Logical Fallacy Quotes

Applying logic to potentially illogical behaviour is to construct a house on shifting foundations. The structure will inevitably collapse. ~ Stewart Stafford

The vanity of intelligence is that the intelligent man is often more committed to 'one-upping' his opponent than being truthful. When the idea of intelligence, rather than intelligence itself, becomes a staple, there is no wisdom in it. ~ Criss Jami

Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped. The success or failure of any step will have no impact on the macro level. ~ Brian Clevinger

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion ... Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity ... Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics. ~ Richard Dawkins

By committing the scientific method to religious claims you're committing a logical fallacy ~ Francis Collins

I love objectivity when mine. ~ Brian Spellman

Many people confuse the statement "almost all terrorists are Moslems" with "almost all Moslems are terrorists." Assume that the first statement is true, that 99 percent of terrorists are Moslems. This would mean that only about .001 percent of Moslems are terrorists, since there are more than one billion Moslems and only, say, ten thousand terrorists, one in a hundred thousand. So the logical mistake makes you (unconsciously) overestimate the odds of a randomly drawn individual Moslem person (between the age of, say, fifteen and fifty) being a terrorist by close to fifty thousand times!

[...]Our inferential machinery, that which we use in daily life, is not made for a complicated environment in which a statement changes markedly when its wording is slightly modified. Consider that in a primitive environment there is no consequential difference between the statements "most killers are wild animals" and "most wild animals are killers". There is an error here, but it is almost inconsequential. Our statistical intuitions have not evolved for a habitat in which these subtleties can make a big difference. ~ Nicholas Nassim Taleb

One who learns to justify forgets to learn. ~ Raheel Farooq

You seemed to be listening to me, not to find out useful information, but to try to catch me in a logical fallacy. This tells us all that you are used to being smarter than your teachers, and that you listen to them in order to catch them making mistakes and prove how smart you are to the other students. This is such a pointless, stupid way of listening to teachers that it is clear you are going to waste months of our time before you finally catch on that the only transaction that matters is a transfer of useful information from adults who possess it to children who do not, and that catching mistakes is a criminal misuse of time. ~ Orson Scott Card

Before he (Francis Bacon) came along, people conducted all their arguments through a series of logical fallacies or simply shouting louder than the other guy, or, if they did use facts, they only selected ones that reinforced their prejudices and advanced their ideas." Oberon replies "don't they still do that? ~ Kevin Hearne

The idea that a large group of people believing in something automatically makes it true is a logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum. ~ Armin Navabi

De Bono argues that the West's tradition of settling disagreement by debate or argument is an example of overreliance on logic. ~ Steve Volk

Texas sharpshooter fallacy: Imagine that you are driving down a country road in Texas. You see a barn that has six targets painted on it, and a bullet hole at the very center of each target. "Yes sir," says the owner of the barn, "I never miss." "That's right," says his spouse, "there ain't a man in the state of Texas who's more accurate with a paint brush." Got it? He fired the six shots, and then painted the targets around them. ~ John V. Guttag

A sane mind should not be guilty of a logical fallacy, yet there are very fine minds incapable of following mathematical demonstrations. ~ Henri Poincare

There was an outburst of noise and protests, and Jeremy announced I wasn't being logical, of course they wouldn't sell me, because it was illegal, for heaven's sake. Alexa gave him a look that said you're not helping, and Gil smacked him on the back of the head, and Olivia said, yes, that was the only reason they weren't going to sell me. ~ Caitlen Rubino-Bradway

It is logical to say that ignorance seems to be the root cause of all human suffering. ~ Kat Lahr

This is why you can never reason true Christians out of the faith. It's not, as the adage has it, because they were never reasoned into it - many were - it's that faith is a logical door which locks behind you. What looks like a line of thought is steadily warping ... ~ John Jeremiah Sullivan

I followed his argument with the blank uneasiness which one might feel in the presence of a logical lunatic. ~ Victor Serge

Orthodoxy builds a rococo logical palace on loose empirical sand. ~ Richard R. Nelson

Being a parent is a selfless adventure. The worldview of "Take care of yourself first" is no longer logical to a sane person if your baby wakes up hungry in the middle of the night. ~ Jim Gaffigan

Exhausting someone in argument is not the same as convincing him ~ Tim Kreider

From now on there is no longer any development immanent to art. The times have passed for history of art with a logical sense. There is no longer even any consistency in absurdities; the development has been wound up, and what comes now already exists: the syncretism of a muddle of all styles and possibilities, post-history. ~ Arnold Gehlen

The rise of the Soviet school to the summit of world chess is a logical result of socialist cultural development. ~ Alexander Kotov

