Motivational Quotes

Reason

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

- Yeats, William Butler

Best Quotes about Reason

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

Allen, Woody

Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason.

Kant, Immanuel

The more you reason the less you create.

Chandler, Raymond

I got fame and fortune, and I lost my sense of reasoning.

Richard, Little

Reason is a supple nymph, and slippery as a fish by nature. She had as leave give her kiss to an absurdity any day, as to syllogistic truth. The absurdity may turn out truer.

Lawrence, D. H.

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

Abbagnano, Nicola

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

Eastwood, Clint

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

Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

Frost, Robert

10.

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

Wesley, John

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

White, William Allen

14.

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

Karl Marx

15.

Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision.

Bronte, Charlotte

16.

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

17.

Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

18.

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

Butler, Samuel

19.

No one ever excused his way to success.

Dotto, Dave Del

20.

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

Cioran, E. M.

21.

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

22.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

Lowell, James Russell

23.

We are a rebellious nation. Our whole history is treason; our blood was attained before we were born; our creeds were infidelity to the mother church; our constitution treason to our fatherland.

Parker, Theodore

24.

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

Voltaire

25.

Just as love is an orientation which refers to all objects and is incompatible with the restriction to one object, so is reason a human faculty which must embrace the whole of the world with which man is confronted.

Fromm, Erich

26.

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

27.

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.

Voltaire

28.

I'll not listen to reason. Reason always means what someone else has got to say.

Gaskell, Elizabeth

29.

To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.

Hegel, Georg

30.

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

31.

Reason lies between the bridle and the spur.

Proverb, Italian

32.

Our passion and principles are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.

Sterne, Laurence

33.

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

34.

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

Morrison, Toni

35.

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

Sophocles

36.

Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.

Hamilton, Alexander

37.

To reason about love is to lose reason.

Boufflers

38.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

39.

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

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

40.

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

41.

Let reason govern desire.

Cicero, Marcus T.

42.

Everyone has his reasons.

Renoir, Jean

43.

Reason gains all people by compelling none.

Hill, Aaron

44.

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