Human Reason Quotes - Page 3

• 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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• Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Religious, War, Religion

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

  Nikita Khrushchev

  Cuba, Reason, Lost

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• It seems certain, that though a man, in a flush of humour, after intense reflection on the many contradictions and imperfections of human reason, may entirely renounce all belief and opinion, it is impossible for him to persevere in this total scepticism, or make it appear in his conduct for a few hours.

  David Hume

  Men, Reflection, Imperfection

  David Hume, Peter Millican (2008). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.153, Oxford University Press

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• Then we shall... be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God.

  Stephen Hawking

  If There Is A God, Design, Mind

  A Brief History of Time ch. 11 (1988)

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• Human reason is like a drunken man on horseback; set it up on one side, and it tumbles over on the other

  Martin Luther

  Men, Alcohol, Sides

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• Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Saint, Poverty, Reason

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• Between two beings there is always the barrier of words. Man has so many ears and speaks so many languages. Should it nevertheless be possible to understand one another? Is real communication possible if word and language betray us every time? Shall, in the end, only the language of tanks and guns prevail and not human reason and understanding?

  Joost Meerloo

  Time, Real, Communication

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• Every type of destruction that human philosophy, human science, human reason, human art, human cunning, human force, and human brutality could bring to bear against this Book, and yet the Bible stands absolutely unshaken today. At times almost all the wise and great of the earth have been pitted against the Bible, and only an obscure few for it. Yet it has stood.

  R. A. Torrey

  Bible, Christian, Wise

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• First the lover must learn charity and keep God's law. Then he shall be blessed a hundredfold, and he shall do great things without great effort, and bear all pain without suffering. And so his life will surpass human reason indeed.

  Hadewijch

  Christian, Pain, Blessed

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• An enlightened trust in the sovereignty of human reason can be every bit as magical as the exploits of Merlin, and a faith in our capacity for limitless self-improvement just as much a wide-eyed superstition as a faith in leprechauns.

  Terry Eagleton

  Self, Superstitions, Improvement

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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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• 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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• 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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  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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