He understood the half-life of hope: it is not despair that destroys us, but its opposite. Hope is the winding, despair the unwinding. Despair brings with it the possibility of an ending. Taken to the extreme, its logical conclusion is death. But hope sustains. It can be exploited. Ormsby ~ John Connolly

This one god could be of the deistic or pantheistic sort. Deism might be superior in explaining why God has seemingly left us to our own devices and pantheism could be the more logical option as it fits well with the ontological argument's 'maximally-great entity' and doesn't rely on unproven concepts about 'nothing' (as in 'creation out of nothing'). A mixture of the two, pandeism, could be the most likely God-concept of all. ~ Raphael Lataster

Moreover, if we could show, on general logical grounds, that the scientific quest is likely to succeed, one could not understand why anything like success has been so rare in the long history of human endeavours to know more about our world. ~ Karl R. Popper

You grow sleepy,cara mia," Julian whispered, leaning down to kiss her forehea. "We should go to your brother's chamber. I will check him once more before we go to ground."
Desari refused to open her eyes. She made a soft purring sound, completely contented to lie in his arms. "Not yet, Julian," she protested softly. "I do not want to leave this place for a little while longer."
"I can feel how tired you are, my love. I can do no other than-"
"Do not say it!" Deasri thumped his chest. "Just lie there and hold me. That is what I want. Men are such difficult creatures,Julian. I am beginning to realize this."
He rubbed his chin on the top of her head, her hair catching in the shadow along his jaw. "Men are not difficult. They are logical and methodical."
She laughed softly. "You wish it wree so. I must tell you,although I am taking a huge cance that you might become impossible to live with, tha you are an extraordinary lover."
"Keep talking,lifemate. I am listening," he responded with a deep satisfaction. "Magnificent was only a starting place. Extraordinary lover is the perfect description. I see that now."
Her soft laughter washed over him, as gentle as a breeze. Touching him. Just like that. She could touch him with her breath. Julian wrapped his arms around her tightly and buried his face in her ebony hair. "Why is it you always smell so good?"
"Would you want me to smell like a cavewoman?"
"I do not know,cara. I do not know what a ~ Christine Feehan

It's not logical that we boast the most advanced and powerful internationally integrated economy in the world, then claim organizational incompetence and poverty when it comes to creating and funding a national health care system for all Americans. ~ Jesse Jackson, Jr.

Love is many things none of them logical. ~ William Goldman

In a high tech world the cure for the tragic shortcomings and perilous fallacies of human intuition is education, but education in economics, evolutionary biology, probability and statistics - unfortunately most High School and College curricula have barely changed since Medieval times! ~ Steven Pinker

Modern reformers offer nebulous theories or write philanthropic novels. But your thief acts! He is as clear as a fact and as logical as a punch on the nose! And what a style he has! ~ Honore De Balzac

There I was to attempt,
Jupiter-only-knew what extravagant acts of foolhardiness, what some
people call bravery, to rescue a barbarian I barely knew.
Do not get me wrong. I did like him.
But you don't go ahead and slit your throat
because you like someone. ~ Angelo Tsanatelis

The logical and extralogical exercises you do in meditation are very similar to advanced systems analysis and programming. ~ Frederick Lenz

What is a logical mind? ... It is the antiseptic which destroys the bacilli of unreason whereby true happiness is vivified. ~ William John Locke

It was like having a heart to heart with a squirrel. You want to believe they understand you, but deep down, logical tells you that it's jetting over their heads. ~ Laurel Dewey

We cannot ultimately specify the grounds (either metaphysical or logical or empirical) upon which we hold that our knowledge is true. Being committed to such grounds, dwelling in them, we are projecting ourselves to what we believe to be true from or through these grounds. We cannot therefore see what they are. We cannot look at them because we are looking with them. ~ Michael Polanyi

We know next to nothing about the relationship between Chavez and Raul Castro. One thing, though, is certain. The Cuban military and political elite do not regard Chavez as a logical successor to Fidel Castro in Latin America. ~ Mark Falcoff

Zionism is the most stupendous fallacy in Jewish history ~ Henry Morgenthau, Sr.

