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Quotes by Thomas Reid

A philosopher is, no doubt, entitled to examine even those distinctions that are to be found in the structure of all languages... in that case, such a distinction may be imputed to a vulgar error, which ought to be corrected in philosophy.
– Thomas Reid
Although memory gives the most irresistible evidence of my being the identical person that did such a thing, at such a time, I may have other good evidence of things which befel me, and which I do not remember: I know who bare me, and suckled me, but I do not remember these events.
– Thomas Reid
And, if we have any evidence that the wisdom which formed the plan is in the man, we have the very same evidence, that the power which executed it is in him also.
– Thomas Reid
But I have never seen any proof that there are such laws of nature, far less any proof that the strongest motive always prevails.
– Thomas Reid
But when, in the first setting out, he takes it for granted without proof, that distinctions found in the structure of all languages, have no foundation in nature; this surely is too fastidious a way of treating the common sense of mankind.
– Thomas Reid
Every indication of wisdom, taken from the effect, is equally an indication of power to execute what wisdom planned.
– Thomas Reid
However much our late fatalists have boasted of this principle as of a law of nature... I am persuaded that, whenever they shall be pleased to give us any measure of the strength of motives distinct from their prevalence, it will appear, from experience, that the strongest motive does not always prevail.
– Thomas Reid
If no other test or measure of the strength of motives can be found but their prevailing, then this boasted principle will be only an identical proposition, and signify only that the strongest motive is the strongest motive, and the motive that prevails is the motive that prevails -which proves nothing.
– Thomas Reid
In the strict and proper sense, I take an efficient cause to be a being who had power to produce the effect, and exerted that power for that purpose.
– Thomas Reid
It follows also, that the active power, of which only we can have any distinct conception, can be only in beings that have understanding and will.
– Thomas Reid
It is a question of fact, whether the influence of motives be fixed by laws of nature, so that they shall always have the same effect in the same circumstances.
– Thomas Reid
The idea is in the mind itself, and can have no existence but in a mind that thinks; but the remote or mediate object may be something external, as the sun or moon; it may be something past or future; it may be something which never existed.
– Thomas Reid
The laws of nature are the rules according to which the effects are produced; but there must be a cause which operates according to these rules.
– Thomas Reid
The rules of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house.
– Thomas Reid
The vulgar allow that this expression implies a mind that thinks, an act of that mind which we call thinking, and an object about which we think. But, besides these three, the philosopher conceives that there is a fourth-to wit, the idea, which is the immediate object.
– Thomas Reid
This is the philosophical meaning of the word idea; and we may observe that this meaning of that word is built upon a philosophical opinion: for, if philosophers had not believed that there are such immediate objects of all our thoughts in the mind, they would never have used the word idea to express them.
– Thomas Reid
When, therefore, in common language, we speak of having an idea of anything, we mean no more by that expression, but thinking of it.
– Thomas Reid
There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.
– Thomas Reid