We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Some other faculty than the intellect is necessary for the apprehension of reality.
—Henri Bergson (1859–1941) French Philosopher, Evolutionist
That proves you are unusual, returned the Scarecrow; and I am convinced the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.
—L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) American Journalist, Writer
Reason is the historian, but passions are the actors.
—Antoine de Rivarol (1753–1801) French Writer, Epigrammatist
Reason is a supple nymph, and slippery as a fish by nature. She had as leave give her kiss to an absurdity any day, as to syllogistic truth. The absurdity may turn out truer.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940) Lithuanian-American Anarchist, Feminist
I must create a system, or be enslav’d by another man’s; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Scientific truth is marvelous, but moral truth is divine and whoever breathes its air and walks by its light has found the lost paradise.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
From his cradle to the grave, a man never does a single thing which has any first and foremost object save one—to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort, for himself.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
What is now reason was formerly impulse or instinct.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
I do not believe that the deeper problems of living can ever be answered by the process of thought. I believe that life itself teaches us either patience with regard to them, or reveals to us possible solutions when our hearts are pressed close against duties and sorrows and experiences of all kinds.
—Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846–1916) American Essayist, Editor
Tell the truth and then run.
—Common Proverb
Mysticism is: a. An advanced state of inner enlightenment. b. Union with Reality. c. A state of genuinely satisfying success. d. Insight into an entirely new world of living. e. An intuitive grasp of Truth, above and beyond intellectual reasoning. f. A personal experience, in which we are happy and healthy human beings.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
As reason is a rebel to faith, so passion is a rebel to reason.
—Thomas Browne (1605–82) English Author, Physician
Happy the man who has been able to know the reasons for things.
—Virgil (70–19 BCE) Roman Poet
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
Reason can never be popular. Passions and feelings may become popular, but reason will always remain the sole property of a few eminent individuals.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Systems die; instincts remain.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
If you want to be an orator, first get your great cause.
—Wendell Phillips (1811–84) American Abolitionist, Lawyer, Orator
Instead of casting away our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree, and, more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason because we suspect that in this stock each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themseive of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
He that takes away reason to make way for revelation puts out the light of both, and does much the same as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
The little trouble in the world that is not due to love is due to friendship.
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision.
—Charlotte Bronte (1816–1855) English Novelist, Poet
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Like dreams, small creeks grow into mighty rivers.
—Indian Proverb
No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
If you can once engage people’s pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
In this world, only those people who have fallen to the lowest degree of humiliation, far below beggary, who are not just without any social consideration but are regarded by all as being deprived of that foremost human dignity, reason itself—only those people, in fact, are capable of telling the truth. All the others lie.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
The province of reason in matters of religion is the same as that of the eye in reference to the external world: not to create objects; nor to sit in judgment on the propriety of their existence, but simply to discern them just as they are.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.
—Buddhist Teaching
Passion and prejudice govern the world, only under the name of reason.
—John Wesley (1703–91) British Methodist Religious Leader, Preacher, Theologian
Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his body, to risk his well-being, to risk his life, in a great cause.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
If a man for whatever reason has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.
—Jacques Cousteau (1910–97) French Oceanographer, Documentary Director
The more you reason the less you create.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
Opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exists, there may be moods—moods of the masses and moods of individuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former—but no opinion.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
—Unknown
When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Faith evermore looks upward and describes objects remote; but reason can discover things only near—sees nothing that’s above her.
—Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English Religious Poet
Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
Rationalists are admirable beings, rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is worship of stock and stone believing it to be God. I plead not for the suppression of reason, but for a due recognition of that in us which sanctifies reason.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Reason is progressive; instinct is complete; swift instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet