Motivational Quotes

Reason

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

Best Quotes about Reason

Reason can in general do more than blind force.

Gallus, Gaius C.

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

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice De

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

Karl Marx

Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

Bacon, Roger

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

White, William Allen

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

Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.

Baudelaire, Charles

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

Morrison, Toni

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

Cioran, E. M.

10.

Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason.

Kant, Immanuel

11.

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

Petersen, Soren F.

12.

What is now reason was formerly impulse or instinct.

Ovid

13.

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

Voltaire

14.

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

Allen, Woody

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.

People are governed with the head; kindness of heart is little use in chess.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

17.

Reason is the historian, but passions are the actors.

Rivarol, Antoine

18.

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.

19.

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

Wesley, John

20.

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

Hegel, Georg

21.

Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.

Luther, Martin

22.

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

23.

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

Frost, Robert

24.

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

Hazlitt, William

25.

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

Swift, Jonathan

26.

Man always has two reasons for the things he does; the logical one and the real one.

27.

A noble heart will always capitulate to reason.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

28.

Whenever a person strives, by the help of dialectic, to start in pursuit of every reality by a simple process of reason, independent of all sensuous information -- never flinching, until by an act of the pure intelligence he has grasped the real nature of good -- he arrives at the very end of the intellectual world.

Plato

29.

Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

Shaw, George Bernard

30.

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

Sophocles

31.

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

32.

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

33.

Reason transformed into prejudice is the worst form of prejudice, because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice.

Bloom, Allan

34.

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

Proverb, Welsh

35.

Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly.

Boileau, Nicholas

36.

Reason is the test of ridicule, not ridicule the test of truth.

Warburton, William

37.

Reason lies between the bridle and the spur.

Proverb, Italian

38.

There are strange flowers of reason to match each error of the senses.

Aragon, Louis

39.

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

Butler, Samuel

40.

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

41.

Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.

Hamilton, Alexander

42.

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

Devoto, Bernard

43.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

44.

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

Eastwood, Clint

45.

No one ever excused his way to success.

Dotto, Dave Del

46.

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

Sterne, Laurence

47.

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

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

48.

Every why hath a wherefore.

William Shakespeare

49.

As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.

Havel, Vaclav

50.

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