Thomas Reid

“A chain of reasoning is no stronger than its weakest link.”

“I despise philosophy, and renounce its guidance—let my soul dwell with Common Sense.”

“There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.”

“The wise man is he who knows the relative value of things.”

“It is genius, and not the want of it, that adulterates philosophy, and fills it with error and false theory.”

“Let us, as philosophers, lay aside the scale of fashion, or received opinion, and apply the scale of reason.”

“All knowledge and all science must be built upon principles that are self-evident; and it is to inquiries of this nature that I give the name of Common Sense.”

“Reason, in its most simple and most ancient sense, means the power of judging of truth.”

“In the world of bodies we see various changes produced, but we see not the power that produces them.”

“Nature is the art of God.”

“A first principle may be compared to the seed of a plant, which has its whole future existence and all its various parts enclosed in it.”

“The evidence of sense, the evidence of memory, and the evidence of the necessary relations of things, are all distinct and original kinds of evidence.”

“An opinion which is held by all mankind, as far as we can know, has a good claim to be considered as a first principle of common sense.”

“I know of no cause of my belief, but I find I must believe it.”

“That the evidence of memory is immediate and intuitive, is a position which I think cannot be justly called in question.”