Richard Russo Quotes

No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.

Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.

There are no such self-deceivers as those who think they reason when they only feel.

But with man the case is otherwise, in that when logic leads to any humiliating conclusion, the sole effect is to discredit logic.

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

The wrong way always seems the more reasonable.

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

Emotion is a rotten base for politics.

Men can reason themselves into almost any sort of opinion if they are so inclined.

Obviously something is wrong with the entire argument of "obviousness".

The weakness of human reason appears more evidently in those who know it not than in those who know it.

There are those who reason well, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who reason badly.

Logic might be unanswerable because it was so absolutely wrong.

Logic: an instrument used for bolstering a prejudice.

Persons not habituated to reason often argue absurdly, because, from particular instances, they deduce general conclusions, and extend the result of their limited experience of individuals indiscriminately to whole classes.

You can't reason someone out of something that they weren't reasoned into in the first place.

Reason is so unreasonable, that few people can say they are in possession of it.

Utopianism substitutes glorious predictions and unachievable promises for knowledge, science, and reason, while laying claim to them all.

All logical arguments can be defeated by the simple refusal to reason logically

When a false argument puts on the appearance of a true one, then it is properly called a sophism or fallacy.

REASON, n. Propensitate of prejudice.

False conclusions which have been reasoned out are infinitely worse than blind impulse.

How dangerous can false reasoning prove!

When emotion supersedes reason ... gullibility must follow.

The philosophy of reasoning, to be complete, ought to comprise the theory of bad as well as of good reasoning.