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Reason Quotes

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Reason Quotes

“Religions are not proved, are not demonstrated, are not established, are not overthrown by logic! They are of all the mysteries of nature and the human mind, the most mysterious and most inexplicable; they are of instinct and not of reason.”

MindHumansReasonReligionMysteryLogicInstinctMysteriousHuman MindInexplicableMystery Of Nature
Book:Travels in the East: Including a Journey in the Holy Land
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“Every living thing was shunning him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”

KnowsLittlesReasonMomentsAbleLostPerfectPoorForeverDoubtBlessingBirdSittingDown AndWingsCeaseSatHave FaithPeterCriedLiving ThingsLost FaithShunning
Book:The Little White Bird (Annotated Edition)
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“Suicide is a crime the most revolting to the feelings; nor does any reason suggest itself to our understanding by which it can be justified. It certainly originates in that species of fear which we denominate poltroonery. For what claim can that man have to courage who trembles at the frowns of fortunes? True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life in whatever shape they may challenge him to combat.”

MenMayDoeReasonFeelingsUnderstandingChallengesCrimeShapesClaimsSuicideFortuneSpeciesSuperiorsCombatHeroismJustifiedTrue Hero
Author:Napoleon Bonaparte
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“Two angels guide The path of man, both aged and yet young. As angels are, ripening through endless years, On one he leans: some call her Memory, And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet, With deep mysterious accords: the other, Floating above, holds down a lamp with streams A light divine and searching on the earth, Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields, Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew, Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked But for Tradition; we walk evermore To higher paths by brightening Reason's lamp.”

MenYearsTwoReasonLightEyeEarthYoungVoiceMemoriesWalksPathDivineSweetHigherAngelTraditionShiningGuidesEndlessChecksMysteriousStreamsYieldRaysCompellingFloatingLampsReflectingAccordFootstepsEvermoreRipening
Book:Complete Works Of George Eliot
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“How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.”

MenReasonWholePassionCoursesInterestOur LivesParticularWeakVicesWavering
Book:The Works ...: With the Author's Life and Character, Notes [etc.] In Eight Volumes
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“Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.”

ThinkingMenFirstsLongSaidReasonAbleLawEnergyAnimalBreakVirtueCivilizationConsequenceVicesAbsurdCrueltyBreastsCivilizedSentimentsBitesNurseToysSavagesInfantDepravityCanaries
Author:Marquis de Sade
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“The reason why Matthew Arnold, to my feeling, fails entirely as a poet (though no doubt his ideas were good - at least, I am told they were) is that he had no sense of touch whatsoever. Nothing made any impression on his skin. He could feel neither the shape nor the texture of a poem with his hands.”

FeelsMadeIdeasReasonFeelingsHandsDoubtFailingPoetShapesSkinsImpressionReason WhyNo DoubtTextureMatthew
Book:Ser. Milton and the Augustan Age
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“I wrote 'Lights' a long, long time ago. And I expected it to be on the album, because it was - I wrote it with 'Biff' Stannard. And he wrote every single Spice Girls song and every single pop song of the 90s, basically. So I thought, you know, I was really lucky to work with him, but I didn't think it would be a big song for some reason.”

ThinkingKnowsLongReasonBigsLightWould BeSongGirlLuckyLong TimeAlbumsPopsExpectedLong Time AgoSpicesPop SongSpice Girls
Author:Ellie Goulding
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“the leading error of the human mind, - the bane of human happiness - the perverter of human virtue ... is Religion - that dark coinage of trembling ignorance! It is Religion - that poisoner of human felicity! It is Religion - that blind guide of human reason! It is Religion - that dethroner of human virtue! which lies at the root of all the evil and all the misery that pervade the world!”

