Quotes About Reason

Reason and be open to reason; yield to principle, not pressure.

Crime is common but logic is rare,

For what are the Aegyption Hierogliphicks, and the whole History of the Pagan Gods; the Hints, and Fictions of the Wise Men of Old, but in Effect, a kind of Philosophical Mythology ; Which is, in truth, no other, then a more Agreeable Vehicle found out for Conveying to us the Truth and Reason of Things, though the medium of Images and Shadows.

Innocence is no Protection against the Arbitrary Cruelty of a Tyrannical Power : But Reason and Conscience are yet so Sacred, that the Greatest Villanies are still Contenanc'd under that Cloak and Color.

The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.…We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

beauty is an ultimate value—something that we pursue for its own sake, and for the pursuit of which no further reason need be given. Beauty should therefore be compared to truth and goodness, one member of a trio of ultimate values which justify our rational inclinations.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.

When Spinoza in the seventeenth century used the word reason, he meant an attitude toward life in which the mind united the emotions with the ethical goals and other aspects of the "whole man." When people today use the term they almost always imply a splitting of the personality. They ask in one form or another: "Should I follow reason or give way to sensual passions and needs or be faithful to my ethical duty?

When Spinoza in the seventeenth century used the word reason, he meant an attitude toward life in which the mind united the emotions with the ethical goals and other aspects of the "whole man." When people today use the term they almost

The human being has reason. This enables him to conceive of truth- yet what he says or writes in learned books is always but a thrust in the direction of truth, it ever falls short of truth itself.

I am very old,' he said gravely. He added, as a matter of course: 'I'm glad to die in Africa.' 'And why?' 'Because this is where mankind began. The cradle of humanity is in Nyasaland. It's been pretty well proved.' 'Odd reason.' 'One dies better at home.' 'Yet another one, I thought, who's trying to find a home on earth.

Il reste enfin l'explication la plus simple et la plus vraisemblable, c'est que ma mère aimait la France sans raison aucune, comme chaque fois que l'on aime vraiment.

He gave up. It was no use. She wasn't listening. He was finding himself in a situation as old as mankind itself: reason against superstition.

it must be admitted that on neither side have they brought honor to the cause of reason, which they have not been able to protect against the winds of violence and folly.

Mr. Speaker, I once again find myself compelled to vote against the annual budget resolution for a very simple reason: it makes government bigger.

Intellectually and compassionately explaining the reason freedom works is required for credibility.

Almost all of your life is lived by the seat of your pants, one unexpected event crashing into another, with no pattern or reason, and then you finally reach a point, around my age, where you spend more time than ever looking back. Why did this happen? Look where that led? You see the shape of things.

We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology.

Moral action – humble and honest – is the tribute that power must at some point pay to reason.

Perhaps one of the reasons why revolutions have been so few among the English-speaking peoples is because English is so matter-of fact, so uninflammatory that the words needed to suspend the reason of rabbles are entirely lacking. The Romance languages, on the other hand, have not this disability, and the Slavonic languages seem to have been invented for the purpose of expressing or arousing the most intimate emotions without embarrassing either oneself or ones hearers.

Running clears my mind, and gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

The senses give both us and the animals access to the natural world, but we humans have superimposed a second world by internalizing a poem, thereby making the two worlds seem equally inescapable. Outside of the natural sciences, reason works within the second world, following paths that the imagination has cleared. But inside those sciences, nature itself shows the way,

Rationality is a matter of making allowed moves within language games. Imagination creates the games that reason proceeds to play. Then, exemplified by people such as Plato and Newton, it keeps modifying those games so that playing them is more interesting and profitable. Reason cannot get outside of the latest circle that imagination has drawn. It is in this sense, and only in this sense, that imagination holds the primacy.

La razón posee una naturaleza pulcra y hacendosa y siempre se esfuerza por llenar de causas y efectos todos los misterios con los que se topa, al contrario de la imaginación (la loca de la casa, como la llamaba Santa Teresa de Jesús), que es pura desmesura y deslumbrante caos.