Quotes about reason

The intellect longs for the delights of the non-intellect, that which is alive and beautiful dans sa stupidité.

Analysis as an instrument of enlightenment and civilization is good, in so far as it shatters absurd convictions, acts as a solvent upon natural prejudices, and undermines authority; good, in other words, in that it sets free, refines, humanizes, makes slaves ripe for freedom. But it is bad, very bad, in so far as it stands in the way of action, cannot shape the vital forces, maims life at its roots. Analysis can be a very unappetizing affair, as much so as death.

Human reason needs only to will more strongly than fate, and she is fate.

“I was ordained,” said the preacher. “No one ordains artists. They ordain themselves.”

Just as Taleswapper had expected. The preacher retreated to authority as soon as he feared his ideas could not stand on their own merit. Reasonable argument was impossible when authority became the arbiter.

“I've done my best, but the boy is unteachable. He doubts everything, and contests each point of theology as if it were required to meet the same tests of logic and consistency that prevail in the world of science.”

“In other words, he expects your doctrines to make sense.”

“He is unwilling to accept the idea that some things remain mysteries, comprehensible only to the mind of God. Ambiguity makes him saucy, and paradox causes open rebellion.”

“An obnoxious child.”

Boys always argued as if they knew then had the forces of logic on their side, even when they were being completely irrational.

Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts.

There cannot any one moral Rule be propos'd, whereof a Man may not justly demand a Reason.

The single greatest world transformation would simply be the embrace of global reasonableness and pluralistic tolerance—the global embrace of egoic-rationality (on the way to centauric vision-logic).

Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.

Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive by any random means, as a parasite, a moocher or a looter, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment—so he is free to seek his happiness in any irrational fraud, any whim, any delusion, any mindless escape from reality, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment nor to escape the consequences.

The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals.