Alexander Pope Quotes

Credo quia absurdum – I believe because it is absurd.

The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.

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

I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions - adding that no general proposition is worth a damn.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.

Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one.

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.

I believe only in the mathematics.

Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.

Paradoxes are the only truths.

Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt.

Why don't you pair'em up in threes?

Mathematics is the only good metaphysics.

what is unreasonable is irrefutable.

In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic.

Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth. Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth.

Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons - that's philosophy.

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

Man is a rational animal – so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favour of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.

Arithmetic is where the content lies, and not logic; but logic prompts certainty, and not arithmetic.

Why not? Why not?Why not not, then, if the best reasoning you can contrive is why not?

This then is the age of reason.

Whatever else we may say of our own age, for good or evil, nobody is likely to call it an Age of Reason.

Man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told. … Aristotle, so far as I know, was the first man to proclaim explicitly that man is a rational animal. His reason for this view was … that some people can do sums. … It is in virtue of the intellect that man is a rational animal. The intellect is shown in various ways, but most emphatically by mastery of arithmetic. The Greek system of numerals was very bad, so that the multiplication table was quite difficult, and complicated calculations could only be made by very clever people.