Emily Greene Balch Quotes

Ideas are 10 a penny. It's the execution that's the hard thing to do. House is standing up against a tide of sentiment and emotionalism over reason that threatens to engulf this world. When you think about it, a rationalist, a man of science and reason, is in a pretty lonely position.

Neither table pounding nor dreamy euphoria can be permitted to substitute for plausible argument. If impatience is not to be allowed to short-circuit argument with unsupported assertions, reason must be honored above the crude and noisy enthusiasms and antipathies.

Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.

I don't make decisions with my heart, I use my brain to think things through.

The beauty of science hugely outranks the charms of superstition.

I'm supposed to be a scientific person but I use intuition more than logic in making basic decisions.

The modern mind tends to be more and more critical and analytical in spirit, hence it must devise for itself an engine of expression which is logically defensible at every point and which tends to correspond to the rigorous spirit of modern science.

All policies should be guided by science, not just whose voice is the loudest.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.

Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world.

I will live by the standard of reason, and if thinking in accordance with reason takes me to perdition, then I will go to hell with my reason rather than to heaven without it.

Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense.

The only hope I can see for the future depends on a wiser and braver use of the reason, not a panic flight from it.

Facts matter. Science matters. Reason matters. Mitt Romney has shown an inability to respect any of the three. President Barack Obama not only respects them, he relies on them. He is an overwhelming and unquestioned choice to continue as president.

I take what I see work. I'm a strict believer in the scientific principle of believing nothing, only taking the best evidence available at the present time, interpreting it as best you can, and leaving your mind open to the fact that new evidence will appear tomorrow.

First, he must hold rational values, and to do this he must be a thinker.

The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking.

Avoid the precepts of those thinkers whose reasoning is not confirmed by experience.

I'm the type of person who responds to facts.

We are speaking to the intelligence of Canadians, not to their emotion.

President Trump, when challenged on facts, says that many people feel the way he does. But feelings should not take the place of reason in matters of public policy.

Italians think with their heads.

You must build public policies on reason, on facts.

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.

Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.