Motivational Quotes

Reason

Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the Alpine peaks do above the clouds. They behold the sun more clearly and distinctly, but they are cold and unfruitful.

- Lichtenberg, Georg C.

Best Quotes about Reason

Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons for it afterwards.

Petersen, Soren F.

A noble heart will always capitulate to reason.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

As if reasoning were any kind of writing or talking which tends to convince people that some doctrine or measure is true and right.

Beecher, Catharine Esther

Reason itself is fallible, and this fallibility must find a place in our logic.

Abbagnano, Nicola

His reasons are as two grains of wheat his in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

William Shakespeare

It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The person who is master of their passions is reason's slave.

Connolly, Cyril

If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.

Chesterfield, Lord

The gods plant reason in mankind, of all good gifts the highest.

Sophocles

10.

The trouble with Reason is that it becomes meaningless at the exact point where it refuses to act.

Devoto, Bernard

11.

What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To fust in us unused.

Shakespeare, William

12.

Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.

Voltaire

13.

Reason is the wise man's guide, example the fool's.

Proverb, Welsh

14.

Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason.

Wesley, John

15.

That proves you are unusual, returned the Scarecrow; and I am convinced the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.

Baum, Lyman Frank

16.

The more you reason the less you create.

Chandler, Raymond

17.

Reason can in general do more than blind force.

Gallus, Gaius C.

18.

Too much sensibility creates unhappiness and too much insensibility creates crime.

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

19.

I tried being reasonable, I didn't like it.

Eastwood, Clint

20.

A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

21.

Write on my gravestone: Infidel, Traitor.--infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.

Phillips, Wendell

22.

O reason, reason, abstract phantom of the waking state, I had already expelled you from my dreams, now I have reached a point where those dreams are about to become fused with apparent realities: now there is only room here for myself.

Aragon, Louis

23.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

Butler, Samuel

24.

Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.

White, William Allen

25.

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and god-like reason to fust in us unus'd.

William Shakespeare

26.

On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale.

Pope, Alexander

27.

There is really nothing more to say except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.

Morrison, Toni

28.

Many that are not mad have, sure, more lack of reason.

William Shakespeare

29.

Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!

Addison, Joseph

30.

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

Shaw, George Bernard

31.

Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.

Swift, Jonathan

32.

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.

Hazlitt, William

33.

Reason lies between the bridle and the spur.

Proverb, Italian

34.

There is something peculiarly sinister and insidious in even a charge of disloyalty. Such a charge all too frequently places a strain on the reputation of an individual which is indelible and lasting, regardless of the complete innocence later proved.

O'Brian, John Lord

35.

Reason is a whore, surviving by simulation, versatility, and shamelessness.

Cioran, E. M.

36.

Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.

Allen, Woody

37.

Do not banish reason for inequality; but let your reason serve to make the truth appear where it seems hid, and hide the false seems true.

William Shakespeare

38.

Rationalists are admirable beings, rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is worship of stock and stone believing it to be God. I plead not for the suppression of reason, but for a due recognition of that in us which sanctifies reason.

Gandhi, Mahatma

39.

It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination.

Disraeli, Benjamin

40.

What is rational is actual, and what is actual is rational.

Hegel, Georg

41.

The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.

Yeats, William Butler

42.

He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

43.

Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.