Thinking Quotes About Reasoning, Reflection & Judgment

Plato, Phaedo, approximately 65c–d; Socrates speaking with Simmias about the philosopher’s pursuit of true being and the limits of bodily perception. Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1658, dramatic text (not the editorial introduction).

On the Improvement of the Understanding, section 12, Project Gutenberg #1016 in R. H. M. Elwes's public-domain English translation. Spinoza says the terms good and evil are applied relatively while introducing his distinction between ordinary relative goods and the true/highest good sought by the unfinished treatise. It remains translation-mediated seventeenth-century methodological philosophy rather than a claim that all moral distinctions are meaningless.

Amiel's Journal, 1851 diary entry, translated by Mary Augusta Ward; the passage belongs to Amiel’s introspective effort to reach clarity beneath divided feeling.

Theaetetus, around Stephanus 201a–c, Socrates explaining his law-court counterexample while speaking with Theaetetus. Benjamin Jowett English translation, Project Gutenberg #1726. The full sentence is spoken by Socrates in the dramatic dialogue, not from Jowett’s prefatory commentary; no claim is made about modern evidence law.

Meno, around Stephanus 97e–98a, Socrates addressing Meno after the Daedalus-statue comparison. The quoted standalone sentence immediately follows Socrates’s argument that right opinions can guide action but need to be tied down by an account of their cause. Benjamin Jowett English translation, Project Gutenberg #1643. The text and translational phrasing are Jowett’s; the dialogue does not treat every true opinion as worthless.

The Sign of the Four, Chapter VI, ‘Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration,’ Project Gutenberg #2097. Holmes tells Watson that after eliminating impossible entry routes, ‘whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,’ then applies the precept to the locked-room investigation and the hole in the roof. It is fictional detective reasoning in a specific evidential setup, not a universal rule that any improbable remaining hypothesis is automatically true without sound premises or exhaustive elimination.

Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 517, “A Fundamental Insight”; Helen Zimmern translation.

Crito, Benjamin Jowett translation; Socrates responds to Crito’s concern about public opinion while awaiting execution.

Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph paired with the starving-dog comparison.

Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter XIX epigraph; a Calendar maxim paired with the good-example line.

The Art of War, Chapter III “Attack by Stratagem,” section 2, Lionel Giles translation (1910), printed page 17 / scan leaf 73 in the original Giles edition on Wikisource, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #17405. “Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting” contrasts mere battlefield victory with achieving the strategic objective without direct combat. This remains ancient military-strategy argument in translation, not generic advice for business, relationships or ordinary personal conflict.

The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I, First Book, §1, Haldane and Kemp translation, Project Gutenberg #38427. “Idea” translates Vorstellung in this historical philosophical vocabulary and should not be read as the everyday sense of a passing thought.

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The simile compares a developing intellectual life with a slowly formed work of art.

Notes from Underground, Part I, Chapter IX, Constance Garnett translation. The Underground Man rebels against mathematical certainty and calls “twice two makes four” a piece of insolence. Verified against Project Gutenberg #600 and the 1918 Heinemann White Nights and Other Stories Wikisource text.

On Liberty, Chapter II, Project Gutenberg #34901. Mill’s next argument is epistemic as well as political: suppressing an opinion can deprive everyone of truth or of the clearer understanding created when truth is tested against error.

The Professor at the Breakfast-Table, Project Gutenberg #2665. The sentence appears in a reflection on young poets whose sensitivity can seem older than their years; it is literary-philosophical observation by the book’s conversational persona, not a measurable law of learning.

Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook. The sentence continues by connecting repeated exercises of attention and intelligence with development; it is Montessori’s pedagogical rationale for the material.

A Vindication of the Rights of Men; Wollstonecraft is criticizing sentimental rhetoric in Burke, so the passage should not be read as a rejection of compassion itself.

