Best 3829 quotes in «reason quotes» category

Question like a child, reason like an adult, and write like a sage.

Racism negates two aspects of man's life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.

Rail longer than train cars ; and the hope than our reasons. (Rail plus long que les wagons ; - Et l'espoir que nos raisons.)

Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking—that the mind is one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide of action—that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise—that a concession to the irrational invalidates one’s consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality—that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind—that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one’s consciousness.

Rationality is a matter of making allowed moves within language games. Imagination creates the games that reason proceeds to play. Then, exemplified by people such as Plato and Newton, it keeps modifying those games so that playing them is more interesting and profitable. Reason cannot get outside of the latest circle that imagination has drawn. It is in this sense, and only in this sense, that imagination holds the primacy.

Rationality belongs to the cool observer, but because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith, and the naive faith requires necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications which are provided by the myth-maker to keep ordinary person on course.

Reading doesn't mean accepting everything you read, it means reasoning everything you read.

Rational thought is trivial compared to affairs of the heart.

Real freedom is saying 'no' without giving a reason.

Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man’s only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.

Reason and justice grip the remotest and the loneliest star. Look at those stars. Don’t they look as if they were single diamonds and sapphires? Well, you can imagine any mad botany or geology you please. Think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliants. Think the moon is a blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire. But don’t fancy that all that frantic astronomy would make the smallest difference to the reason and justice of conduct. On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl, you would still find a notice-board, “Thou shalt not steal.

Reason functions by integrating perceptual data into concepts.

Reasonableness is a matter of degree. Beliefs can be very reasonable (Japan exists), fairly reasonable (quarks exist), not unreasonable (there's intelligent life on other planets) or downright unreasonable (fairies exist). There's a scale of reasonableness, if you like, with very reasonable beliefs near the top and deeply unreasonable ones towards the bottom. Notice a belief can be very high up the scale, yet still be open to some doubt. And even when a belief is low down, we can still acknowledge the remote possibility it might be true. How reasonable is the belief that God exists? Atheists typically think it very unreasonable. Very low on the scale. But most religious people say it is at least not unreasonable (have you ever met a Christian who said 'Hey, belief in God is no more reasonable than belief in fairies, but I believe it anyway!'?) They think their belief is at least halfway up the scale of reasonableness. Now, that their belief is downright unreasonable might, in fact, be established empirically. If it turned out that not only is there no good evidence of an all-powerful, all-good God, there's also overwhelming evidence against (from millions of years of unimaginable and pointless animal suffering, including several mass extinctions - to thousands of children being crushed to death or buried alive in Pakistan earthquake, etc. etc. etc.) then it could be empirically confirmed that there's no God. Would this constitute a 'proof' that there's no God? Depends what you mean by 'proof'. Personally I think these sorts of consideration do establish beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no all-powerful all-good God. So we can, in this sense, prove there's no God. Yet all the people quoted in my last blog say you cannot 'scientifically' prove or disprove God's existence. If they mean prove beyond any doubt they are right. But then hardly anything is provable in that sense, not even the non-existence of fairies.

Reason and understanding are represented as the voluntary slaves of the senses.

Reason begets honesty, and honesty, if given its head, begets confidence; so consequently, there is a sort of grand authority in the stances of those who know why they are standing.

Reason excludes faith," Alessandro responded, watching the blood-red mite as it made a dash for the rim. "It's deliberately limited. It won't function with the materials of religion. You can come close to proving the existence of God by reason, but you can't do it absolutely. That's because you can't do anything absolutely by reason. That's because reason depends on postulates. Postulates defy proof and yet they are essential to reason. God is a postulate. I don't think God is interested in the verification of His existence, and, therefore, neither am I. Anyway, I have professional reasons to believe. Nature and art pivot faithfully around God. Even dogs know that.

Reasoning as a limited cognitive function, detached from the personal center, never could create courage. One cannot remove anxiety by arguing it away.

Reason is an outcome of frailty and resentment. When Will fails to cope with the labour of life, or the life of labour, its fragile remnants are set to construct a slighter world of justifications.

Reason is not some external power which dictates how we should behave, but an internal power, integral to who we are ... Reason does not command that we love anyone. Nonetheless, reason is vital in determining whom we love and why we love them.

Reason is the beheaded king, emotion the slave revolt

Reason. It is no more reliable a tool than instinct, myth or dream. But it has the potential to be far more dangerous...

