three things will never be believed – the true, the probable, and the logical. John Steinbeck, The Winter of our Discontent
Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men. Thomas Henry Huxley, Science and Culture and Other Essays, 1881
Droll thing life is – that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself – that comes too late – a crop of inextinguishable regrets. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
What truly is logic? Who decides reason? ... It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reason can be found. John Nash
If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence?
If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic? Sam Harris
Turing’s paper described how any logical process could be broken down into its simplest possible components – precise sequential steps that could in principle be carried out by a machine. With his new definition of method as machine he was able to formulate a logical paradox which rapidly disposed of Gilbert’s question. Horizon: The Strange Life and Death of Dr Turing, BBC 1992
The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them. Albert Einstein, cited Principles of Research 1918
Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility to find out causal relationships by systematic experiment (during the Renaissance). In my opinion, one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that these discoveries were made at all. Albert Einstein
Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic. William E Gladstone
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction. Samuel Butler
The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced. Andre Gide
Humour is something that thrives between man’s aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humour than in anything else. Because, you see, humour is truth. Victor Borge
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: ‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’
‘But,’ says Man, ‘The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’
‘Oh dear,’ says God, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
‘Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The idea was fantastically, wildly improbable. But like most fantastically, wildly improbable ideas it was at least as worthy of consideration as a more mundane one to which the facts had been strenuously bent to fit. (Logic & Idea) Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
‘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.’ Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass
There are crimes of passion and crimes of logic. The boundary between them is not clearly defined. Albert Camus
For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then? George Orwell, 1984
When it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable. Rene Descartes
When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity. Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
It turned out I was pretty good in science. But again, because of the small budget, in science class we couldn't afford to do experiments in order to prove theories. We just believed everything. Actually, I think that class was called Religion. Religion class was always an easy class. All you had to do was suspend the logic and reasoning you were being taught in all the other classes. George Carlin, Brain Droppings
I know that two and two make four – and should be glad to prove it too if I could – though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert two and two into five it would give me much greater pleasure. Lord Byron
Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory – let the theory go. Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles
I am convinced that the act of thinking logically cannot possibly be natural to the human mind. If it were, then mathematics would be everybody’s easiest course at school and our species would not have taken several millennia to figure out the scientific method. Neil deGrasse Tyson, The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist
His was not a small mind bothered by logic and consistency. Robert A Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it. Ludwig Wittgenstein
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, The Sense of an Ending
Reason itself is fallible, and this fallibility must find a place in our logic. Nicola Abbagnano
Some philosophers can’t bear to say simple things, like ‘Suppose a dog bites a man.’ They feel obliged instead to say, ‘Suppose a dog (d) bites a man (m) at time (t),’ thereby demonstrating their unshakable commitment to logical rigor, even though they don’t go on to manipulate any formulae involving d, m, and t. Daniel C Dennett, Freedom Evolves
For nothing is more democratic than logic; it is no respecter of persons and makes no distinction between crooked and straight noses. Friedrich Nietzsche
When people attempt to rebel against the iron logic of Nature, they come into conflict with the very same principles to which they owe their existence as human beings. Their actions against Nature must lead to their own downfall. Adolf Hitler