Human Reason Quotes - Page 2

• Among the most joyful people I have known have been some who seem to have had no human reason for joy. The sweet fragrance of Christ has shown through their lives.

  Elisabeth Elliot

  Sweet, People, Joy

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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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• Any journey in life, if not done for human reasons of understanding and love, would be a very empty and lonely one.

  Tim Robbins

  Meaningful, Lonely, Journey

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• 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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• There is no great harm in the theorist who makes up a new theory to fit a new event. But the theorist who starts with a false theory and then sees everything as making it come true is the most dangerous enemy of human reason.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Science, Enemy, Events

  "The Flying Inn". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1914.

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• Somebody must trespass on the taboos of modern nationalism, in the interests of human reason. Business can't. Diplomacy won't. It has to be people like us.

  Robert Byron

  People, Reason, Modern

  Robert Byron (2016). “The Road to Oxiana: New edition linked and annotaded”, p.6, MarcoPolo

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• In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Diety, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.

  James F. Cooper

  Christian, Lying, School

  "The American Democrat: The Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, p. 207, April 1, 2010.

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• Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence.
  Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves. Of never acquiescing in a fraud; of never accepting the secondary-rate in poetry, painting, music, love, friends. Of safeguarding our poetic institutions against the encroachments of mechanized, insensate, inhumane, abstract rationality.

  Robert Graves

  Humorous, Poetry, Fancy

  "The Crane Bag". Book by Robert Graves. "The Case for Xanthippe", 1969.

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• Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Shining, Religion, Battle

  Mohandas Karmchand Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, V. Geetha (2004). “Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace”, p.224, Tara Publishing

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• We're not called to live by human reason. All that matters is obedience to God's Word and his leading in our lives. if God says go,we'll go. If he says stay, we'll stay. When we are in his will, we are in the safest place in the world.

  Brother Yun

  World, Matter, Reason

  Brother Yun, Paul Hattaway (2002). “The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun”, p.272, Monarch Books

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• The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and practice.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Practice, Ideas, Justice

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• The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Powerful, Organization, Liberty

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part I: "The Value of Freedom". Chapter 2: "The Creative Power of a Free Civilization", 1960.

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• To prove religious faith by human reason is rationalistic claptrap.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Religious, Reason, Prove

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• And of all illumination which human reason can give, none is comparable to the discovery of what we are, our nature, our obligations, what happiness we are capable of, and what are the means of attaining it.

  Adam Weishaupt

  Inspirational, Happiness, Mean

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• The whole object of the Prophets and the Sages was to declare that a limit is set to human reason where it must halt.

  Maimonides

  Sage, Limits, Reason

  Moses Maimonides (2016). “Guide for the perplexed”, p.288, Moses Maimonides

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• Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom.

  John Quincy Adams

  Religious, Liberty, Foundation

  John Quincy Adams (1968). “Writings of John Quincey Adams”

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• The opinion formulated by the Church has more value in my eyes than human reasons, whatever they may be.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Eye, Religion, Atheism

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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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• I can understand your aversion to the use of the term 'religion' to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza... I have not found a better expression than 'religious' for the trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason.

  Albert Einstein

  Religious, Attitude, Reality

  "Einstein and Oppenheimer". Book by Silvan S. Schweber, Harvard University Press, p. 291, 2009.

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• That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted.

  George Boole

  Learning, Expression, Language

  George Boole (1854). “An Investigation of the Laws of Thought: On which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities”, p.24

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• Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.

  Claude Levi-Strauss

  Men, Logic, Language

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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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• Now it seems that everything in the world stems from sources other than God, since the products of nature have their source in nature; deliberate effects can be traced back to human reason or will as their source. There is no need then to assume that God exists.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Religion, Atheism, Needs

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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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