There are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely, by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

-Bacon, Roger known as Doctor Mirabilis
  Opus Majus (translated by Robert Belle Burke,1928).

I think it is something of the same sort of security we should seek in our relationship with God. The most flawless proof of the existence of God isno substitute for it; and if we have that relationship, the most convincing disproof is turned aimlessly aside.If I may say it with reverence, the soul and God laugh together over so odd a conclusion.

-Eddington, SirArthur Stanley
  Science and the Unseen World.

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

-Einstein, Albert
  The World as I See It.

There is no other course but the one we have chosen, except the course of humiliation and darkness, after which there will be no bright sign in the sky or brilliant light on earth† All this will make us more patient and steadfast, and better prepared for the battle which God blesses and which good men support. Then there will only be a glorious conclusion, where a brilliant sun will clear the dust of battle, and where the clouds of battles will be dispelled.

-Hussein, Saddam
  Baghdad radio broadcast, 21 Feb.

Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legsö especially if the frogs are decapitatedöand thatöon the other handöany doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings^with heads on their shouldersömust be benighted and superstitious.

-James,William
  Pragmatism.

It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusionthat Iamsuffering fromtheparticulardisease therein dealt with in its most virulent form.

-Jerome,Jerome K(lapka)
  Three Men in a Boat, ch.1.

There are two things which I am confident I can do very well: one is an introduction to a literary work, stating what it is to contain, and how it should be executed in the most perfect manner; the other is a conclusion, shewing from various causes why the execution has not been equal to what the author promised to himself and to the public.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

   It is by this painstaking method of careful examination and eventual rejection that we reach a conclusion: life is something to do when you can't get to sleep.

-Lebowitz, Fran(ces Ann)
  Metropolitan Life,'Mars'.

I gave up screwing around a long time ago. I came to the conclusion that sex is a sublimation of the work instinct.

-Lodge, David John
  Small World, pt.1, ch.2.

As to our universities,I've come to the conclusion that theyare e¤  litist where they should be egalitarian, and egalitarian where they should be e¤  litist.

-Lodge, David John
  Nice Work, pt.5, ch.4.

  The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.

-Nietzsche, FriedrichWilhelm
  The Wanderer and His Shadow, aphorism 278.

I have come to the conclusion, after many years of sometimessad experience, that you cannot cometoany conclusion at all.

-Sackville-West,Vita (Victoria Mary)
  'InYour Garden Again'.

If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.

-Shaw, George Bernard
Attributed.

Merely to adopt the more powerful assumption is no more than to assume the more powerful conclusion.

-Solow, Robert M
  In theJournal of Economic Perspectives, 8:53.

I don't think I can be expected to take seriouslya game which takes less than three days to reach its conclusion.

-Stoppard, SirTom originally Tom Straussler
  Of baseball. In The Guardian, 24 Dec.

   I've heard the wolves scuffle, and said: So this Is man; soöwhat better conclusion is thereö The day will not follow night, and the heart Of man has a little dignity, but less patience Than a wolf's, and a duller sense that cannot Smell its own mortality.

-Tate, (John Orley) Allen
  Poems1922^1947,'TheWolves'.