Quotes About Reason

If being forced to pretend to work is so infuriating because it makes clear the degree to which you are entirely under another person's power, then bullshit jobs are...entire jobs organized on that same principle. You're working, or pretending to work—not for any good reason, at least any good reason you can find—but just for the sake of working.

Over and over I have set forth the qualities that we Wendat believe ought to define humanity – wisdom, reason, equity, etc. – and demonstrated that the existence of separate material interests knocks all these on the head. A man motivated by interest cannot be a man of reason.

There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are the things we can. . . . Let fate, coincidence, and accident conspire; human beings must act on reason.

Reason is a supple nymph, and slippery as a fish by nature. She had as leave give her kiss to an absurdity any day, as to syllogistic truth. The absurdity may turn out truer.

It is quite true, as some poets said, that the God who created man must have had a sinister sense of humor, creating him a reasonable being, yet forcing him to take this ridiculous posture, and driving him with blind craving for this ridiculous performance.

There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves.

Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.

The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.

Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. …'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

As every inquiry which regards religion is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning it origin in human nature.

Amidst all this bustle it is not reason, which carries the prize, but eloquence; and no man needs ever despair of gaining proselytes to the most extravagant hypothesis, who has art enough to represent it in any favourable colours. The victory is not gained by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians of the army.

No conclusion can be more agreable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limites of human reason and capacity

The science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences. [All the other sciences] have a relation, greater or lesser, to human nature. 'Tis impossible to tell what changes and improvements we might make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of human understanding, and could explain the nature of the ideas we employ, and of the operations we perform in our reason.

Hume argued powerfully that human reason is fundamentally similar to that of the other animals, founded on instinct rather than quasi-divine insight into things.

Our senses inform us of the colour, weight, and consistence of bread; but neither sense nor reason can ever inform us of those qualities which fit it for the nourishment and support of a human body.

Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity (the church's ) : and whoever is moved by faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person , which subverts all the principles of his understanding and gives him a determination of believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

Why have all men, I ask, in all ages, complained incessantly of the miseries of life? … They have no just reason, says one: These complaints proceed only from their discontented, repining, anxious disposition…. And can there possibly, I reply, be a more certain foundation of misery than such a wretched temper?

A mind whose acts and sentiments and ideas are not distinct and successive, one that is wholly simple and totally immutable, is a mind which has no thought, no reason, no will, no sentiment, no love, no hatred; or, in a word, is no mind at all.

The rules of morality. therefore, are not conclusions of our reason. No one, I believe, will deny the justness of this inference; nor is there any other means of evading it, than by denying that principle, on which it is founded.

Todas las opiniones y nociones de las cosas a las que hemos sido habituados desde nuestra infancia arraigan tan profundamente que es imposible para nosotros, mediante todo el poder de la razón y experiencia, desarraigarlas, y este hábito no sólo se acerca en su influencia, sino que a veces supera al que surge de la constante unión inseparable de las causas y efectos.

Tis not solely in poetry and music, we must follow low our taste and sentiment, but likewise in philosophy (Hume, 1739, p. 153).

But should this miracle be ascribed to any new system of religion; men, in all ages, have been so much imposed on by ridiculous stories of that kind, that this very circumstance would be a full proof of a cheat, and sufficient, with all men of sense, not only to make them reject the fact, but even reject it without further examination

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.