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Reason is God's greatest gift to man.
As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.
BERTRAND RUSSELL, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Maxims for Revolutionists
Thought is what makes humans human ... It's the luminous spark of reason that grants us lordship over the animals, endows us with cell phones, and offers hope, even in our darkest hours, that our species will somehow calculate the way forward to a brighter tomorrow.
BRUNO MADDOX, Discover magazine, May 2006
Reason is man's instrument for arriving at the truth, intelligence is man's instrument for manipulating the world more successfully; the former is essentially human, the latter belongs to the animal part of man.
ERICH FROMM, The Sane Society
Our reason is always disappointed by the inconstancy of appearances.
Reasons are the pillars of the mind.
Men may be divided into two classes, according to the use they make of reason. Some men employ reason, or, as it is more commonly called, SENSE, to defend error by argument; others employ it, to discover and distinguish truth: the power, therefore, which we call SENSE, may exist without its use; and it is only valuable, in proportion as the mind is candid, dispassionate, impartial, and unprejudiced.
FULKE GREVILLE, Maxims, Characters, and Reflections
Prejudice is not bigotry or superstition, although prejudice sometimes may degenerate into these. Prejudice is pre-judgment, the answer with which intuition and ancestral consensus of opinion supply a man when he lacks either time or knowledge to arrive at a decision predicated upon pure reason.
RUSSELL KIRK, The Conservative Mind
A display of reason rather than a threat of force should be the determining factor in the intercourse among nations.
CALVIN COOLIDGE, inaugural address, Mar. 4, 1925
Never, never do violence to your rational nature. He who in any case admits doctrines which contradict reason, has broken down the great barrier between truth and falsehood, and lays open his mind to ever delusion.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING, Thoughts
Reason, like the Sun, is common to all; and 'tis for want of examining all by the same light and measure, that we are not all of the same mind: For all have it to that end, though not all do use it so.
WILLIAM PENN, Some Fruits of Solitude
Reasons are not like garments, the worse for wearing.
ROBERT DEVEREUX, To Lord Willoughby, 4 Jan. 1598
There are so many kinds of madness, so many ways in which the human brain may go wrong; and so often it happens that what we call madness is both reasonable and just. It is so. Yes. A little reason is good for us, a little more makes wise men of some of us--but when our reason over-grows us and we reach too far, something breaks and we go insane.
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD, "The Case of Beauvais," Back to God's Country and Other Stories
I am the eternal optimist. I think that, over time, people respond to civility and -- and rational argument.
BARACK OBAMA, press conference, Feb. 9, 2009
Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.
MARIO PUZO, The Godfather
- Who builds on Reason builds upon the sand
- A fabric mortal as the human brain.
FRANCIS HOWARD WILLIAMS, "Sic Itur Ad Astra"
Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason.
JOHN WESLEY, letter to Joseph Benson, Oct. 5, 1770
Reason is a necessary instrument, to be used for good or evil, but it has no moral qualities.
REINHARD BENDIX, Embattled Reason
He who in reasoning cites authority is making use of his memory rather than of his intellect.
LEONARDO DA VINCI, Thoughts on Art and Life
There is a revelation of God to man in the light of reason.
JOHN GRIER HIBBEN, The Problems of Philosophy
Reason often overturns experience.
Men's reasonings on practical subjects are not cold, logical processes, standing separate in the mind, but are carried on in intimate connection with their prevalent feelings and modes of thought. Generally speaking, that, and that only, is truth to a man which accords with the common tone of his mind, with the mass of his impressions, with the results of his experience, with his measure of intellectual development, and especially with those deep convictions and biases which constitute what we call character.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING, Thoughts
Reason is the miner's lamp used in bringing up ore from the mind.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought
False reasoners are often best confuted by giving them the full swing of their own absurdities.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
Reason is always weak where prejudice is strong.
NORMAN MACDONALD, Maxims and Moral Reflections
It by no means follows that we acted from reason, because good reasons can be produced for what we did.
FULKE GREVILLE, Maxims, Characters, and Reflections
Reason is the touchstone of philosophy.
The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Nothing does Reason more right, than the coolness of those that offer it. For truth often suffers more by the Heat of its defenders, than from the arguments of its opposers.
WILLIAM PENN, Some Fruits of Solitude
Reason is the Divine Governor of Man's life; it is the very Voice of God.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, Moral and Religious Aphorisms
To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL, Lectures on the Philosophy of History
There is no greater misfortune in the world than the loss of reason.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV, The Master and Margarita
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787
Browse Reason Quotes II
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