The following exercises will give you practice in identifying premises and conclusions.
1. Since light takes time to reach our eyes, all that we see really existed in the past. (Louis Pojman, The Theory of Knowledge)
2. Life changes when you least expect it to. The future is uncertain. So seize this day, seize this moment, and make the most of it. (JimValvano, quoted in Mike Krzyzewski, Leading with the Heart)
3. Take care of a good name: for this shall continue with thee, more than a thousand treasures precious and great. (Ecclesiasticus 41:15)
4. I think faith is a vice, because faith means believing a proposition when there is no good reason for believing it. (Bertrand Russell, “The Existence and Nature of God”)
5. You want to be very careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught. (Mark Twain, “Advice to Youth”)
6. There is no definitive way to prove any one set of religious beliefs to the exclusion of all others. For that reason religious freedom is a human right. (Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Understanding the Foundations of Ethical Reasoning)
7. Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage — at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom. (Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science)
8. Do not play your sound system loudly as you may not be able to hear warning sirens from emergency vehicles. In addition, hearing damage from loud noise is almost undetectable until it’s too late, (car owner’s manual)
9. Our attitudes toward creatures that are conscious and capable of experiencing sensations like pain and pleasure are importantly different from our attitudes toward things lacking such capacities, mere chunks of matter or insentient plants, as witness the controversies about vegetarianism and scientific experiments involving live animals. (Jaegwon Kim, Philosophy of Mind, 3rded.)
10. You know how I know animals have souls? Because on average, the lowest animal is a lot nicer and kinder than most of the human beings that inhabit this Earth, (newspaper call-in column)
11. Democracy has at least one merit, namely, that a member of Parliament can- not be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him. (Bertrand Russell, Autobiography)
12. Don’t worry about senility. When it hits you, you won’t know it. (Bill Cosby, Time Flies)
13. There is nothing wrong with burning crude [oil] like crazy— oil isn’t helping anyone when it sits in the ground — so long as there’s a plan for energy alternatives when the cheap oil runs out. (Gregg Easterbrook, “Opportunity Costs” )
14. You should always honor your fiercest opponent; the better your opponent, the better you have to be. (Lance Armstrong, Every Second Counts)
15. The evil of drunkenness consists partly in the physical deterioration it gradually induces, but far more in the unseating of reason from its ruling position, making the man a temporary beast, and in the disastrous social consequences involved in becoming unfit for any responsible work, such as holding a job or supporting a family. (Austin Fagothey, Right and Reason, 6th ed.)
16. It’s part of human nature to be angry at God when bad things happen, but what’s the point? If we encourage each other to blame God for injustices, then aren’t we giving the evil or dark side a victory by keeping God’s precious children — that’s all of us — away from His loving arms? (letter to the editor
17. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. (Abraham Lincoln,“ Meditation on the Divine Will” )
18. There seems to be a tacit assumption that if grizzlies survive in Canada and Alaska, that is good enough. It is not good enough for me. The Alaska bears are a distinct species. Relegating grizzlies to Alaska is about like relegating happiness to heaven; one may never get there. (Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac).
19. Has it ever occurred to you how lucky you are to be alive? More than 99 percent of all creatures that have ever lived have died without progeny, but not a single one of your ancestors falls into this group! (Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea)
20. Men love the suit so much, we’ve actually styled our pajamas to look like a tiny suit. Our pajamas have little lapels, little cuffs, simulated breast pockets. Do you need a breast pocket on your pajamas? You put a pen in there, you roll over in the middle of the night, you kill yourself. (Jerry Seinfeld, SeinLanguage).