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter IX; represented Cassell & Company 1889 text in Project Gutenberg #3529. The frozen catalog reads “What a long time it requires to know ourselves, and yet every one has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own,” while the represented witness reads “What a long time it requires to know ourselves; and yet almost every one has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own, even to himself.” This collection retains its legacy shortened wording and explicitly records the omitted “almost” / closing phrase rather than silently rewriting it. Wollstonecraft is reflecting on her own solitude, experience and knowledge of the heart.

Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, essay “The Place of Science in a Liberal Education.” Project Gutenberg #25447. The surrounding passage describes the positive value of a scientific spirit.

Optimism: An Essay (1903), Project Gutenberg #31622. The following paragraph calls ignorant or indifferent optimism dangerous and false.

The War of the Worlds, Book One, Chapter I, “The Eve of the War,” Project Gutenberg #36. The sentence opens the novel by establishing the retrospective Martian-invasion premise and the narrator’s contrast between human complacency and extraterrestrial scrutiny. It is speculative-fiction narration, not a factual claim that Earth was observed by Martian intelligence.

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The claim belongs to Schopenhauer’s philosophical account of personality and subjective experience.

The Advancement of Learning, First Book, Project Gutenberg #5500, transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition. Bacon contrasts impatience of doubt with mature suspension of judgment and then sets out two ways of contemplation before saying that beginning with certainties ends in doubts while beginning with doubts can end in certainties. It remains early-modern epistemological argument rather than a modern experimental rule for scientific method.

How We Think (1910), Chapter VIII, “Judgment: The Interpretation of Facts,” section 1, printed page 107, Project Gutenberg #37423. Dewey identifies a formed judgment as a decision that closes the issue at hand and may help establish a method for analogous later cases. The statement belongs to his early-twentieth-century theory of reflective judgment rather than current clinical, neuroscientific or experimentally settled cognitive science.

Knickerbocker's History of New York, Book I, Chapter II, Project Gutenberg #13042. Exact-witness review corrects the inherited broad Book I locator: the “mighty soap-bubbles” sentence closes the chapter’s comic survey of competing cosmogonic theories. It belongs to Diedrich Knickerbocker’s satirical pseudo-history and anti-pedantic rhetoric, not Irving rejecting science as a method.

Plato, Theaetetus, approximately 189e–190a; Socrates responding to Theaetetus on what it means for the mind to conceive something. Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1726, main dialogue after the discussion of false belief. The same passage later distinguishes inner speech from externally spoken words.

The Principles of Success in Literature, chapter on Vision in Art, Project Gutenberg #10420; “Vision” is Lewes’s critical term for distinct mental apprehension.

How Substances Can Be Good in Virtue of Their Existence Without Being Absolute Goods (De Hebdomadibus), H. F. Stewart / E. K. Rand 1918 edition, Project Gutenberg #13316. The sentence introduces a metaphysical method by distinguishing mental abstraction from actual separation.

Laches, around Stephanus 194e–195a, Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1584. Nicias speaks to Laches after Socrates invites an alternative to Laches’s endurance account; subsequent questioning probes the scope of knowledge about fear and hope and leaves the inquiry unresolved. The local dramatic speaker is Nicias, not Plato personally. The wording occurs in the dialogue body, not Jowett’s introduction.

Of Peace of Mind, section VI, Aubrey Stewart translation (1889), cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #64576 and Wikisource. Seneca orders practical deliberation as an examination of oneself, the proposed business, and the people for whose sake or in whose company it will be done.

Nature (first published 1836), Chapter VIII, “Prospects,” in James Munroe and Company’s 1849 new-edition witness represented by Project Gutenberg #29433. “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common” appears near the essay’s close during Emerson’s discussion of prayer, study, facts and ideas. This collection retains 1836 as first-publication year while the evidence layer identifies the reviewed 1849 witness; the sentence remains Transcendentalist philosophical rhetoric rather than an experimentally established measure of wisdom.

