Quotes About Reason

motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.

The Church of Reason, like all institutions of the System, is based not on individual strength but upon individual weakness.

Newton invented a new form of reason. He expanded reason to handle infinitesimal changes and I think what is needed now is a similar expansion of reason to handle technological ugliness. The trouble is that the expansion has to be made at the roots, not at the branches, and that's what makes it hard to see.

partisan of the governor, said angrily that the legislature would prevent the school from losing its accreditation. Phaedrus asked how. The student said they would post police to prevent it. Phaedrus pondered this for a while, then realized the enormity of the student's misconception of what accreditation was all about. That night, for the next day's lecture, he wrote out his defense of what he was doing. This was the Church of Reason lecture, which, in contrast

It is life that does the thinking all around us, forming with playful ease the connections our reason can only laboriously patch together piecemeal, and never to such kaleidoscopic effect.

we are rational animals, but we are imperfectly rational. We are prone to making intellectual and moral mistakes and capable of behaving grossly unreasonably—especially when deflected by powerful emotions that run contrary to the demands of reasonableness.

Personal authenticity, in the classical understanding of liberal-arts education, consists in self-mastery—in placing reason in control of desire. According to the classic liberal-arts ideal, learning promises liberation, but it is not liberation from demanding moral ideals and social norms, or liberation to act on our desires—it is, rather, liberation from slavery to those desires, from slavery to self.

The true liberal-arts ideal rejects the reduction of reason to the status of passion's ingenious servant. It is an ideal rooted in the conviction that there are human goods, and a common good, in light of which we have reasons to constrain, to limit, to regulate, and even to alter our desires.

That's the way it is. The intelligence of the mind can't think of any reason to live, but it goes on anyway because the intelligence of the cells can't think of any reason to die

But what;s happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought-- occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like-- because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.

The world is going crazy, Karl. And hen the world is crazy, a sane man is never okay.

P.S.2. I have put in a new pen. And I love you because you aren't pompous like Dr. Carter . . . and I love you because you haven't got sticky-out ears like Johnny. And . . . the very best reason of all . . . I love you for just being Gilbert!

You can't reason with prejudice.

I won't be reasonable—I can't be reasonable—I AM reasonable.

From that blighted time came the saying: when bellies speak, reason is lost. There

You know the truth, now. You know that reason alone is not enough. You must ask for grace . .

The usual heresy consists in denying the existence of a god who has created us. It is a much more interesting heresy to imagine that possibly a god has created us and then to say that there isn't the least reason for us to be impressed by that fact. And certainly not to be thankful for it.

The fantastic in literature doesn't exist as a challenge to what is probable, but only there where it can be increased to a challenge of reason itself: the fantastic in literature consists, when all has been said, essentially in showing the world as opaque, as inaccessible to reason on principle. This happens when Piranesi in his imagined prisons depicts a world peopled by other beings than those for which it was created. (On the Fantastic in Literature)

Let's get out and find Newman and try to reason with him." "Reason how?" I asked. Edward gave me Ted's grin, but it was his own words, "I'm a scary son of a bitch, let's see if I can spook him." I grinned. "I like it. Scare him into giving up the lead." "Tilford will listen to us; Newman won't." "Let's go scare the rookie," I said. He grinned. "Let's.

My dear Mrs. Grimstone, sometimes cowardice is merely another word for common sense.

Its nice to know that your common sense stands between me and the grave.

First, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed.

Womankind is imprudent and soft or flexible. Imprudent because she cannot consider with wisdom and reason the things she hears and sees; and soft she is because she is easily bowed. —JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (c. 347–407)

You need a reason to be sad. You don't need a reason to be happy.