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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

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

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

“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

“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

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

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a...” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“All that alcohol does for them is to liberate the sense of sin, which reason suppresses in saner moments .” Bertrand Russell, “The Conquest of Happiness” - 1930

“I had absolutely no reason to suspect my wife's fidelity, but jealousy does not wait for reasons.” Mahatma Gandhi, “The Story of my Experiments with Truth” - 1929

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

“So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.” Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” - 1791

“I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our...” Jonathan Swift, “Gulliver's Travels” - 1726

“God of heaven! and is this the destiny of man? Is he only happy before he has acquired his reason, or after he has lost it?” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” - 1774

“Analogy points in this direction, and though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.” Samuel Butler, “The Note-Books of Samuel Butler” - 1912

“No longer did he feel shame for his hairless body or his human features, for now his reason told him that he was of a different race from his wild and hairy companions.” Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes” - 1912

“In Tarzan's clever little mind many thoughts revolved, and back of these was his divine power of reason. If he could catch his fellow apes with his long arm of many grasses, why not Sabor, the lioness?” Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes” - 1912

Related topics

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

Related authors

William Shakespeare (11)
David Hume (6)
Jane Austen (4)
John Locke (4)
Immanuel Kant (4)
Thomas Aquinas (4)
Blaise Pascal (3)
Oscar Wilde (2)
C. S. Lewis (2)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (2)
Samuel Butler (2)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (2)
Michel de Montaigne (2)
Marcus Aurelius (2)
Galileo Galilei (2)
George Orwell (1)
Charles Dickens (1)
G. K. Chesterton (1)
Heraclitus (1)
Arthur Conan Doyle (1)

Related sources

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (5)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (4)
Summa Theologica (4)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (3)
Critique of Pure Reason (3)
Pensées (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)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1)
Othello (1)
The Tempest (1)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1)
Measure for Measure (1)
Cymbeline (1)