Human Reason Quotes - Page 2

• Human reason has discovered many amazing things in nature and will discover still more, and will thereby increase its power over nature.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Reason, Increase, Humans

  "Materialism and Empirio-criticism: Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy (1908)". Book by Vladimir Lenin. Chapter Five: "The Recent Revolution in Natural Science and Philosophical Idealism". Collected Works, Volume 14, www.marxists.org.

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• When human reason has exhausted every possibility, the children can go to their Father and receive all they need. ... For only when you have become utterly dependent upon prayer and faith, only when all human possibilities have been exhausted, can you begin to reckon that God will intervene and work His miracles.

  Basilea Schlink

  Prayer, Children, Father

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• ...[sacred] doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made. Nor does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Christian, Believe, Doe

  Saint Thomas Aquinas, Catholic Way Publishing (2014). “The Summa Theologica: Complete Edition”, p.68, Catholic Way Publishing

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• Get into the habit of doing what you see, not what you know. Human reason cannot foresee the accidents of out-of-doors.

  Charles Webster Hawthorne

  Doors, Reason, Habit

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• Do not walk in the path of human reason, and resist the pressures that would project you into conjectures about the future. Live one day at a time! Simply striving to bring joy to your Father's heart is enough to keep you occupied. For you know that He loves you, and you will find your peace as you rest in Him.

  Frances J Roberts

  Father, Love You, Heart

  Frances J. Roberts (2009). “Come Away My Beloved Updated”, p.25, Barbour Publishing

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• It may indeed prove to be far the most difficult and not the least important task for human reason rationally to comprehend its own limitations. It is essential for the growth of reason that as individuals we should bow to forces and obey principles which we cannot hope fully to understand, yet on which the advance and even the preservation of civilization depend.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Civilization, Growth, Important

  "The Counter-Revolution of Science". Book by Friedrich Hayek, "Conscious" Direction and the Growth of Reason (ch. 9), 1952.

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• The thought of immortality is as well founded as any other well authenticated postulate of the human reason.

  John Haynes Holmes

  Reason, Immortality, Wells

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• Natural Magick is taken to be nothing else, but the chief power of all the natural Sciences; which therefore they call the top and perfection of Natural Philosophy, and which is indeed the active part of the same; which by the assistance of natural forces and faculties, through their mutual & opportune application, performs those things that are above Human Reason.

  Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

  Philosophy, Taken, Perfection

  Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1676). “The Vanity of Arts and Sciences”, p.110

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• They talk about who won and who lost. Human reason won. Mankind won.

  Nikita Khrushchev

  Cuba, Reason, Lost

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• Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is not asceticism; it has again and again in the past repressed fanatical and cruel exaggerations of asceticism. Catholicism is not mere mysticism; it is even now defending human reason against the mere mysticism of the Pragmatists.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fighting, Past, Asceticism

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• The smiles of infants are said to be the first fruits of human reason.

  Henry Norman Hudson

  Fruit, Firsts, Reason

  Henry Norman Hudson (1848). “Lectures on Shakespeare”, p.220

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• The liberty of the press would be an empty sound, and no man would venture to write on any subject, however, pure his purpose, without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at the other. From minds thus subdued by the fear of punishment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason.

  Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine

  Writing, Men, Media

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• The most ancient parts of truth . . . also once were plastic. They also were called true for human reasons. They also mediated between still earlier truths and what in those days were novel observations. Purely objective truth, truth in whose establishment the function of giving human satisfaction in marrying previous parts of experience with newer parts played no role whatsoever, is nowhere to be found. The reasons why we call things true is the reason why they are true, for to be true means only to perform this marriage-function.

  William James

  Truth, Mean, Giving

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• the leading error of the human mind, - the bane of human happiness - the perverter of human virtue ... is Religion - that dark coinage of trembling ignorance! It is Religion - that poisoner of human felicity! It is Religion - that blind guide of human reason! It is Religion - that dethroner of human virtue! which lies at the root of all the evil and all the misery that pervade the world!

  Frances Wright

  Lying, Ignorance, Dark

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• When I had gone through the whole, and saw what a plain, simple, reasonable thing Christianity was, suited to all conditions and capacities; and in the morality of it now, with divine authority, established into a legible law, so far surpassing all that philosophy and human reason had attained to, or could possibly make effectual to all degrees of man kind; I was flattered to think it might be of some use in the world.

  John Locke

  Philosophy, Simple, Men

  John Locke (1824). “The Works of John Locke: In Nine Volumes”, p.188

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• When it began, Christianity was regarded as a system entirely beyond the range and scope of human reason; it was impious to question; it was impious to examine; it was impious to discriminate. On the other hand, it was visibly instinct with the supernatural. Miracles of every order and degree of magnitude were flashing forth incessantly from all its parts.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Hands, Order, Miracle

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1865). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.198

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• For the existentials, negation is their God. To be precise, that god is maintained only through the negation of human reason. But, like suicides, gods change with men.

  Albert Camus

  Suicide, Men, Atheism

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• The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

  David Hume

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Views

  'Four Dissertations' (1757) 'The Natural History of Religion' sect. 15

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• What can be accomplished by a few principles is not effected by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle, which is nature, and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Atheism, Principles, Needs

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• Capitalism is of this material world; it provides us with the means to live; it empowers us within the known world of sense and human reason. If it is to be measured by a strict standard of holiness, by religious normativity alone, then there can never be a moral capitalism.

  Stephen Young

  Religious, Mean, Empowering

  Stephen Young (2003). “Moral Capitalism: Reconciling Private Interest with the Public Good”, p.9, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

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• He who wholly renounces himself, and relies not on mere human reason, will make good progress in the Scriptures; but the world comprehends them not, from ignorance of that mortification which is the gift of God's word.

  Martin Luther

  Ignorance, Progress, World

  Martin Luther (1848). “The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt”, p.4

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• As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Powerful, Law, Judging

  "The Devil's Dictionary". Book by Ambrose Bierce, 1906.

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  I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Ideas, Ordinary, Philosopher

  "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres". Book by Nicolaus Copernicus, 1543.

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• Mathematics is one of the deepest and most powerful expressions of pure human reason, and, at the same time, the most fundamental resource for description and analysis of the experiential world.

  Hyman Bass

  Powerful, Teaching, Math

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• I have learned to be less confident in the conclusions of human reason, and give more credit to the honesty of contrary opinions.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Honesty, Giving, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state”, p.342

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