reason

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires.

All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

—Socrates

It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another’s property in a case of extreme need: because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need.

—Thomas Aquinas

I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven’s name, why is it so important to think the same things all together.

—Jean-Paul Sartre

Those who reason most powerfully and are the most successful at ordering their thoughts so as to make them clear and intelligible will always be best able to persuade others of what they say, even if they speak in the thickest of dialects.

René Descartes

O what reason of thankfulness have I on account of this retirement! I find that I do not, and it seems I cannot, lead a Christian life when I am abroad, and cannot spend time in devotion, Christian conversation, and serious meditation, as I should do.

—David Brainerd

Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that’s all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition.

—Jean-Paul Sartre

Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.

—Immanuel Kant

In a word if you tell me you have a personality problem I am not certain until I know you better whether to say ‘Good!’ or ‘I’m sorry.’ It depends on the reasons. And these, it seems, may be good reasons, or they may be good reasons.

Abraham Maslow

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.”

Henry Ford

There’s no reason to pity a person if he dies or loses his money, if he has no home or property, because none of those things belong to man. But there’s reason for pity if a person loses his one true possession, his highest blessing: his ability to love.

—Leo Tolstoy

This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there. – C.S. Lewis

Man’s first law is to watch over his own preservation; his first care he owes to himself; and as soon as he reaches the age of reason, he becomes the only judge of the best means to preserve himself; he becomes his own master.

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The majority of human actions aren’t a result of reason, or even of emotion, but of mindless imitation.

—Leo Tolstoy

Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.

—Voltaire

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

—Voltaire

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

—Vincent Van Gogh

The majority of human actions aren’t a result of reason, or even of emotion, but of mindless imitation, of suggestion.

—Leo Tolstoy

But he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself.

—John Milton

Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.

—Thomas Aquinas

It is most reasonable that we should praise and bless him and give thanks to him.

—Jonathan Edwards

A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.

—Ernest Hemingway

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.

—Henry Ford

Reason alone does not suffice.

—Carl Jung

Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that’s all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition.

—Jean-Paul Sartre

But men love abstract reasoning and neat systematization so much that they think nothing of distorting the truth, closing their eyes and ears to contrary evidence to preserve their logical constructions.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires.

All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

—Socrates

What is reasonable is real; that which is real is reasonable.

—Georg Hegel

Intuition does not denote something contrary to reason, but something outside of the province of reason.

—Carl Jung

Man’s first law is to watch over his own preservation; his first care he owes to himself; and as soon as he reaches the age of reason, he becomes the only judge of the best means to preserve himself; he becomes his own master.

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Philosophical knowledge is knowledge which reason gains from concepts; mathematical knowledge is knowledge which reason gains from the construction of concepts.

—Immanuel Kant