REASON QUOTES II
quotations about reason
History confirms and reconfirms the limits of reason. It was not reason, for instance, that defeated German and Japanese aggression in two world wars. It was not reason that for decades thereafter kept Soviet wickedness in check. These were tyrannical regimes that steamrolled over reason. They only stopped or retreated when met with superior force.
LES MACPHERSON
"Reason no deterrent to barbaric enemies", Saskatoon Star Phoenix, February 11, 2016
When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
attributed, Day's Collacon
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 and the reasoning faculty need no foreign assistance, but are sufficient for their own purposes. They move within themselves, and make directly for the point in view. Wherefore, acts in accordance with them are called right acts, for they lead along the right road.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
If not reason, then the devil.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Crime and Punishment
Never reason from what you do not know; if you do, you will soon believe what is utterly against reason.
J. RAMSAY
attributed, Day's Collacon
We are not to renounce our senses and experience, nor (that which is the undoubted Word of God) our natural Reason. For they are the talents which he hath put into our hands to negotiate, till the coming again of our blessed savior, and therefore not to be folded up in the napkin of an implicate faith, but employed in the purchase of justice, peace, and true religion. For though there be many things in God's Word above Reason--that is to say, which cannot by natural reason be either demonstrated or confuted--yet there is nothing contrary to it.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
You can't trust reason. We threw it out of the ad profession long ago and have never missed it.
FREDERIK POHL
The Space Merchants
Reason is the miner's lamp used in bringing up ore from the mind.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
Human reason is like a drunken man on horseback; set it up on one side, and it tumbles over on the other.
MARTIN LUTHER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Hear Reason, or she'll make you feel her.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1744
There is a set of imperious and arrogant people, with whom it is dangerous to engage, that always arrogate reason and sense to themselves, and allow no one else to be in the right.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
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.
JOHN LOCKE
Second Treatise of Government
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.
ALEXANDER POPE
Essay on Man and Other Poems
If a man be once out of the use of Reason, there are no bounds to Unreasonableness.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstasy, politics becomes an opiate for the masses, a proletarian eschatology; and reason veils her face.
THOMAS MANN
"An Appeal to Reason"
I am the eternal optimist. I think that, over time, people respond to civility and -- and rational argument.
BARACK OBAMA
press conference, February 9, 2009
Every man carries about him a touchstone, if he will make use of it, to distinguish substantial gold from superficial glitterings, truth from appearances. And indeed the use and benefit of this touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assuming prejudices, overweening presumption, and narrowing our minds.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Reason has built the modern world. It is a precious but also a fragile thing, which can be corroded by apparently harmless irrationality. We must favor verifiable evidence over private feeling. Otherwise we leave ourselves vulnerable to those who would obscure the truth.
RICHARD DAWKINS
"Slaves to Superstition", The Enemies of Reason