Two tin cans linked by a badly frayed string on a dark olive background.

Original artwork, not a still

Jonathan Swift

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker argues that debating someone out of a belief is pointless when logic never produced it in the first place. Convictions held for emotional or habitual reasons cannot be dislodged by evidence. Persuasion works only on positions reason built, so argument against unreasoned belief gets nowhere.

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