|
|
It is not necessary to retain facts that we may reason concerning
them.
[Fr., Il n'est pas necessaire de tenir les choses pour en
raisonner.]
Author: Pierre Auguste Caron de Beaumarchais
Source: Barbier de Seville (V, 4)
|
Reason is the mistress and queen of all things.
[Lat., Domina omnium et regina ratio.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: Tusculanarum Disputationum (II, 21)
|
Reasons are not like garments, the worse for wearing.
- Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex,
Author: Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex
Source: said to Lord Willoughby, Jan. 4, 1598-9
|
Aristophanes turns Socrates into ridicule . . . as making the
worse appear the better reason.
Author: Laertius Diogenes
Source: Socrates (V)
|
He who will not reason, is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and
he who dares not, is a slave.
Author: Sir William Drummond (2)
Source: Academical Question (end of preface)
|
Two angels guide
The path of man, both aged and yet young.
As angels are, ripening through endless years,
On one he leans: some call her Memory,
And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet,
With deep mysterious accords: the other,
Floating above, holds down a lamp with streams
A light divine and searching on the earth,
Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields,
Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew,
Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp
Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked
But for Tradition; we walk evermore
To higher paths by brightening Reason's lamp.
Author: George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans Cross)
Source: The Spanish Gypsy (bk. II)
|
Setting themselves against reason, as often as reason is against
them.
Author: Thomas Hobbes
Source: Works (III, p. 91), (ed. 1839)
|
I will it, I order it, let my will stand for a reason.
[Lat., Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas.]
Author: Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenal)
Source: Satires (VI, 223)
|
You have ravished me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I
could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I
endeavored often "to reason against the reasons of my Love."
Author: John Keats
Source: Letters to Fanny Braune (VIII)
|
The reasoning of the strongest is always the best.
[Fr., La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure.]
Author: Jean de la Fontaine
Source: Fables (I, 10)
|
To be rational is so glorious a thing, that two-legged creatures
generally content themselves with the title.
Author: John Locke
Source: Letter to Antony Collins, Esq.
|
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.
Author: John Milton
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. II, l. 112)
|
Subdue
By force, who reason for their law refuse,
Right reason for their law.
Author: John Milton
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VI, l. 40)
|
Indu'd
With sanctity of reason.
Author: John Milton
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VII, l. 507)
|
All extremes does perfect reason flee,
And wishes to be wise quite soberly.
[Fr., La parfaite raison fuit toute extremite,
Et veut que l'on soit sage avec sobriete.]
Author: Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
Source: Le Misanthrope (I, 1)
|
But it is not reason that governs love.
[Fr., Mais la raison n'est pas ce qui regle l'amour.]
Author: Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
Source: Le Misanthrope (I, 1)
|
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that
his reason is weak.
Author: Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
Source: Le Misanthrope (I, 1)
|
Say first, of God above or man below,
What can we reason but from what we know?
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Essay on Man (ep. I, l. 17)
|
Reason, however able, cool at best,
Cares not for service, or but serves when prest,
Stays till we call, and then not often near.
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Essay on Man (ep. III, l. 85)
|
Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise;
His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Moral Essays (ep. 1, l. 117)
|
All is but a jest, all dust, all not worth two peason:
For why in man's matters is neither rime nor reason.
[Lat., Omnia sunt risus, sunt pulvis, et omnia nil sunt:
Res hominum cunctae, nam ratione lies.]
Author: Puttenham
Source: Arte of English Poesie (p. 125), attributed by him to Democritus
|
For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear
the better reason.
[Lat., Nam et Socrati objiciunt comici, docere eum quomodo
pejorem causam meliorem faciat.]
Author: Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilian)
Source: De Institutione Oratoria (II, 17)
|
We love without reason, and without reason we hate.
[Fr., On aime sans raison, et sans raison l'on hait.]
Author: Jean Francois Regnard
Source: Les Folies Amoureuses
|
Nothing can be lasting when reason does not rule.
[Lat., Nihil potest esse diuturnum cui non subest ratio.]
Author: Quintus Curtius Rufus (Curtis Rufus Quintus)
Source: De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni (IV, 14, 19)
|
This is our chief bane, that we live not according to the light
of reason, but after the fashion of others.
[Lat., Id nobis maxime nocet, quod non ad rationis lumen sed ad
similitudinem aliorum vivimus.]
Author: Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Source: Octavia (act II, 454)
|
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
Author: Thomas Paine
Source: None
|
Let reason govern desire.
Author: Marcus T. Cicero
Source: None
|
I'll not listen to reason. . . . Reason always means what someone else has got to say.
Author: Elizabeth Gaskell
Source: None
|
To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.
Author: William Hazlitt
Source: None
|
Our passions are the winds that propel our vessel. Our reason is the pilot that steers her. Without winds the vessel would not move and without a pilot she would be lost.
Author: Proverb
Source: None
|
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.
Author: D. H. Lawrence
Source: None
|
The more reason, the less government.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: None
|
Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons for it afterwards.
Author: Soren F. Petersen
Source: None
|
There is no reason to repeat bad history.
Author: Eleanor Holmes Norton
Source: None
|
Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one.
Author: Bertrand Russell
Source: None
|
Eloquence may set fire to reason.
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Source: None
|
A noble heart will always capitulate to reason.
Author: Johann Friedrich Von Schiller
Source: None
|
If we would guide by the light of reason we must let our minds be bold.
Author: Louis Brandeis
Source: None
|
Reason is the test of ridicule, not ridicule the test of truth.
Author: William Warburton
Source: None
|
Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.
Author: William Allen White
Source: None
|
Reason can in general do more than blind force.
Author: Gallus
Source: None
|
Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.
Author: James Robinson
Source: None
|
Reason is the wise man's guide, example the fool's.
Author: Welsh Proverb
Source: None
|
He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; and he that dares not reason is a slave.
Author: William Drummond
Source: None
|
This case may also be notable for the chutzpah of the Assistant United States Attorney in advancing as a reason for striking a juror that, "I have a P rule, I never accept anyone whose occupation begins with a P. He is a pipeline operator." This is.
Author: Legal Opinion
Source: None
|
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
Author: Anon.
Source: None
|
A man always has two reasons for doing anything--a good reason and the real reason.
Author: J. P. Morgan
Source: None
|
Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.
Author: Voltaire
Source: None
|
Man has received direct from God only one instrument wherewith to know himself and to know his relation to the universe--he has no other--and that instrument is reason.
Author: Leo Tolstoi
Source: None
|
If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
Author: Samuel Butler
Source: None
|
