REASONING

Does the human being reason? No; he thinks, muses, reflects, but does not reason...That is, in the two things which are the peculiar domain of the heart, not the mind,--politics and religion. He doesn't want to know the other side. He wants arguments and statistics for his own side, and nothing more.
- Mark Twain's Notebook

The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty persons where reasoning convinces but one.
- "Is Shakespeare Dead?"

That is the way we are made: we don't reason, where we feel; we just feel.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute.
- "The Lowest Animal"

...when we badly want a thing, we go to hunting for good and righteous reasons for it; we give it that fine name to comfort our consciences, whereas we privately know we are only hunting for plausible ones.
- No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger