Quotes About Reason

Does God have a reason for wanting us to be charitable, to take care of those who can't take care of themselves? Either God does or God doesn't, it's just logic. If God has a reason then there is a reason independent of God and whatever God's reason is we should figure it out for ourselves. There is a reason and God doesn't really ground morality at all. God wants us to give charity because it's the right thing to do.

The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality–it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see." -Richard

If you have more than one reason to do something (choose a doctor or veterinarian, hire a gardener or an employee, marry a person, go on a trip), just don’t do it. It does not mean that one reason is better than two, just that by invoking more than one reason you are trying to convince yourself to do something. Obvious decisions (robust to error) require no more than a single reason.

The choicest gift of God to man, the gift of reason; and having endeavoured to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason; as if man could give reason to himself.

There is no reason to not trust your process, no reason to get frustrated, no reason to criticize, or judge others, nothing wrong with getting old, or not being able to get pregnant, or being handicapped, or being short or tall or gay, or injured, or divorced or married to an idiot, or with Christianity or Judaism or Islam, or indigenous beliefs, or pollution, crime, war, Bush, etc. When this understanding grows, we realize where we're at now is just as perfect as wherever we could possibly get to.

Just because the road ahead is long, is no reason to slow down. Just because there is much work to be done, is no reason to get discouraged. It is a reason to get started, to grow, to find new ways, to reach within yourself and discover strength, commitment, and determination. The road ahead is long and difficult, but it’s filled with opportunity. Start what needs starting. Finish what needs finishing. Get on the road. Stay on the road. Don’t give up.

Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.

It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. It is not contrary to reason for me to choose my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian, or person wholly unknown to me. It is as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than the latter.

A child starts from nothing and advances alone. It is the child's reason about which the sensitive periods revolve. The reason provides the initial force and energy, and a child absorbs his first images to assist the reason and act on it.

If you never fall in love with your character, you'll never be able to do that character justice. No matter who it is, no matter what the character does, you have to find the reason for it. Everyone's got a reason for what they do, even if it's a reason that they're not proud of.

A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason. Let us be like the man of the frontier and always reveal with utmost honesty our real reasons for all that we do.

But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them." Viola: "Thy reason, man?" Feste: "Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them.

All men have a reason, but not all men can give a reason.

We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark.

Good taste is either that which agrees with my taste or that which subjects itself to the rule of reason. From this we can see how useful it is to employ reason in seeking out the laws of taste.

I fear waking up one morning and finding out my life was all for nothing. We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark. When you're kind to someone in trouble, you hope they remember and are kind to someone else and so on. Soon it will be like a wildfire.

This command seems to me to be strictly a missionary injunction, and, as far as I can see, those to whom it was first delivered regarded it in that light, so that, apart altogether from choice and other lower reasons, my going forth is a matter of obedience to a plain command; and in place of seeking to assign a reason for going abroad, I would prefer to say that I have failed to discover any reason why I should stay at home.

As far as I remember, even younger than eight, I have always been guided by reason. Not cold reason, but that which leads to the truth, to the real, and to sane Justice.

To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason. Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature, and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of evolution.

Yes, we do defend our office as we do defend our homes. This is a constitutional right everybody has, and nothing's funny about that. The only reason they get mad at the Black Panther Party when you do it is for the simple reason that we're political.

In short, herein seems to lie the difference between idiots and madmen, that madmen put wrong ideas together, and so make wrong propositions, but argue and reason right from them: but idiots make very few or no propositions, and reason scarce at all.

Don't you think that's the main reason people find [writing] so difficult? If they can write complete sentences and can use a dictionary, isn't that the only reason they find writing hard: they don't know or care about anything?

Pity on the person who has become accustomed to seeing in necessity something arbitrary, who ascribes to the arbitrary some sort of reason, and even claims that following that sort of reason has religious value.

And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day .... The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the church has enjoined it.

Each day my reason tells me so; But reason doesn't rule in love, you know.

A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

I hold him to my chest. My love for him is the only unequivocally good thing I know is always there inside of me. It is the reason I should be spared all that is coming, the only reason.

...there is nothing that has been created without some reason, even if human nature is incapable of knowing precisely the reason for them all.

