Quotes About Reason

Logos without nous: that is in a way what modern science wants to be. Nous without logos is mysticism.

In some crucial cases ... repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason's power completely to articulate it.

In alcuni casi cruciali, però, il disgusto è l'espressione emotiva di una saggezza profonda, cui la ragione non è in grado di dar voce.

If men uphold reason, they will be led, ultimately, to conclude that men should deal with one another as free agents, settling their disputes by an appeal to the mind, i.e., by a process of voluntary, rational persuasion. If men reject reason, they will be led, ultimately, to conclude the opposite: that men have no way to deal with one another at all—no way except physical force, wielded by an elite endowed with an allegedly superior, mystic means of cognition.

Nihilism" in this context means hatred, the hatred of values and of their root, reason. Hatred is not the same as disapproval, contempt, or anger. Hatred is loathing combined with fear, and with the desire to lash out at the hated object, to wound, to disfigure, to destroy it.

Thus three elements unite to define the Objectivist concept of reason: perception,† conception, and logic.

The dominant, mystical ideas of such cultures represent a nonrational approach to the world, not an antirational approach. In essence, the spokesmen of these earlier times did not know what reason is, or, therefore, what it makes possible in human life.

The reason-emotion dichotomy, however, cuts off this possibility; by teaching that emotions are independent of thought, it makes permanent the feeling of metaphysical helplessness.

An interest," writes Kant, "is present only in a dependent will which is not of itself always in accord with reason; in the divine will we cannot conceive of an interest.

Both sides in Germany's cultural battle elevated feeling above reason. And both sides experienced the same basic kind of feeling. The left called it alienation or the angst of nothingness. The right called it götterdämmerung or the philosophy of Schopenhauer. The common denominator is the conviction of doom.

Reason the Only Oracle of Man, Ethan Allen titled his work, expressing the widespread viewpoint. "Fix reason firmly in her seat," writes Jefferson to a nephew, "and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

A valid code of morality, Ayn Rand concludes, a code based on reason and proper to man, must hold man's life as its standard of value. "All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil."16

To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve-Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man's virtues ... 20

Truth is both reason and revelation—and both can surprise us.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

I expose to men the origin of their first, and perhaps second, reason for existing

E veramente accade che sempre dove manca la ragione suppliscono le grida[...]

There is nothing in all nature without its reason, he wrote. If you know the reason, you do not need the experience.

Thus would it be with a man if, while remaining within the bounds of human reason, experience and feelings, he were suddenly to see God Himself. He would see Him but would not understand, even though he knew that it was God, and he would tremble with inconceivable sufferings of incomprehension.

Love knows no virtue, no merit; it loves and forgives and tolerates everything because it must. We are not guided by reason...

You modern men, you children of reason, cannot begin to appreciate love as pure bliss and divine serenity.

If people would only reason a little more they would be convinced that life is not worth taking such a deal of trouble about.

No Ghost of any common sense begins a conversation

Let craft, ambition, spite, Be quenched in Reason's night, Till weakness turn to might, Till what is dark be light, Till what is wrong be right!