Eliezer Yudkowsky Quotes

Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought.

Talk about rationality can get very confusing unless the things with which rationality deals are also included.

Logic can become enormously difficult, and it would undoubtedly be well to produce more assurance in its use.

Reason and the ability to use it are two separate skills.

We seem to have trouble with [critical thinking]. And our political system doesn't help.

I learned how to order my thoughts, and most important, learned how to develop a plan. I discovered the power of a plan. If you can plan it out, and it seems logical to you, you can do it. And that was the secret to success.

We can't avoid reasoning; we can only avoid doing it well.

If one devalues rationality, the world tends to fall apart.

The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners.

Logic obviously is important. You need to be able to figure things out, to go to the end of a particular problem. But intuition is very important because it references things that logic alone cannot.

Mostly, I try to take a rational approach to life.

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

I always try to stay methodical and logical with everything I do, playing cricket and making decisions.

Italians think with their heads.

I'm disturbed when people let superstition, magical thinking, extreme conspiracy theories and so on blur their minds.

I hope you become comfortable with the use of logic without being deceived into concluding that logic will inevitably lead you to the correct conclusion.

He that gives a portion of his time and talent to the investigation of mathematical truth, will come to all other questions with a decided advantage over his opponents.

I think, though, that we need to be armed with the critical thinking skills that lawyers and scientists and journalists such as yourself have. We all need to have those as we make our way through the day. And they're not that hard to acquire.

Mechanical rules are never a substitute for clarity of thought.

Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.

Of course, analysis can sometimes give more accurate results than intuition but usually it’s just a lot of work. I normally do what my intuition tells me to do. Most of the time spent thinking is just to double-check.

Reason has seldom failed us because it has seldom been tried.

Like all religions, Reason presents itself as the solution to the problems it has created

With method and logic one can accomplish anything.

Reason is universal because no attempted challenge to its results can avoid appealing to reason in the end-by claiming, for example, that what was presented as an argument is really a rationalization. This can undermine our confidence in the original method or practice only by giving us reasons to believe something else, so that finally we have to think about the arguments to make up our minds.