Quotes About Reason

the next Age of Reason will not come easily in this time of magical beliefs and superstitious fear.

Logic and reason are deceptive. They can lead a person to lose his soul. —MANFORD TORONDO, speech on Salusa Secundus

we express a commitment to that which cannot be established by reason, or to that which can be established by reason but not for that reason.12

There are a thousand excuses for failure but never a good reason." —MARK TWAIN

One Universe made up of all that is; and one God in it all, and one principle of Being, and one Law, the Reason, shared by all thinking creatures, and one Truth. MARCUS AURELIUS

Reason, said Butler, provides no complete system of knowledge, and in ordinary life it can offer us only probabilities.

War tends to make us all students of diplomacy, does it not? There is a story that Napoléon once told the widow of the Marquis de Condorcet that he detested women who meddled in politics. Do you know her reply?' Sebastian shook his head. 'She said, "You are right, of course, General. But in a country where one cuts off women's heads, it is natural that they should wish to know the reason why.

Buck Nance appeared ashen and deflated, for good reason. Blister was his creation--the ultimate white-trash nightmare.

Malley told the shrink that she'd run away because Justin

Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are laboring to dethrone: but if they argue without reason (which, in order to be consistent with themselves they must do), they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.

Both science and democracy encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both demand adequate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of evidence and honesty. Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.

Liberation from superstition is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for science.

Except by sealing the brain off into separate airtight compartments, how is it possible to fly in airplanes, listen to the radio or take antibiotics while holding that the Earth is around 10,000 years old or that all Sagittarians are gregarious and affable?

I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble. Really, it's okay to reserve judgement until the evidence is in.

La pseudociencia colma necesidades emocionales poderosas que la ciencia suele dejar insatisfechas

It is therefore impossible that reason not previously instructed should imagine anything other than that the Earth is a kind of vast house with the vault of the sky placed on top of it;

science to forge a potent partnership against pseudo-science.

There is the possibility for religion and science to forge a potent partnership against pseudo-science.

Don't you ever feel . . . lost in your universe? How do you know what to do, how to behave, if there's no God? Just obey the law or get arrested?" "You're not worried about being lost, Palmer. You're worried about not being central, not the reason the universe was created.

I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me in trouble. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in.

We are asked by science to believe that the entire universe sprang from nothingness, and at a single point and for no discernible reason. This notion is the limit case for credulity. In other words, if you can believe this, you can believe anything.

I'm no longer a child." "Then perhaps it's time you listened to reason and stopped behaving like one.

An enlightened trust in the sovereignty of human reason can be every bit as magical as the exploits of Merlin, and a faith in our capacity for limitless self-improvement just as much a wide-eyed superstition as a faith in leprechauns.

God] is a kind of perpetual critique of instrumental reason.