The Problems of Philosophy, Chapter XV, “The Value of Philosophy,” beginning on printed page 242 / scan leaf 246 and continuing onto printed page 243 / scan leaf 247 in the fully validated 1912 Williams & Norgate Wikisource scan, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #5827. The “no tincture of philosophy” sentence criticizes inherited common-sense, national and habitual prejudices that have not been examined by deliberate reason; it remains Russell’s philosophical argument rather than a diagnosis of people who do not study philosophy.

Natural Law in the Spiritual World, represented by Project Gutenberg #23334. The sentence belongs to Drummond’s nineteenth-century attempt to analogize scientific language and Christian theology. It is retained as historical religious-philosophical argument, not a current biological law.

Common Sense (1776), Introduction. The represented wording is verified in Project Gutenberg #147 and the validated scan-backed Wikisource 1776 sixth-edition transcription; Paine follows his warning that custom can make an error look right by observing that time often changes opinion where argument initially does not.

The Montessori Elementary Material (1917), Arthur Livingston translation, Part IV, Geometry, Chapter I, “Plane Geometry,” beginning on printed page 260 and continuing onto page 261, Project Gutenberg #42869. Montessori links long spontaneous work with the geometric material to reasoning, character and higher cognitions within her method. The passage remains an early-twentieth-century pedagogical/developmental claim and is not presented as a universally established modern cognitive-effect estimate.

The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter V; Project Gutenberg #3300. The historical spelling “conveniencies” is retained; this is classical political economy, not a modern household-wealth metric.

The Art of Literature, section “On Thinking for Oneself,” T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10714. The library analogy immediately precedes the sentence.

The Joyful Wisdom, aphorism 261, “Originality”; Thomas Common translation.

On Liberty, Chapter III, “Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being”; Project Gutenberg #34901. The sentence follows Mill's list of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity and moral preference as faculties exercised through making a choice.

Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, discussion of sensory didactic material. The statement reflects Montessori’s historical theory of mental development and is not labeled as a current neuroscientific finding.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; the statement immediately precedes Wollstonecraft’s insistence on reason rather than opinion as authority.

Moral printed after “The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass”; the fox changes his conduct after observing the ass’s fate.

The Age of Reason, Part I, Chapter I, “The Author’s Profession of Faith”; Moncure Daniel Conway collected/edited text represented by Project Gutenberg #3743 and cross-checked against Wikisource. “My own mind is my own church” follows Paine’s rejection of compulsory institutional creeds and states his historical deist emphasis on individual conscience and reason; this collection does not flatten it into a context-free rejection of all community, worship or institutions.

Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book I, Chapter I, W. D. Ross translation (1908), validated Wikisource scan leaf 21. 'All men by nature desire to know' opens the work before the discussion of sensation, memory, experience, art and knowledge. This remains ancient philosophy mediated by translation, not a modern empirical finding about cognition.

The Simple Life, Chapter IV, “Simplicity of Speech,” Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; the claim is rhetorical advice about plain expression.

Phaedo, approximately Stephanus 91b–c, Socrates speaking to Simmias and Cebes after their objections to the arguments about the soul’s survival. He specifically asks them to contradict him if they think his reasoning is wrong. This is a complete sentence from Benjamin Jowett’s English translation, Project Gutenberg #1658, in the dialogue after the translator’s separate introduction. Socrates is a character and local speaker; do not attribute the sentence as a direct personal remark by Plato.

Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, “The Place of Science in a Liberal Education.” Russell continues by describing an attempt to see material frankly, without preconception or wishful bias.

Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 482, “Repeated Once More”; Helen Zimmern translation.

Gulliver's Travels, Part II, Chapter I, Project Gutenberg #829. Lemuel Gulliver reflects that nothing is great or little except by comparison after finding himself tiny among the inhabitants of Brobdingnag, reversing his earlier giant-scale experience in Lilliput. This is fictional first-person satire and perspective play, not a universal philosophical proof.