Best 3829 quotes in «reason quotes» category

Philosophy is an infertile hybrid. Life is a prolific hermaphrodite.

...[P]hilosophical theories are structured by conceptual metaphors that constrain which inferences can be drawn within that philosophical theory. The (typically unconscious) conceptual metaphors that are constitutive of a philosophical theory have the causal effect of constraining how you can reason within that philosophical framework.

Philosophy cannot live by pure reason: it is only the translation into abstract and ideal form of a culture which has grown up by historical stages.

Play with reason and doubt will close all the gates

Porque felizmente (pensaba) el hombre no está solo hecho de desesperación sino de fe y esperanza; no solo de muerte sino también de anhelo de vida; tampoco únicamente de soledad sino de momentos de comunión y amor. Porque si prevalece la desesperación, todos nos dejaríamos morir o nos mataríamos, y eso no es de ninguna manera lo que sucede. Lo que demostraba, a su juicio, la poca importancia de la razón, ya que no es razonable mantener esperanzas en este mundo en que vivimos. Nuestra razón, nuestra inteligencia, constantemente nos están probando que este mundo es atroz, motivo por el cual la razón es aniquiladora y conduce al escepticismo, al cinismo y finalmente a la aniquilación. Pero, por suerte, el hombre no es casi nunca un ser razonable, y por eso la esperanza renace una y otra vez en medio de las calamidades.

Popularity makes no sense If your fame is a shame.

Poor feeling hijacks thinking for self-deception: to hide harsh truths, avoid action, evade responsibility, and, as the existentialists might put it, flee from freedom. Thus, poor feeling is a kind of moral failing, indeed, the deepest kind, and virtue principally consists in correcting and refining our emotions and the values that they reflect. To feel the right thing is to do the right thing, without any particular need for conscious thought or effort.

Positive thinking relates to an art of reasoning with the quality of hope for a better future either in the face of difficulties or in the presence of abundance of opportunities.

Presenting a rational argument to a person who has forsaken the use of reason is like asking a vegetarian to eat a cheeseburger.

Probably I'm boring, but I have a reason about it and I'm doing behind this, so take it, like it's a fake face.

Purpose and reason? Purpose and reason are not the same thing. Reason seeks to understand. Purpose requires faith. Reason is attained. Purpose is revealed. Reason is acquired by works. Purpose is endowed with grace. And wisdom is the combination of both.

Purpose drives the process by which we become what we are capable of being.

Put off the fire of pride and save your life from burning with flames of failure. Pride is the reason why many dreams only survive as ashes today. Learn the lesson; hung on to humility!

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 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 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.

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.

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

Reason is only a drug, and its effects cannot be permanent.

Reason is the first victim of strong emotion," Scytale murmured.

Reason is the hero who breaks the chains of our prejudice, saving us from the prison of our comfortable acquiescence in the way of the world.

Reason is your means of survival — so that for you, who are a human being, the question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question 'to think or not to think..'.