Reason

Reason involves the ability to think, understand and draw conclusions in an abstract way, as in human thinking. The meaning of the word "reason" overlaps to a large extent with "rationality" and the adjective of reason in philosophical contexts is normally "rational", not "reasonable".

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The sleep of reason produces monsters ~ Goya.

• I think I am justified — though where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?
  • Jane Austen, in Sense and Sensibility (1811)

• Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and insensibly approximate to the characters we most admire. In this way, a generous habit of thought and of action carries with it an incalculable influence.
  • Christian Nevell Bovee, quoted in Gems for the Fireside (1883) by Otis Henry Tiffany, p. 809

• All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.
  • Alexis Carrel, quoted in Nava-Vēda: God and Man (Nara and Narayan) (1968‎) by M. B. Raja Rao, p. 229

• Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.
  • Anton Chekhov inUncle Vanya (1897)

• True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.
  • Cicero, De Re Publica, Book 3, Chapter 22

• Reason has built the modern world. It is a precious but also a fragile thing, which can be corroded by apparently harmless irrationality. We must favor verifiable evidence over private feeling. Otherwise we leave ourselves vulnerable to those who would obscure the truth.
  • Richard Dawkins, The Enemies of Reason, "Slaves to Superstition" [1.01], 13 August 2007, timecode 00:46:47ff

• He who will not reason, is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not, is a slave.
  • Sir William Drummond of Logiealmond, Academical Questions (1805), end of preface.

• Two angels guide
  The path of man, both aged and yet young,
  As angels are, ripening through endless years,
  On one he leans: some call her Memory,
  And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet,
  With deep mysterious accords: the other,
  Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams
  A light divine and searching on the earth,
  Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields,
  Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew,
  Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp
  Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked
  But for Tradition; we walk evermore
  To higher paths by brightening Reason's lamp.
  • George Eliot, Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book II.

• The Way to see by Faith, is to shut the Eye of Reason:
  The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1958);, the first portion of this sentence is often quoted without the context provided by the complete statement.

• The sleep of reason produces monsters.
  • Francisco Goya, caption, etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (1799)

• Those may justly be reckoned void of understanding that do not bless and praise God; nor do men ever rightly use their reason till they begin to be religious, nor live as men till they live to the glory of God. As reason is the substratum or subject of religion (so that creatures which have no reason are not capable of religion), so religion is the crown and glory of reason, and we have our reason in vain, and shall one day wish we had never had it, if we do not glorify God with it.
  • Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. IV.—Isaiah to Malachi, Section on Daniel 4:34-37

• But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
  Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear
  The better reason, to perplex and dash
  Maturest counsels.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book II, line 112.

• Subdue
  By force, who reason for their law refuse,
  Right reason for their law.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VI, line 40.

• Indu'd
  With sanctity of reason.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VII, line 507.

• A long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
  • Thomas Paine, in Common Sense (1776)

• It's whispered that soon if we all call a tune,
  then the Piper will lead us to reason.
  And a new day will dawn for those who stand long,
  and the forests will echo with laughter.
  • Jimmy Page and Robert Plant in "Stairway to Heaven" on Led Zeppelin IV (1971)

• Every why hath a wherefore.
  • William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (1592-94), Act II, scene 2, line 44.

• Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
  Looking before and after, gave us not
  That capability and god-like reason
  To fust in us unus'd.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act IV, scene 4, line 36.

• Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act II, scene 4, line 263.

• Good reasons must, of force, give place to better.
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act IV, scene 3, line 203.

• But since the affairs of men rest still incertain,
  Let's reason with the worst that may befall.
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act V, scene 1, line 96.

• Strong reasons make strong actions.
  • William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act III, scene 4, line 182.

• His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 1, line 16.

• I have no other but a woman's reason
  I think him so because I think him so.
  • William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act I, scene 2, line 23.

• When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.
  • Mark Twain, Is Shakespeare Dead? (1909), §11,as reprinted in Essays and Sketches of Mark Twain (1995), ed. Stuart Miller, ISBN 1566198798

• Reason progressive, Instinct is complete;
  Swift Instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs.
  Brutes soon their zenith reach. * * * In ages they no more
  Could know, do, covet or enjoy.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VII, line 81.

• And what is reason? Be she thus defined:
  Reason is upright stature in the soul.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VII, line 1,526.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 658-59.

• Il n'est pas nécessaire de tenir les choses pour en raisonner.
  • It is not necessary to retain facts that we may reason concerning them.
  • Pierre de Beaumarchais, Barbier de Séville, V. 4.

