quotations about reason
Those who are guided by reason are generally successful in their plans.
HERODOTUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Reason's a thing we dimly see in sleep.
REBECCA WEST
The Birds Fall Down
Reason is a religious duty and quality of the mind; and exercise of the judgment upon all occasions and subjects is true and most divine worship.
CORA HATCH
"The Religion of Life", Discourses on Religion, Morals, Philosophy and Metaphysics
There are strange flowers of reason to match each error of the senses. Admirable gardens of absurd beliefs, forebodings, obsessions and frenzies. Unknown, ever-changing gods take shape there.
LOUIS ARAGON
Paris Peasant
Those who invalidate reason, ought seriously to consider, whether they argue against reason, with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle, that they are laboring to dethrone; but if they argue without reason, (which, in order to be consistent with themselves, they must do,) they are out of the reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
Prejudice is not bigotry or superstition, although prejudice sometimes may degenerate into these. Prejudice is pre-judgment, the answer with which intuition and ancestral consensus of opinion supply a man when he lacks either time or knowledge to arrive at a decision predicated upon pure reason.
RUSSELL KIRK
The Conservative Mind
Reason is the newest and rarest thing in human life, the most delicate child of human history.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Those that differ upon Reason, may come together by Reason.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
To say that man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man's decisions are based on his rational process. That I don't believe at all.
REX STOUT
Royal Decree Revisited
Reasons are not like garments, the worse for wearing.
ROBERT DEVEREUX
to Lord Willoughby, January 4, 1598
Reason always cuts a poor figure beside sentiment; the one being essentially restricted, like everything that is positive, while the other is infinite.
HONORE DE BALZAC
A Woman of Thirty
There are so many kinds of madness, so many ways in which the human brain may go wrong; and so often it happens that what we call madness is both reasonable and just. It is so. Yes. A little reason is good for us, a little more makes wise men of some of us--but when our reason over-grows us and we reach too far, something breaks and we go insane.
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD
"The Case of Beauvais", Back to God's Country and Other Stories
Reason often overturns experience.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
He that useth his reason doth acknowledge God.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold.
LOUIS BRANDEIS
dissenting opinion, New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 1932
Human reason is a pin dancing on the head of an angel, so small is it in comparison to the Divine vastness that encircles us.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
Who builds on Reason builds upon the sand
A fabric mortal as the human brain.
FRANCIS HOWARD WILLIAMS
"Sic Itur Ad Astra"
Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason.
JOHN WESLEY
letter to Joseph Benson, October 5, 1770
Beware gentle knight. There is no greater monster than reason.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
All the Pretty Horses
Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.
EPICTETUS
Discourses