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Reason quotes

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“Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.” Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia” - 1785

“Time makes more converts than reason.” Thomas Paine, “Common Sense” - 1776

“The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

“I have hardly ever known a mathematician who could reason.” Plato, “The Republic”

“There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.” William Shakespeare, “Antony and Cleopatra” - 1623

“Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.” C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” - 1952

“Nature will always maintain her rights, and prevail in the end over any abstract reasoning whatsoever.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.” Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist” - 1988

“However, our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes.” Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” - 1891

“Therefore it has always been said that music is the language of feeling and of passion, as words are the language of reason.” Arthur Schopenhauer, “The World as Will and Representation” - 1819

“It is in itself a kind of religion; it does not reason, but it acts from the impulse of faith and of sentiment.” Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America” - 1835

“To live is like to love—all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.” Samuel Butler, “The Note-Books of Samuel Butler” - 1912

“It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.” Frederick Douglass, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” - 1845

“Alas! how sad when reasoners reason wrong.” Sophocles, “Antigone” - c. 441 BC

“You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.” Agatha Christie, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” - 1920

“Human reason is by nature architectonic.” Immanuel Kant, “Critique of Pure Reason” - 1791

“The last proceeding of reason is to recognise that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

“If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.” Michel de Montaigne, “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne” - 1580

“The theologian considers sin chiefly as an offense against God; and the moral philosopher, as something contrary to reason.” Thomas Aquinas, “Summa Theologica” - 1274

“But I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.” Galileo Galilei, “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany” - 1615

“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.” Jean-Paul Sartre, “Nausea” - 1938

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.” Rainer Maria Rilke, “Letters to a Young Poet” - 1929

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly rational being?” Oscar Wilde, “A Woman of No Importance” - 1893

“How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!” Jane Austen, “Persuasion” - 1816

“Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” Charles Dickens, “Great Expectations” - 1861

“I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness—a real thorough-going illness.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Notes from Underground” - 1864

“what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying” Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus” - 1942

“What does the brain matter . . . compared with the heart?” Virginia Woolf, “Mrs Dalloway” - 1925

“When reason fails, the devil helps!” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Crime and Punishment” - 1867

“If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed.” Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace” - 1869

“Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.” G. K. Chesterton, “Orthodoxy” - 1908

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” David Hume, “A Treatise of Human Nature” - 1738

“solitude can quickly destroy reason” Jules Verne, “The Mysterious Island” - 1874

“Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime.” Samuel Butler, “The Way of All Flesh” - 1903

“Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?” Bertrand Russell, “The Problems of Philosophy” - 1912

“Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do.” G. K. Chesterton, “Orthodoxy” - 1908

“Nature confutes the sceptics, and reason confutes the dogmatists.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

“and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days;” William Shakespeare, “A Midsummer Night's Dream” - 1601

“We have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to be a sect or scion.” William Shakespeare, “Othello” - 1623

“The will of man is by his reason sway'd; And reason says you are the worthier maid.” William Shakespeare, “A Midsummer Night's Dream” - 1601

“And as the morning steals upon the night, melting the darkness, so their rising senses begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle their clearer reason.” William Shakespeare, “The Tempest” - 1623

“When valour preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with.” William Shakespeare, “Antony and Cleopatra” - 1623

“Many that are not mad have, sure, more lack of reason.” William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure” - 1623

“Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.” Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” - 28 January 1813

“I know not why I love this youth, and I have heard you say love's reason's without reason.” William Shakespeare, “Cymbeline” - 1623

“How well he's read, to reason against reading!” William Shakespeare, “Love's Labour's Lost” - 1598

“I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so, because I think him so.” William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” - 1623

“I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it.” C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” - 1952

“No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.” Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet” - 1887

“Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

Related topics

love passion heart faith mind God knowledge religion senses understanding sin weakness instinct madness women life truth darkness care belief

Related authors

William Shakespeare (11)
David Hume (6)
Jane Austen (5)
Blaise Pascal (5)
John Locke (4)
Immanuel Kant (4)
Thomas Aquinas (4)
Bertrand Russell (3)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (3)
Samuel Butler (3)
Oscar Wilde (2)
G. K. Chesterton (2)
C. S. Lewis (2)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (2)
Michel de Montaigne (2)
Albert Camus (2)
Marcus Aurelius (2)
Galileo Galilei (2)
Mark Twain (1)
George Orwell (1)

Related sources

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (5)
Pensées (5)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (4)
Summa Theologica (4)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (3)
Critique of Pure Reason (3)
Pride and Prejudice (2)
Antony and Cleopatra (2)
Mere Christianity (2)
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (2)
Tarzan of the Apes (2)
The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (2)
Meditations (2)
Persuasion (2)
Notes from Underground (2)
The Myth of Sisyphus (2)
Orthodoxy (2)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1)
Othello (1)
The Tempest (1)