REASON QUOTES III

quotations about reason

Reason quote

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Our Knowledge of the External World

Tags: Bertrand Russell


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

Tags: Frederik Pohl


Let reason flow like water around a stone, the stone remains.

JANE HIRSHFIELD

"Critique of Pure Reason"

Tags: Jane Hirshfield


If a man be once out of the use of Reason, there are no bounds to Unreasonableness.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms


He is next to the gods whom reason, and not passion, impels.

CLAUDIAN

attributed, Day's Collacon


Reason is like a runner who doesn't know that the race is over, or, like Penelope, constantly undoing what it creates.... It is better suited to pulling things down than to building them up, and better at discovering what things are not, than what they are.

PIERRE BAYLE

Reply to the Questions of a Provincial, 1703


Within the brain's most secret cells
A certain Lord Chief Justice dwells
Of sovereign power, whom one and all
With common voice, we Reason call.

CHARLES CHURCHILL

The Ghost

Tags: Charles Churchill


I'll not listen to reason.... Reason always means what someone else has got to say.

ELIZABETH GASKELL

Cranford

Tags: Elizabeth Gaskell


Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

G. K. CHESTERTON

Orthodoxy

Tags: G. K. Chesterton


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

Tags: Barack Obama


There is no greater misfortune in the world than the loss of reason.

MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

The Master and Margarita

Tags: Mikhail Bulgakov


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

Tags: John Locke


Reason is a necessary instrument, to be used for good or evil, but it has no moral qualities.

REINHARD BENDIX

Embattled Reason

Tags: Reinhard Bendix


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

Tags: Richard Dawkins


Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.

G. K. CHESTERTON

Twelve Types

Tags: G. K. Chesterton


The sleep of reason produces monsters.

FRANCISCO GOYA

caption on etching, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters


Reason in man is rather like God in the world.

THOMAS AQUINAS

Opuscules

Tags: Thomas Aquinas


Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.

ANTON CHEKHOV

Uncle Vanya

Tags: Anton Chekhov


The problem is that barbarism does not respond to reason. Rejection of reason is a distinguishing characteristic of barbarism. Brute force, another characteristic of barbarism, beats reason every time, as scissors beat paper.

LES MACPHERSON

"Reason no deterrent to barbaric enemies", Saskatoon Star Phoenix, February 11, 2016


Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.

WILLIAM BLAKE

There is No Natural Religion

Tags: William Blake