Is it not lack of faith that leads men to fear the scrutiny of reason? If the destination is doubtful, then the path must be fraught with fear. A robust faith need not fear, for if God exists, then reason cannot help but lead us to Him. 'Cogito, ergo Deus est,' argues St. Augustine, 'I think, therefore God is.'

Love doesn't need a reason. Hate needs a reason.

Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism, we reject speciesism. The species of a sentient being is no more reason to deny the protection of this basic right than race, sex, age, or sexual orientation is a reason to deny membership in the human moral community to other humans.

As soon as an opinion becomes common it is sufficient reason for men to abandon it and to uphold the opposite opinion until that in its turn grows old, and they require to distinguish themselves by other things. Thus if they attain their goal in some art or science, we must expect them soon to cast it aside to acquire some fresh fame, and this is partly the reason why the most splendid ages degenerate so quickly, and, scarcely emerged from barbarism, plunge into it again.

There was good reason for the silence of the Holy Spirit as to how,when, in what form Christ ordained the apostles, the reason being to show the indifferency of all forms of words.

The Bible says all men are without excuse. Even those who are given no good reason to believe and many persuasive reasons to disbelieve have no excuse, because the ultimate reason they do not believe is that they have deliberately rejected God's Holy Spirit.

The only reason to be in politics is public service. There's no other reason. Frankly, if that's the best job you can get in terms of money, that's too bad, you know. Because frankly, it's not well paid, everyone knows that. So for most people it's a big sacrifice.

There are those who reason well, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who reason badly.

Generally the reason they fail in the job is, you made some mistake in the hiring process in that you didn't match... them to the needs of your company accurately enough. That's the #1 reason this fails. And that's generally a good place to start: Here's where we are and here's what I didn't recognize about us and about you when I made the decision, and now it is what it is.

If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to avoid them.

We cannot safely assume that other people's minds work on the same principles as our own. All too often, others with whom we come in contact do not reason as we reason, or do not value the things we value, or are not interested in what interests us.

But I didn't walk a single step. I stopped a lot to stretch, but I never walked. I didn't come here to walk. I came to run. That's the reason-the only reason-I flew all the way to the northern tip of Japan. No matter how slow I might run, I wasn't about to walk. That was the rule.

... indeed, what reason may not go to school to the wisdom of bees, ants, and spiders? What wise hand teacheth them to do what reason cannot teach us? Ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, whales, elephants, dromedaries, and camels; these, I confess, are the colossuses and majestick pieces of her hand; but in these narrow engines there is more curious mathematieks; and the civility of these little Citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdom of their Maker.

I stand four-square for reason, and object to what seems to me to be irrationality, whatever the source. If you are on my side in this, I must warn you that the army of the night has the advantage of overwhelming numbers, and, by its very nature, is immune to reason, so that it is entirely unlikely that you and I can win out. We will always remain a tiny and probably hopeless minority, but let us never tire of presenting our view, and of fighting the good fight for the right.

Clearly it is not reason that has failed. What has failed-as it has always failed-is the attempt to achieve certainty, to reach an absolute, to find the course of human events to a final end. It is not reason that has promised to eliminate risk in human undertakings; it is the emotional needs of men.

Consumers cannot think in abstractions. They cannot envision a new concept. They cannot predict their behavior. They can only compare against their current frame of reference. So you need to make the big leap for them. You need to provide them with a reason to buy, a reason to brag to their friends. Expect new-to-the-world ideas to fall on deaf ears. Consumers will, however, change their tune when they can see, touch, and explore.

Was there a reason behind it? There would be no point in asking Zaphod, he never appeared to have a reason for anything he did at all: he had turned unfathomability into an art form. He attacked everything in life with a mixture of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence and it was often difficult to tell which was which.

Nothing-was more degrading than for a woman to have to marry for a home. Love should be the sole reason. Surely those with a brain-to think, eyes to see and a mind-to reason must realise that the capitalist system must cease and a co-operative system prevail in its place.

Were we incapable of empathy – of putting ourselves in the position of others and seeing that their suffering is like our own – then ethical reasoning would lead nowhere. If emotion without reason is blind, then reason without emotion is impotent.