quotations about reason
Whenever he was required to use his reason he felt like someone who had always used his right hand but was now required to do something with his left.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook B", The Waste Books
Who builds on Reason builds upon the sand
A fabric mortal as the human brain.
FRANCIS HOWARD WILLIAMS
"Sic Itur Ad Astra"
My reason is the universe's voice.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"Prayer", Poetical Meditations
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
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
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
Reason often overturns experience.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Reason is the first victim of strong emotion.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune Messiah
It is to no manner of purpose that we have reason on our side, when the laugh is against us.
ROBERT BOLTON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Human reason is a pin dancing on the head of an angel, so small is it in comparison to the Divine vastness that encircles us.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
False reasoners are often best confuted by giving them the full swing of their own absurdities.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Changing from the ghosts of faith to the spectres of reason is just changing cells.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
He that gives Reason for what he saith, has done what is fit to be done; and the most that can be done: He, that gives not Reason, speaks nothing, though he saith never so much.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
He that useth his reason doth acknowledge God.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Those that differ upon Reason, may come together by Reason.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine sense is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
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)
Sometimes people need reasons for things, even when there are no reasons. That's what makes people believe in conspiracies or religions--if there's any difference. The world is just too complicated, so they need simple explanations.
TAD WILLIAMS
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow
When God is contriving misfortunes for man, He first deprives him of his reason.
EURIPIDES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Man parts with his freedom and enslaves himself when he subjects himself to that which is not sovereign in him, as Reason is.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms