Quotes About Reason

Der Verständige findet fast alles lächerlich, der Vernünftige fast nichts.

You have to tell this ship to turn around!" He had a feeling she was serious, so he managed not to laugh. Well,he tried-and failed. "I'm sure the 'ship' won't listen to reason. No,really,I'm positive it won't." "You know what I mean!" she shrieked at him.

One reason that so many people today say, "I believe in spirituality, but not in religion," is that the products of the human spirit, the various religious traditions, can so easily become warring sects if not brought within a wider, more reasoned perspective. Unitarian Universalism offers the opportunity not only to deepen one's personal spirituality through dialogue, but to do so in a context where "the guidance of reason and the results of science" are honored.

The law no passion can disturb. 'Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. 'Tis mens sine affectu, written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but, without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low.

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it. { Letter to his son and 6th US president, John Quincy Adams , November 13 1816 }

Evil is a fact not to be explained away, but to be accepted and accepted not to be endured, but to be conquered. It is a challenge neither to our reason nor to our patience, but to our courage.

We're obliged to acknowledge the limits of reason; and to acknowledge the necessary reality of the realms to which reason has no access.

Then love of pleasure sways each heart, and we From that no more than from ourselves can fly. Blameless when govern'd well. But where it errs Extravagant, and wildly leads to ill, Public or private, there its curbing pow'r Cool reason must exert.

First, I think more Americans need to declare their independence from partisan politics on both sides. The more that Americans declare their independence, the more the parties will have to compete for their votes using reason rather than the hateful appeals.

what is required is not more effective defence of the viability of Christian talk about revelation before the tribunal of impartial reason: the common doctrinal slenderness of such defences nearly always serves to inflame rather than reduce the dogmatic difficulties.

Religion is the opium of the People. She had been made to repeat that parrot-wise when she was a child, but since living in England she had come to consider Karl Marx a dull bigot and had started to take an interest in the occult. But Meg's fluttering hands and crazed confession told her that the slogan was true. Religion and the supernatural were drugs: mental poisons to kill reason and create insanity.

There is no nation on the continent of Europe that is less able to do harm to England, and there isno nation on the continent of Europe to whom we are less able to do harm, than Russia.We are so separate that it seems impossible that the two nations, by the use of reason or common sense at all, could possibly be brought into conflict with each other.

Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.

John C. Polkinghorne

In no age or country, perhaps, since the dawn of civilization was humbuggery exhibited in more gigantic and grotesque forms. . . . Reason was everywhere reeling in the storm, and madness ruled the masses."22

Hero-worship is innate to human nature, and it is founded on some of our noblest feelings,—gratitude, love, and admiration.—but which, like all other feelings, when uncontrolled by principle and reason, may easily degenerate into the wildest exaggerations, and lead to most dangerous consequences.

In this respect the frailty of the human mind is surely proved: even when it seems to follow the way, it limps and staggers. Yet the fact remains that some seed of political order has been implanted in all men. And this is ample proof that in the arrangement of this life no man is without the light of reason.

the testimony of the Spirit is superior to reason. For as God alone can properly bear witness to his own words, so these words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men, until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who spoke by the mouth of the prophets, must penetrate our hearts, in order to convince us that they faithfully delivered the message with which they were divinely entrusted. This

But if God has set his seat in the sanctuary of the heavens in order to rule the universe, it follows that he by no means ignores earthly affairs, but controls them with the highest reason and wisdom.

The Jews were continually warned not to look for the reason for their adoption elsewhere than in God's free favor. He had seen fit to choose them; this alone was the source of their security.

Hence it happens that today so many dogs assail this doctrine with their venomous bitings, or at least with barking: for they wish nothing to be lawful for God beyond what their own reason prescribes for themselves. Also they rail at us with as much wantonness as they can; because we, not content with the precepts of the law, which comprise God's will, say also that the universe is ruled by his secret plans.

They who restrict this appellation to   the inferior part of the soul are greatly deceived. For since the soul   of man is vitiated in every part, and the reason of man is not less   blind than his affections are perverse, the whole is properly called   carnal.

But it is none the less true that men do not come to God by way of their own reason; neither do they in this way get near to him, because all their intelligence is but vanity. Whence