Quotes About Reason

We are spawn of woodland apes. No code has been undone. Neither faith nor reason will deliver us. We must look to the trees.

She becomes the voice of reason when there is none

To live is like to love--all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it

Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.

what reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain.

Reason by degrees submits to absurdity, as the eye in time is accommodated to darkness.

Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason.

Do not disturb your mind," said Imlac, "with other hopes or fears than reason may suggest; if you are pleased with the prognostics of good, you will be terrified likewise with tokens of evil, and your whole life will be a prey to superstition.

but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favour, and reason by degrees submits to absurdity, as the eye is in time accommodated to darkness.

He therefore that would govern his actions by the laws of virtue, must regulate his thoughts by those of reason;  he must keep guilt from the recesses of his heart, and remember that the pleasures of fancy, and the emotions of desire, are more dangerous as they are more hidden, since they escape the awe of observation, and operate equally in every situation, without the concurrence of external opportunities.

Pride is undoubtedly the original of anger; but pride, like every other passion, if it once breaks loose from reason, counteracts its own purposes.

ABSONANT  (A'BSONANT)   adj.[See ABSONOUS.]Contrary to reason, wide from the purpose.   ABSONOUS  (A'BSONOUS)   adj.[absonus, Lat. ill-sounding.]Absurd, contrary to reason.

The greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than that they are in fashion.

Il mondo forma i suoi giudizi sulle nostre azioni piuttosto dai fatti che da dove stia la ragione nei casi dubbi.

But a caution, Harriet! — Never, never, let foolish dreams claim a moment of your attention — Imminent as seemed the danger, your superstition made more dreadful to you than otherwise it would have been. You have a mind superior to such foibles: Act up to its native dignity, and let not the follies of your nurses, in your infantile state, be carried into your maturer age, to depreciate your womanly reason. Do you think I don't dream, as well as you?

It's not that I believe everything happens for a reason," she said. "It's just that . . . I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It's the universe's way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It's how life is.

Sometimes Holly could start to see the order in things, she got a glimmer of a pattern. And that thing everyone seems to say these days, about how things always happen for a reason- Holly was getting close to being willing to concede that that was maybe, possibly true.

In America, on the ordinate plane of faith versus reason, the x-axis of faith intersects with the y-axis of reason at the zero point of I don't give a damn what you think.

Devoted to principles of liberty, equality, and religious tolerance -- which, dear internet, is not necessarily the same thing as satanism -- Masonic lodge became the de facto clubhouses of the Age of Reason.

The fourfold root of the principle of sufficent reason is Anything perceived has a cause. All conclusions have premises. All effects have causes. All actions have motives.

When politicians tell lies, they know the press will call them out. They also know it doesn't matter. Politicians understand that reason will never have much of a role in voting decisions. A lie that makes a voter feel good is more effective than a hundred rational arguments. That's even true when the voter knows the lie is a lie.

We humans like to think we are creatures of reason. We aren't. The reality is that we make our decisions first and rationalize them later....Your illusion of being a rational person is supported by the fact that sometimes you do act rationally.

If you believe people use reason for the important decisions in life, you will go through life feeling confused and frustrated that others seem to have bad reasoning skills. The reality is that reason is just one of the drivers of our decisions, and often the smallest one.

If you believe people use reason for the important decisions in life, you will go through life feeling confused and frustrated that others seem to have bad reasoning skills.