Plato Quotes

When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.

Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

It is not surprising that in talking about uncertainty we should lean heavily on facts, just as the court of law does when interrogating witnesses. Facts form a sort of bedrock on which we can build the shifting sands of uncertainty.

Even if all parts of a problem seem to fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, one has to remember that the probable need not necessarily be the truth and the truth not always probable.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven.

We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.

Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.

A proof tells us where to concentrate our doubts.

A thousand probabilities don't make one fact.

Argument is conclusive … but … it does not remove doubt.

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.

Don't confuse evidence with a conclusion.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

There is no such thing as absolute proof. There is only evidence.

Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into deeds

Validity is the touchstone of inference, and truth of judgment: the fact that vichyssoise is cold ratifies the judgment that vichyssoise is, indeed, cold, and the judgment that vichyssoise is cold expresses the fact that vichyssoise is cold.

We must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.

In its efforts to learn as much as possible about nature, modern physics has found that certain things can never be "known" with certainty. Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities.

You can never be absolutely certain that anything doesn't exist. But you can show that it's unlikely.

Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance.

Even things that are true can be proved.

I know too well that these arguments from probabilities are imposters, and unless great caution is observed in the use of them, they are apt to be deceptive.

I believe the calculation of the quantity of probability might be improved to a very useful and pleasant speculation, and applied to a great many events which are accidental, besides those of games; only these cases would be infinitely more confused, as depending on chances which the most part of men are ignorant of.

Pooh looked at his two paws. He knew that one of them was the right, and he knew that when you had decided which one of them was the right, then the other one was the left, but he never could remember how to begin.