Motivational Quotes

Reason

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

Best Quotes about Reason

Every why hath a wherefore.

William Shakespeare

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

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

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

Cioran, E. M.

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

Voltaire

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

Pope, Alexander

Everyone has his reasons.

Renoir, Jean

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

Hegel, Georg

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

Morrison, Toni

10.

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

11.

Reason lies between the bridle and the spur.

Proverb, Italian

12.

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.

13.

To reason about love is to lose reason.

Boufflers

14.

No one ever excused his way to success.

Dotto, Dave Del

15.

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

Lowell, James Russell

16.

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

Luther, Martin

17.

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

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

18.

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

Bacon, Roger

19.

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

Warburton, William

20.

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

21.

Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one.

Russell, Bertrand

22.

As reason is a rebel to faith, so passion is a rebel to reason.

Browne, Sir Thomas

23.

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

24.

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

Wesley, John

25.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

26.

Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

Shaw, George Bernard

27.

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

Hazlitt, William

28.

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

Proverb, Welsh

29.

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

30.

Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly.

Boileau, Nicholas

31.

What is now reason was formerly impulse or instinct.

Ovid

32.

A man always has two reasons for doing anything -- a good reason and the real reason.

Morgan, John Pierpont

33.

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

Yeats, William Butler

34.

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

Sophocles

35.

Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.

Dryden, John

36.

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

Eastwood, Clint

37.

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

38.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

39.

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

Sterne, Laurence

40.

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

41.

Reason is like an officer when the king appears. The officer then loses his power and hides himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; Go is the sun.

Rumi, Jalal-Uddin

42.

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

Abbagnano, Nicola

43.

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. He is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

44.

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

45.

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

46.

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

Baudelaire, Charles

47.

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

48.

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

Aragon, Louis