Reasons aren't really things that make you do other things. Reasons are things that you make up, much later, to reassure everyone that we are all logical and that the world makes sense. We do unreasonable things, because we want to, at the time. No reason. Much later we sit in the wreckage, building reasons out of little bits of wreckage, so we'll have something to show the crash investigators. Look, this is what caused it. So the whole mess at least appears reasonable. So we can convince ourselves that at least there was a reason for the disaster, something we can prevent or avoid, so it'll never happen again. But a lot of the time there's no reason. We just flew it to the ground. Because we felt like it. And we're still dangerous. And it could happen again anytime. Its easier to live with each other afterwards if we give each other reasons.

Reason shows us there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Reason, according to Objectivism, is not merely a distinguishing attribute of man; it is his fundamental attribute-his basic means of survival. Therefore, whatever reason requires in order to function is a necessity of human life.

... reason and love keep little company together now-a-days...

Reasoning can take you wherever you want to go.

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. …'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

Reason is inherently expansionist. It seeks universal application.

Reason is the presupposition of faith, and faith is the fulfillment of reason.

Reason like a sphere? What type of reasoning does a wooden sphere do?" "The circular type, I should think. And, by coincidence, it is my favorite type as well. Perhaps that's why I'm so good at the game.

Reason may be employed to support faith as well as to destroy it.

...[R]eason of itself, independent on all experience, ordains what ought to take place, that accordingly actions of which perhaps the world has hitherto never given an example, the feasibility even if which might be very much doubted by one who founds everything on experience, are nevertheless inflexibly commanded by reason; that, for example, even though there might never yet have been a sincere friend, yet not a whit the less is pure sincerity in friendship required of every man...

Reason restrains. But imagination evolve.

Reason will always be logical, Logic not always reasonable, For truth from reason derivable, And logic falsehood multipliable.

Recently I am so much in to numbers, equations & scientific facts! I learned how to link logic to reason, and to be honest sometimes I couldn't, simply because logic is not stander defined, it defers from one to another (it is the science of reasoning), that made me think deeply about life, what is the real reason behind all the unbelievable stories in my life, how can I discover the logic behind what is happening behind the scene! Then it hit me, I discovered that everything is supernaturally working in harmony to serve me at the end, no matter how hard it felt ! I was granted hope in different ways, only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found, Because of the only logic I found I am able to be alive now! Amazing how God love us, yet we are so blind to see it, because we accept blessings as a given right!

Reasonable doubt trumps everything.

Reason had no place to crash once Emotion came to town.

Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.

Reason is God's crowning gift to man, and you are right To warn me against losing mine. I cannot say— I hope that I shall never want to say!— that you Have reasoned badly. Yet there are other men Who can reason, too; and their opinions might be helpful. You are not in a position to know everything That people say or do, or what they feel: Your temper terrifies them—everyone Will tell you only what you like to hear.

Reason? Justice? The forces that victimized and paralysed him now were those that had created the world. Who was he to contend against them?

Reason never leads a man into repentance.

...Reason should take on anew the most difficult of all its tasks, namely, that of self-knowledge, and to institute a court of justice, by which reason may secure its rightful claims while dismissing all its groundless pretensions, and this not by mere decrees but according to its own eternal and unchangeable laws; and this court is none other than the critique of pure reason itself.

Reason is a tool of weaklings who are afraid to be naked in the face of a cruel and conflictual reality and who therefore build fantasy intellectual structures to hide in.

Reason is flawless, de jure, but reasoners are not, de facto.

Reason is not always reasonable

Reasoning does create a paradox: it leads both to more rule following and more rebelliousness. By explaining moral principles, parents encourage their children to comply voluntarily with rules that align with important values and to question rules that don’t. Good explanations enable children to develop a code of ethics that often coincides with societal expectations; when they don’t square up, children rely on the internal compass of values rather than the external compass of rules.

Reason, in the end, will win against unreason.

Reason is neutral. It has no biases. It has no agendas. There are no personal interests at stake. Reason simply says, “Here is the data, be responsible with it.” As such, reason is impartial.

Reason is overrated. Many pundits have argued that a good heart and steadfast moral clarity are superior to triangulations of overeducated policy wonks, like the best and brightest and that dragged us into the quagmire of Vietnam. And wasn't it reason that gave us the means to despoil the planet and threaten our species with weapons of mass destruction? In this way of thinking, it's character and conscience, not cold-hearted calculation, that will save us. Besides, a human being is not a brain on a stick. My fellow psychologists have shown that we're led by our bodies and our emotions and use our puny powers of reason merely to rationalize our gut feelings after the fact

Reason is up to these demands because it is an open-ended combinatorial system, an engine for generating an unlimited number of new ideas. Once it is programmed with a basic self-interest and an ability to communicate with others, its own logic will impel it, in the fullness of time, to respect the interests of ever-increasing numbers of others. It is reason too that can always take note of the shortcomings of previous exercises of reasoning, and update and improve itself in response. And if you detect a flaw in this argument, it is reason that allows you to point it out and defend an alternative.