• Domina omnium et regina ratio.
  • Reason is the mistress and queen of all things.
  • Cicero, Tusculanarum Disputationum, II. 21.

• Aristophanes turns Socrates into ridicule … as making the worse appear the better reason.
  • Diogenes Laertius, Socrates, V.

• Reasons are not like garments, the worse for wearing.
  • Earl of Essex to Lord Willoughby (Jan. 4, 1598–9).

• Setting themselves against reason, as often as reason is against them.
  • Thomas Hobbes, Works, III, p. 91. Ed. 1839. Also in Epistle Dedicatory to Tripos, IV, XIII.

• Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas.
  • I will it, I so order, let my will stand for a reason.
  • Juvenal, Satires, VI. 223.

• You have ravished me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavored often "to reason against the reasons of my Love."
  • John Keats, Letters to Fanny Braune, VIII.

• La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure.
  • The reasoning of the strongest is always the best.
  • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, I. 10.

• To be rational is so glorious a thing, that two-legged creatures generally content themselves with the title.
  • John Locke, Letter to Antony Collins, Esq.

• Mais la raison n'est pas ce qui règle l'amour.
  • But it is not reason that governs love.
  • Molière, Le Misanthrope, I, 1.

• La parfaite raison fuit toute extremité,
  Et veut que l'on soit sage avec sobriètè.
  • All extremes does perfect reason flee,
    And wishes to be wise quite soberly.
  • Molière, Le Misanthrope, I, 1.

• Say first, of God above or man below,
  What can we reason but from what we know?
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle I, line 17.

• Reason, however able, cool at best,
  Cares not for service, or but serves when prest,
  Stays till we call, and then not often near.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle III, line 85.

• Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise;
  His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle I, line 117.

• Omnia sunt risus, sunt pulvis, et omnia nil sunt:
  Res 'hominum cunctæ, nam ratione carent.
  • All is but a jest, all dust, all not worth two peason:
    For why in man's matters is neither rime nor reason.
  • George Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie, p. 125. Attributed by him to Democritus.

• Nam et Socrati objiciunt comici, docere eum quomodo pejorem causam meliorem faciat.
  • For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear the better reason.
  • Quintilian, De Institutione Oratoria, II. 17. 1.

• On aime sans raison, et sans raison l'on hait.
  • We love without reason, and without reason we hate.
  • Jean-François Regnard, Les Folies Amoureuses.

• Nihil potest esse diuturnum cui non subest ratio.
  • Nothing can be lasting when reason does not rule.
  • Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni, IV, 14, 19.

• Id nobis maxime nocet, quod non ad rationis lumen sed ad similitudinem aliorum vivimus.
  • This is our chief bane, that we live not according to the light of reason, but after the fashion of others.
  • Seneca, Octavia, Act II, 454.

• While Reason drew the plan, the Heart inform'd
  The moral page and Fancy lent it grace.
  • James Thomson, Liberty, Part IV, line 262.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• Water cannot rise higher than its source, neither can human reason.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, p. 487.

• Religion passes out of the ken of reason only where the eye of reason has reached its own horizon; faith is then but its continuation, even as the day softens away into the sweet twilight; and twilight, hushed and breathless, steals into the darkness.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, p. 488.

• Polished steel will not shine in the dark. No more can reason, however refined or cultivated, shine efficaciously but as it reflects the light of Divine truth shed from heaven.
  • John Foster, p. 487.

• The light of reason ever gleams on the margin of an unmeasured and immeasurable ocean of mystery; and however far we push our discoveries, the line of light only moves on, and has infinite and unfathomable darkness beyond it.
  • Henry Giles, p. 487.

• Here is the manliness of manhood, that a man has a reason for what he does, and has a will in doing it.
  • Alexander Maclaren, p. 488.

• Let reason count the stars, weigh the mounta1ns, fathom the depths — the employment becomes her, and the success is glorious. But when the question is, " How shall man be just with God?" reason must be silent, revelation must speak; and he who will not hear it assimilates himself to the first deist, Cain; he may not kill a brother, he certainly destroys himself.
  • Henry Melvill, p. 488.

• What a return do we make for those blessings we have received! How disrespectfully do we treat the gospel of Christ to which we owe that clear light both of reason and of nature, which we now enjoy, when we endeavor to set up reason and nature in opposition to it! Ought the withered hand which Christ has restored and made whole to be lifted up against Him?
  • Bishop Sherlock, p. 487.