quotations about reason
In all demonstrative sciences the rules are certain and infallible; but when we apply them, our fallible said uncertain faculties are very apt to depart from them, and fall into error. We must, therefore, in every reasoning form a new judgment, as a check or controul on our first judgment or belief; and must enlarge our view to comprehend a kind of history of all the instances, wherein our understanding has deceived us, compared with those, wherein its testimony was just and true. Our reason must be considered as a kind of cause, of which truth is the natural effect; but such-a-one as by the irruption of other causes, and by the inconstancy of our mental powers, may frequently be prevented. By this means all knowledge degenerates into probability; and this probability is greater or less, according to our experience of the veracity or deceitfulness of our understanding, and according to the simplicity or intricacy of the question.
DAVID HUME
"Of Scepticism with Regard to Reason", A Treatise of Human Nature
There is a revelation of God to man in the light of reason.
JOHN GRIER HIBBEN
The Problems of Philosophy
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
Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason.
JOHN WESLEY
letter to Joseph Benson, October 5, 1770
Reason's a thing we dimly see in sleep.
REBECCA WEST
The Birds Fall Down
Nothing does Reason more right, than the coolness of those that offer it. For truth often suffers more by the Heat of its defenders, than from the arguments of its opposers.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Wicked men shake off the government of Reason, as if it were tyranny and usurpation.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
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
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
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
Who builds on Reason builds upon the sand
A fabric mortal as the human brain.
FRANCIS HOWARD WILLIAMS
"Sic Itur Ad Astra"
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
Whenever he was required to use his reason he felt like someone who had always used his right hand but was now required to do something with his left.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook B", The Waste Books
There is nothing without reason.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ
Studies in Physics and the Nature of the Body
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
For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
On the Laws
Reasons are not like garments, the worse for wearing.
ROBERT DEVEREUX
to Lord Willoughby, January 4, 1598
The total loss of reason is less deplorable than the total deprivation of it.
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Essays and Selected Verse
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Reason often overturns experience.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims