quotations about reason
Those who invalidate reason, ought seriously to consider, whether they argue against reason, with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle, that they are laboring to dethrone; but if they argue without reason, (which, in order to be consistent with themselves, they must do,) they are out of the reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
Reason is a religious duty and quality of the mind; and exercise of the judgment upon all occasions and subjects is true and most divine worship.
CORA HATCH
"The Religion of Life", Discourses on Religion, Morals, Philosophy and Metaphysics
There are strange flowers of reason to match each error of the senses. Admirable gardens of absurd beliefs, forebodings, obsessions and frenzies. Unknown, ever-changing gods take shape there.
LOUIS ARAGON
Paris Peasant
Beasts act by sense, man should by reason; else he is a greater beast than ever God made: And the proverb is verified, the corruption of the best things is the worst and most offensive.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Those who are guided by reason are generally successful in their plans.
HERODOTUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Those that differ upon Reason, may come together by Reason.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Reason's a thing we dimly see in sleep.
REBECCA WEST
The Birds Fall Down
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
Reason often overturns experience.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
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
The total loss of reason is less deplorable than the total deprivation of it.
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Essays and Selected Verse
Reasons are not like garments, the worse for wearing.
ROBERT DEVEREUX
to Lord Willoughby, January 4, 1598
He that useth his reason doth acknowledge God.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.
EPICTETUS
Discourses
To say that man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man's decisions are based on his rational process. That I don't believe at all.
REX STOUT
Royal Decree Revisited
Mental or spiritual health, which is rationality, makes for progress, and the future demands greater and greater mental or spiritual health, greater and greater rationality. The brain must dominate and direct both the individual and society in the time to come, not the belly and the heart.
JACK LONDON
The Kempton-Wace Letters
For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
On the Laws
Reason is the newest and rarest thing in human life, the most delicate child of human history.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason.
JOHN WESLEY
letter to Joseph Benson, October 5, 1770
There is a revelation of God to man in the light of reason.
JOHN GRIER HIBBEN
The Problems of Philosophy