Objective Reasoning Quotes

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

When the facts change, I change my mind.

I am passionate about truth and passionate about clarity, and I don't regard myself as particularly militant or aggressive. I simply wish to discuss what is true and to listen to evidence and put evidence forward to other people and have a sensible, sane, moderated argument.

If the modern leader doesn't know the facts, he is in grave trouble, but rarely do the facts provide unqualified guidance.

A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone's orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone's opinions, threats, wishes, plans.

A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others - not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others

When schools produce students who learned to think on the left or on the right, they're not thinking for themselves.

The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. This means ... that he should be able to justify every purchase he makes and each price he pays by impersonal, objective reasoning that satisfies him that he is getting more than his money's worth for his purchase.

When an arguer argues dispassionately he thinks only of the argument.

I try to use and, furthermore, strive to focus on the actual facts surrounding and impacting any issue.

Every man carries about him a touchstone, if he will make use of it, to distinguish substantial gold from superficial glitterings, truth from appearances. And indeed the use and benefit of this touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assuming prejudices, overweening presumption, and narrowing our minds.

Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact.

The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts.

emotion clouds the rational, and many perspectives guide the full reality. To view current events as a historian is to account for all perspectives, even those of your enemy. It is to know the past and to use such relevant history as a template for expectations. It is, most of all, to force reason ahead of instinct, to refuse to demonize that which you hate, and to, most of all, accept your own fallibility.

Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories.

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.

I do not think it possible for anyone to get by in life without prejudice. However, the attempt to do so leads many people to suppose that, in order to decide any moral question, they have to find an indubitable first principle from which they can deduce an answer.

My only master, my only mistress are the facts and the evidence. So if I reach a conclusion, it's only because the evidence took me there.

Opinions don't affect facts. But facts should affect opinions, and do, if you're rational

I make up my opinions from facts and reasoning, and not to suit any body but myself. If people don't like my opinions, it makes little difference as I don't solicit their opinions or votes.

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

I don't want people to say, 'Something is true because Tyson says it is true.' That's not critical thinking.

To defy the authority of empirical evidence is to disqualify oneself as someone worthy of critical engagement in a dialogue.

Our prejudices are our mistresses; reason is at best our wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded.

Being a skeptic just means being rational and empirical: thinking and seeing before believing.