Quotes About Reason

Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality. Though different traditions may emphasize different aspects, it is only the interplay of these antithetic forces and the struggle for their synthesis that constitute the life, usefulness, and supreme value of mathematical science.

Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality.

The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science, especially in the schools of America.

Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional "next world" is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.

The Buddha told his disciples, "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." I say the same to you—you must assume the responsibility for what you believe.

Mariners are like to a stiffe necked horse, which taking the bridle betwixt his teeth, forceth his rider to what him list, mauger his will; so they having once concluded, and resolved, are with great difficultie brought to yeelde to the raynes of reason; and to color their negligence, they add cost, trouble, and delay.

It is a poor head that cannot find plausible reason for doing what the heart wants to do.

That is the trouble...You are a crowd of bits of boys all in the thing for what you will get. Demands, you call them. Well, I am against demands of any kind. You cannot reason with demand, and where there is no reason, there is no sense. As for your support, whatever you call it, some long word, what is the use of it?

Everything seemed to flood over him then. It was as though he'd been the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, refusing to let the sea of reason in.

They won't accept reasonable things with their minds but the fantastic things they'll swallow whole when their emotions are brought into play. Because the emotions have no limits on belief. The emotions will swallow anything—and they do.

Words never fail. We hear them, we read them; they enter into the mind and become part of us for as long as we shall live. Who speaks reason to his fellowmen bestows it upon them. Who mouths inanity disorders thought for all who listen. There must be some minimum allowable dose of inanity beyond which the mind cannot remain reasonable. Irrationality, like buried chemical waste, sooner or later must seep into all the tissues of thought.

How reason is just another weapon of control.

Life will not answer to reason. And meaning is too young a thing to have much power over it.

Why? She says no reason. A lark. A whim. Freedom. But there is, of course, no freedom. There are only ancient prophecies that scry the seeds of time and say which will grow and which will not.

Life will not answer to reason. And meaning is too young a thing to have much power over it. All the drama of the world is gathering underground—massed symphonic choruses that Patricia means to hear before she dies.

Christianity, for some, is neither faith nor reason—just reactive tribalism hiding behind the skirts of Mother Church.

There are times, Your Honor, when reality bears features of such an impellingly moral complexion that it is impossible to follow the hewn path of expediency. There are times when life's ends are so raveled that reason and sense cry out that we stop and gather them together again before we can proceed.

I figure the world is basically a machine. I don't know who made it, if it was the Fates, or the gods, or the capital-G god or whatever. But it chugs along the way it's supposed to most of the time. Sure, little pieces break off and stuff goes haywire once in a while, but mostly... things happen for a reason.

I figure the universe is basically like a machine. I don't know who made it, if it was the Fates, or the gods, or capital-G God, or whatever. But it chugs along the way it's supposed to most of the time. Sure, little pieces break and stuff goes haywire once in a while, but mostly...things happen for a reason.

Why didn't you sleep with the headrest?" I shrugged. "It was uncomfortable." I looked at Sadie for support. "You didn't use it, did you?" Sadie rolled her eyes. "Well, of course I did. It was obviously there for a reason.

The house of Life doesn't trust our family, especially after what Dad and Mom did. Amos said we were raised apart for a reason, so we wouldn't trigger each other's magic." "Bloody awful reason to keep us apart," I muttered.

La manera más fácil de entender el propósito de un invento es preguntarle al inventor. Lo mismo ocurre cuando quieres saber la razón de tu vida: pregúntale a Dios.

Solomon noted that envy is the reason why most people overwork!

It's the side of reason that I'm on," Teddy said. "It just so happens that that's where you're always to be found and my mother rarely.