Unreasonable Quotes - Page 2

• It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

  Adam Smith

  Progressive Taxation, Rich, Economics

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.355

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• Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health?

  Petrarch

  Blessing, Men, Desire

  Francesco Petrarch (2016). “Delphi Collected Poetical Works of Francesco Petrarch (Illustrated)”, Delphi Classics

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• I grinned at him. 'Jealous?' He grinned right back. 'That's a trick question. If I say yes you'll accuse me of being paranoid and unreasonable, and if I say no you'll make some defensive crack about how I don't think you're worth getting jealous over.' This is what I got for hooking up with a lawyer.

  Carrie Vaughn

  Jealous, Thinking, Cracks

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• All progress depends upon the unreasonable person.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Progress, Persons, Depends

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• What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build it anyway.

  Mother Teresa

  Years, May, Self Centered

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• In the light of our culture, these are not unreasonable questions and tactics, but if once again, we try to see the lens through which we look, we can see that there is far too great an emphasis placed on the future.

  Alan Dundes

  Light, Trying, Culture

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• It must always be remembered that what the Constitution forbids is not all searches and seizures, but unreasonable searches and seizures.

  Potter Stewart

  Constitution, Remembered, Seizures

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• Nothing drives your opponents more crazy than being utterly reasonable. And nothing makes demonizing or delegitimizing your opponents easier than letting them shriek unreasonable things for you. The Republicans need to get back to being the party that elicits unreasonable shrieking from their opponents. Not the other way around.

  Jonah Goldberg

  Crazy, Party, Needs

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• If it turns out that President Barack Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent, hard-line, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world but not with Republicans? Maybe he's not the problem.

  Jon Stewart

  Funny, Usa, America

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• In the final analysis it is between you and God, it was never between you and them anyway.

  Mother Teresa

  Finals, Analysis, Be Kind

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• The 4th Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.

  Potter Stewart

  Home, Men, Rights

  "Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 511". 1961.

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• Statutes authorizing unreasonable searches were the core concern of the framers of the 4th Amendment.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  History, Amendments, Framers

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• It does not seem to me that the steps which would be needed to make Britain - and others - more comfortable in their relationship in the European Union are inherently so outlandish or unreasonable.

  David Cameron

  Steps, Doe, Would Be

  David Cameron's Speech about his plans for a referendum on British membership of the European Union, www.theguardian.com. January 23, 2013.

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• Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Clever, Selfish, Kissing

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.72, Macmillan

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• Rousseau had it backwards. We are NOT born free. We are born in the chains of the random and the reflexive, and are ignorant and unreasonable by simple nature. We must learn to be free, to organize the random and detect the reflexive, to acquire the knowledge of particulars and the powers of reason. The examined life is impossible if we cannot examine, order, classify, define, distinguish, always in minute particulars.

  Richard Mitchell

  Wisdom, Simple, Order

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• The reasonable man will adjust to the demands of his environment. The unreasonable man expects his environment to adjust to his own needs. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Men, Progress, Needs

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• I hate the way, once you start to know someone, care about them, their behavior can distress you, even when it's unreasonable and not your fault, even if you were really trying to be careful, tactful.

  Tanith Lee

  Hate, Trying, Care

  Tanith Lee (2002). “The Claidi journals”

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• Reasonable men adapt themselves to their environment; unreasonable men try to adapt their environment to themselves. Thus all progress is the result of the efforts of unreasonable men.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Men, Effort, Progress

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• The unreasonable efficiency of mathematics in science is a gift we neither understand nor deserve.

  Eugene Wigner

  Science, Efficiency, Mathematics

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• Punishments of unreasonable severity, especially where indiscriminately afflicted, have less effect in preventing crimes, and amending the manners of a people, than such as are more merciful in general, yet properly intermixed with due distinctions of severity.

  William Blackstone

  Punishment, People, Hell

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• Babies are unreasonable; they expect far too much of existence. Each new generation that comes takes one look at the world, thinks wildly, "Is this all they've done to it?" and bursts into tears.

  Clarence Day

  Baby, Children, Thinking

  "The Crow's Nest".

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• There is no such thing as an unreasonable question, or a silly question, or a frivolous question, or a waste-of-time question. It's your life, and you've got to get these answers.

  Marcia Wallace

  Silly, Answers, Waste

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• It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox,) virtually and substantially a monarchy.

  Alexander Fraser Tytler

  Men, Self, Perfect

  " Universal History: From the Creation of the World to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century, Vol. I" by Alexander Fraser Tytler, Petridge and Company, (p. 216), 1854.

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• Love is anticipation and memory, uncertainty and longing. It’s unreasonable, of course. Nothing begins with so much excitement and hope and pleasure as love, except maybe writing a story. And nothing fails as often, except writing stories. And like a story, love must be troubled to be interesting.

  John Dufresne

  Memories, Writing, Love Is

  John Dufresne (2008). “Love Warps the Mind a Little: A Novel”, p.140, W. W. Norton & Company

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• It is not unreasonable to look upon Concorde as a miracle.

  Brian Trubshaw

  Miracle, Looks, Aviation

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