reason Quotes

“Reason is God’s crowning gift to a man”

“Dreams seem to be spurred on not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the heart, and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in dreams, what utterly incomprehensible things happen to it!”

“They who have received some portion of God’s gift, these, if judged by their deeds, have from death’s bond won their release; for they embrace in their own mind, all things, things on the earth, things in the heaven, and things above the heaven - if there be aught. They who do not understand, because they possess the aid of reason only and not mind, are ignorant wherefore they have come into being and whereby, like irrational creatures, their makeup is in their feelings and their impulses, they fail in all appreciation of things which really are worth contemplation. These center all their thought upon the pleasures of the body and its appetites.”

“God had given men reason, by which they could find out things for themselves; but he had given animals knowledge which did not depend on reason, and which was much more prompt and perfect in its way, and by which they had often saved the lives of men.”

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.

“For not observing the state of another man’s soul, scarce was ever any man known to be unhappy. Tell whosoever they be that intend not, and guide not by reason and discretion the motions of their own souls, they must of necessity be unhappy.”

“Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our strongest impulse—the tyrant in us.”

“Just because you’re an atheist, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t love for things to have reasons for why they are.”

“Rest in reason; move in passion.”

“Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.”

“The carnal sinners are condemn’d, in whom Reason by lust is sway’d.”

“I’d prefer a world with no identity politics. I’d prefer we judged people according to reason, logic and evidence instead of barmy left-wing theories about ‘oppression.’ ”

“It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason.”

“She had always wanted words, she loved them, grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.”

“In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

“Instinct is no match for reason.”

“Every bad man is ignorant what he ought to do and what to leave undone, and by reason of such error men become unjust and wholly evil.”

“Move from reason that observes to reason that acts.”

“We praise the Reason or Rational part of the Soul, because it exhorts a right and to the best course: but clearly there is in them, beside the Reason, some other natural principle which fights with and strains against the Reason.”

“To sift all of the opinions would be perhaps rather a fruitless task; so it shall suffice to sift those which are most generally current, or are thought to have some reason in them.”

Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn’t meant to be reasonable.

“We tell ourselves there are reasons for the things that happen, but we’re just telling ourselves stories. We make them up. They don’t mean anything.”

“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.”

“Reason is man’s faculty for grasping the world by thought, in contradiction to intelligence, which is man’s ability to manipulate the world with the help of thought. ”

“I had hoped there was another reason for you to carry his sword.”

“Our reason and instinct are in opposition, but we can’t get rid of either one.”

“Because of our broken instincts, we are in pain. We continue living in pain, because our instincts have been twisted by reason.”

″‘How could any Lord have made this world?’ she asked. With her mind she had always seized the fact that there is no reason, order, justice: but suffering, death, the poor. There was no treachery too base for the world to commit; she knew that. No happiness lasted; she knew that.”

“Because we do most things relying on our own sagacity we become self-interested, turn our backs on reason, and things do not turn out well.”

“When the reason is big enough, you will be willing to perform almost any how.”

“No . . . You can’t understand. You’re using the language of reason, not of the heart; you live in a world of abstractions.”

“but when I see those lovely old boxcars with their faded painted lettering and those flat cars and those fat round tankers all lined up and waiting I get quiet inside I get what other men get from other things I just feel better and it’s good to feel better whenever you can not needing a reason.”

“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

“Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.”

“So take the time to think. Discover your real reason for being here and then have the courage to act on it.”

“Good heavens, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when we come to tabulation and arithmetic, when it will all be a case of twice two make four? Twice two makes four without my will. As if free will meant that! ”

“You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there’s no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man’s nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. ”

“Steadfastness, it seems, is more about dogs than about us. One of the reasons we love them so much.”

“Commentators who today talk of ‘The Dark Ages’ when faith instead of reason was said to ruthlessly rule, have for their animadversions only the excuse of perfect ignorance. Both Aquinas’ intellectual gifts and his religious nature were of a kind that is no longer commonly seen in the Western world.”

“The soul is divided into two parts, of which the one has reason itself, while the other does not have it in itself, but is capable of obeying reason.”

“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”

“If you have more than one reason to do something (choose a doctor or veterinarian, hire a gardener or an employee, marry a person, go on a trip), just don’t do it. It does not mean that one reason is better than two, just that by invoking more than one reason you are trying to convince yourself to do something. Obvious decisions (robust to error) require no more than a single reason.”

“what is the reason that makes some days so lucky and other days so unlucky? Now, today began all wrong, and everything that happened in it was wrong, and on other days it begins right, and all goes right, straight through.”

“Everything happens for a reason, and part of that beauty of life is that we’re not allowed to know those reasons for certain.”

″...change is the nature of life. The reason to hope.”

“Not one of the seven is really good, for the very excellent reason that Australian children never are.”

“And there’s not one reason why I can’t leave for Lexington too, except you don’t want me.”

“I admire the activity of your benevolence,” observed Mary, “but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.”

God knows that there is ground for my terrible fear in this accursed place!

“John, my child, you have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever know me to do any without good cause? I may err—I am but man; but I believe in all I do.”

“My friend,” said he, “this is not right. You sin against the universal reason; you choose your time badly.”