Quotes About Rationality

Because reason...is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts, I would prefer to believe that it exists, in its entirety, in each of us.

It is hard to fight against anger: to master it is the mark of a rational man.

The atheist . . . destroys the chimeras which afflict the human race, and so leads men back to nature, to experience and to reason.

...a distinction must be made between true and false ideas, and that too much rein must not be given to a man's imagination under pretext of its being a clear and distinct intellection.

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.

The government of man should be the monarchy of reason: it is too often the democracy of passions or the anarchy of humors.

Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority... Supere aude! Dare to use your own understanding!is thus the motto of the Enlightenment.

Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his only means to gain it.

Men suppose their reason has command over their words; still it happens that words in return exercise authority on reason

The mind is the attribute of man. When man is born, he comes into existence with only one weapon with him--The reasoning mind.

I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.

Man is the inventor of stupidity.

A wise man is not governed by others, nor does he try to govern them; he prefers that reason alone prevail.

Indeed, I am sometimes inclined to doubt whether some men consider youth as rational and intelligent beings, with minds capable of expansion, and talents formed for usefulness.

He passes from lyric to epic poetry in order to speak about the world and the torment in the world through man, rationally and emotionally. The poet then becomes a danger.

Logic only gives man what he needs... Magic gives him what he wants.

Universities are the custodians not only of the many cultures of man, but of the rational process itself.

A man who does not lose his reason over certain things has none to lose.

Man has a tendency to try to give clear reasons to be rational, but often you can see how all those reasons are not convincing and turn out to be a big nonsense.

Logic never attracts men to the point of carrying them away.

A sane man often reasons from sound premises; an insane man commonly reasons as well, but the premises are unsound.

Each man must live as an end in himself and follow his own rational self-interest.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

Myth is necessary because reality is so much larger than rationality...man is fundamentally mythic...His real health depends upon his knowing and living his metaphysical totality.