Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

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.

There are a lot of clear thinkers everywhere.

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

Everything is reason. If you don't have reason, you have nothing.

Reason in a creature is a faculty of widening the rules and purposes of the use of all its powers far beyond natural instinct; it acknowledges no limits to its projects. Reason itself does not work instinctively, but requires trial, practice, and instruction in order gradually to progress from one level of insight to another.

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

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.

The ignorant are to be found as much among the educated as among the uneducated.

A goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.

Logic is a wonderful invention. It is so wonderful, people often mistake it for reason. Reason, however, requires sense. Logic requires only consistency.

Plenty of pundits have really high IQs, but they don't have any discipline in how they look at the world, and so it leads to a lot of bullshit, basically.

An educated mind is practiced in the uses of reason, which inevitably leads to a skeptical outlook.

Many persons of high intelligence have notoriously poor judgement.

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

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

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

... there is no shame in not knowing. The problem arises when irrational thought and attendant behavior fill the vacuum left by ignorance.

And the quality of good judgement is clearly a form of knowledge and skill, as it is because of knowledge and not because of ignorance that we judge well.

Rule of thumb: if you think something is clever and sophisticated beware-it is probably self-indulgence.

What is reasoned has nothing to do with what is reasonable.

It is foolish to be convinced without evidence, but it is equally foolish to refuse to be convinced by real evidence.

If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.

He that cannot reason is a fool.

Reason cannot show itself more reasonable than to cease reasoning on things above reason.

Learned men fall into error oftenest by mistaking knowledge for wisdom.