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"Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have."
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Exlpore more Reasoning quotes
"Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it."
"Success-minded people know that nothing is without a reason."
"He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn."
"You all know the argument from design: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different, we could not manage to live in it. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot. I do not know how rabbits would view that application."
"An overly complex explanation began with an unsophisticated assumption."
"Facts are always required to draw conclusions and make serious decisions."
"Reason is up to these demands because it is an open-ended combinatorial system, an engine for generating an unlimited number of new ideas. Once it is programmed with a basic self-interest and an ability to communicate with others, its own logic will impel it, in the fullness of time, to respect the interests of ever-increasing numbers of others. It is reason too that can always take note of the shortcomings of previous exercises of reasoning, and update and improve itself in response. And if you detect a flaw in this argument, it is reason that allows you to point it out and defend an alternative."
"The mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn."
"Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have."
Explore more quotes by Samuel Butler
"The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it."
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing."
"A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing."
"A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers."
"A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends."
"Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so."
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