I know three things will never be believed - the true, the probable, and the logical ~ John Steinbeck

The librarian of today, and it will be true still more of the librarians of tomorrow, are not fiery dragons interposed between the people and the books. They are useful public servants, who manage libraries in the interest of the public ... Many still think that a great reader, or a writer of books, will make an excellent librarian. This is pure fallacy. ~ William Osler

In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement - the number restriction (two and only two) - is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice. ~ Charles Krauthammer

We knew from our reading of great literature that Love involved Suffering, and would happily have got in some practice at Suffering if there was an implicit, perhaps even logical, promise that Love might be on its way. ~ Julian Barnes

I'm not a good writer, and I don't care. Unfortunately, after I left college, I didn't have time much for literature. I wish I did. Most of the time I read documents, and that's not going to help your writing. But I'm a very logical writer, and you can't get out of me. Once I've nailed you, you're finished. ~ Norman Finkelstein

If there was one thing Sam understood, it was guilt. It didn't have to be logical; oftentimes it wasn't. It
sawed at your gut relentlessly, tediously, until you wore it like a scar. ~ Debra Cowan

Dear friends & fellow characters, you all know the importance we attach to the power of collective prayer in this our desperate struggle for survival. Some of us have more existence than others, at various times according to fashion. But even this is becoming extremely shadowy & precarious, for we are not read, & when read , we are read badly, we are not lived as we used to be, we are not identified with & fantasized, we are rapidly forgotten. Those of us who have the good fortune to be read by teachers, scholars, & students are not read as we used to be read, but analyzed as schemata, structures, functions within structures, logical & mathematical formulae, aporia, psychic movements, social significances & so forth. ~ Christine Brooke-Rose

I succeeded by following the same method, which consists in regarding the problem as solved and deducing from the solution all logical consequences. ~ Rene Daumal

Many people tend to look at programming styles and languages like religions: if you belong to one, you cannot belong to others. But this analogy is another fallacy. ~ Niklaus Wirth

Drinking myself blind seemed like the next logical step. ~ Justin Cronin

In the domain of primitive spirituality, that is, supernatural spirituality, the mind loses all its sanity in the name of non-conformity and takes nonsense to be a form of higher sense and supernatural insanity and fallacy to be spiritual sanity and truth. In an attempt to break free from the chains of religious orthodoxy as well as radical rationalism, these mysticism-obsessed beings, who pompously prefer to call themselves "lightworkers", "yogis", "mystics" and so on, end up bound in yet another form of orthodoxy or extremism, replete with the primal psychological germs of supernaturalism. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The logical side of our brain convinces us that these events are all merely coincidences. Pure happenstance. That, The Legend of John Titor, must be wild-eyed fiction. The mind cannot accept any other conclusion as rational. Keep ~ E.A. Blayre III

And there is the fallacy of existence: the idea that one would be happy forever and aye with a given situation or series of accomplishments. ~ Sylvia Plath

Science is all about proving theories and understanding the universe. Science folds everything into neat logical well-explained packages. The fey are magical capricious illogical and unexplainable. Science cannot prove the existence of faeries so naturally we do not exist. That type of nonbelief is fatal to faries. ~ Julie Kagawa

The idea that a war can be won by standing on the defensive and waiting for the enemy to attack is a dangerous fallacy, which owes its inception to the desire to evade the price of victory. ~ Douglas Haig

Before we go further, why would you want to help vampires over your own kind?" I might be desperate, but I wasn't about to ignore the most logical question. "Because I hate my job," Balchezek said promptly. My brows rose. "You consider damning souls a job?" "What would you call something you have to do in order to fit in, where you're bitched at whenever you underperform, yet you're never, ever appreciated for when you do it right? ~ Jeaniene Frost

The system becomes logically closed when each of the logical implications which can be derived from any one proposition within the system finds its statement in another proposition in the same system. ~ Talcott Parsons

We are most often inspired and motivated by fallacy rather than logic. ~ M.F. Moonzajer

Now against the specialist, against the man who studies only art or electricity, or the violin, or the thumbscrew or what not, there is only one really important argument, and that, for some reason or other, is never offered. People say that specialists are inhuman; but that is unjust. People say an expert is not a man; but that is unkind and untrue. The real difficulty about the specialist or expert is much more singular and fascinating. The trouble with the expert is never that he is not a man; it is always that wherever he is not an expert he is too much of an ordinary man. Wherever he is not exceptionally learned he is quite casually ignorant. This is the great fallacy in the case of what is called the impartiality of men of science. If scientific men had no idea beyond their scientific work it might be all very well - that is to say, all very well for everybody except them. But the truth is that, beyond their scientific ideas, they have not the absence of ideas but the presence of the most vulgar and sentimental ideas that happen to be common to their social clique. If a biologist had no views on art and morals it might be all very well. The truth is that the biologist has all the wrong views of art and morals that happen to be going about in the smart set of his time. ~ G.K. Chesterton

What did being connected to the world get you? It got you sadder. Look, the world is not sane. If you stay connected to an insane world, well, you just go crazy. This is not a complicated theory. It's just simple logic. ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz

Tiny coils of tension formed in my stomach. Part of me wanted to be reminded of what I surely had not forgotten. Thank the gods, the smarter, logical part of me won out. "There was nothing worth remembering."

"Now you insult me after throwing a dagger at my face? You've wounded my tender feelings. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout