Quotes About Reason

Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.

Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.

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

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice

For it would have been better that man should have been born dumb, nay, void of all reason, rather than that he should employ the gifts of Providence to the destruction of his neighbor.

If reason dominates in man, he rises higher than angels. If lust overpowers man, he descends lower than the beast.

The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting the rights of man, is that they do not go far enough into antiquity.

A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity

A man of integrity will never listen to any reason against conscience.

When the magistrate says 'That's not a good enough reason my man.' He said 'Excuse me, could I ask you? Have you taken an oath of allegiance to the Monarch?'

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

Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.

In man (as the only rational creature on earth) those natural capacities which are directed to the use of his reason are to be fully developed only in the race, not in the individual.

We find that the more a cultivated reason devotes itself to the aim of enjoying life and happiness, the further does man get away from true contentment.

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

Common sense is an instinct given to man and enough of it is genius. Smartness is measured by the level of common sense one has, not by how much educated or knowledgeable he is.

It is impossible not to envy the man who can dismiss reason, although we know how it must turn out at last.

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

It can be argued that man's instinct to gamble is the only reason he is still not a monkey up in the trees.

Reason guides but a small part of man, and the rest obeys feeling, true or false, and passion, good or bad.

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given.

As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element.'

Men of sound sense have Law for their god, but men without sense Pleasure.

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.