WorldMindHumansReasonLyingEvilDarkVirtueIgnoranceRootsBlindMiseryErrorsGuidesHuman MindTremblingFelicityBaneHuman HappinessHuman ReasonPoisoners
Author:Frances Wright
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“Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. Is it astonishing that often these two languages contradict each other, and then to which must we listen? Too often reason deceives us; we have only too much acquired the right of refusing to listen to it; but conscience never deceives us; it is the true guide of man; it is to man what instinct is to the body; which follows it, obeys nature, and never is afraid of going astray.”

MenTwoSoulReasonBodyPassionLanguageVoiceToo MuchConscienceInstinctGuidesDeceivingAstonishing
Author:Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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“But the conceit of one's self and the conceit of one's hobby are hardly more prolific of eccentricity than the conceit of one's money. Avarice, the most hateful and wolfish of all the hard, cool, callous dispositions of selfishness, has its own peculiar caprices and crotchets. The ingenuities of its meanness defy all the calculations of reason, and reach the miraculous in subtlety.”

SelfHardReasonSelfishnessPeculiarHobbiesDispositionMiraculousHatefulConceitCalculationsAvariceIngenuitySubtletyMeannessEccentricityCapriceCallous
Book:Character and characteristic men
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“Men educate each other in reason by contact or collision, and keep each other sane by the very conflict of their separate hobbies. Society as a whole is the deadly enemy of the particular crotchet of each, and solitude is almost the only condition in which the acorn of conceit can grow to the oak of perfect self-delusion.”

MenSelfReasonWholeGrowsPerfectEnemyConditionsParticularSolitudeConflictContactDelusionEducateSaneHobbiesConceitOaksCollisionAcornsSelf Delusion
Author:Edwin Percy Whipple
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“The pride of ancestry is a superstructure of the most imposing height, but resting on the most flimsy foundation. It is ridiculous enough to observe the hauteur with which the old nobility look down on the new. The reason of this puzzled me a little, until I began to reflect that most titles are respectable only because they are old; if new, they would be despised, because all those who now admire the grandeur of the stream would see nothing but the impurity of the source.”

IfsLooksLittlesReasonEnoughWould BeSourcePrideFoundationRidiculousAdmireTitlesHeightStreamsNobilityRespectableGrandeurDespisedAncestryImposingPuzzledImpurity
Book:Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
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“We are more inclined to hate one another for points on which we differ, than to love one another for points on which we agree. The reason perhaps is this: when we find others that agree with us, we seldom trouble ourselves to confirm that agreement; but when we chance on those who differ from us, we are zealous both to convince and to convert them. Our pride is hurt by the failure, and disappointed pride engenders hatred.”

ReasonHateHurtChanceTroublePrideHatredAgreeConvinceAgreementDisappointedControversyLove One AnotherZealous
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“Love is the weapon which Omnipotence reserved to conquer rebel man when all the rest had failed. Reason he parries; fear he answers blow for blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but love, that sun against whose melting beams the winter cannot stand--that soft subliming slumber which wrestles down the giant, there is not one human being in a million, nor a thousand men in all earth's huge quintillion, whose clay heart is hardened against love.”

MenLoveHumansHeartReasonEarthInterestHuman BeingsAnswersLove IsPleasureMillionsSunHugeThousandWeaponsWinterBlowConquerGiantsRebelClayMeltingReservedBeamSlumberHardenedOmnipotenceAgainst Love
Author:Martin Farquhar Tupper
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“Some men make a womanish complaint that it is a great misfortune to die before our time. I would ask what time? Is it that of Nature? But she, indeed, has lent us life, as we do a sum of money, only no certain day is fixed for payment. What reason then to complain if she demands it at pleasure, since it was on this condition that you received it.”

IfsMenReasonDeathCertainDiesAsksPleasureConditionsDemandComplainingFixedOur TimeMisfortunesComplaintsPayment
Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero
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“Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.”

MenLooksKindPersonsReasonFoundStrongUnderstandingInterestDutyMetsPerfectionInstinctGuidesWelfareRemoveCunningBrutesDiscretionGood Understanding
Author:Jean de la Bruyere
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