“For, he reasons pointedly
That which must not, can not be.”

““And someone that brilliant must be a devil?” queried Galt, dryly.
“Not at all,” explained Donal, patiently. “But having such intellectual capabilities, a man must show proportionately greater inclinations toward either good or evil than lesser people. If he tends toward evil, he may mask it in himself—he may even mask its effect on the people with which he surrounds himself. But he has no way of producing the reflections of good which would ordinarily be reflected from his lieutenants and initiates—and which, if he was truly good—he would have no reason to try and hide. And by that lack, you can read him.””

Gordon R. Dickson book Dorsai!

“There is no point on which a greater amount of decision is to be found in Courts of law and equity than as to what is reasonable; for instance, reasonable time, reasonable notice, and the like. It is impossible a priori to state what is reasonable in such cases. You must have the particular facts of each case established before you can ascertain what is meant by reasonable time, notice, and the like.”

John Romilly, 1st Baron Romilly (1802–1874) English Whig politician and judge

“Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain facts, principles, or data, to reason from, must be established, admitted, or denied.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

“Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

“Reason, in fact, is a thing of God, inasmuch as there is nothing which God the Maker of all has not provided, disposed, ordained by reason — nothing which He has not willed should be handled and understood by reason. All, therefore, who are ignorant of God, must necessarily be ignorant also of a thing which is His, because no treasure-house at all is accessible to strangers. And thus, voyaging all the universal course of life without the rudder of reason, they know not how to shun the hurricane which is impending over the world.”
Quippe res dei ratio quia deus omnium conditor nihil non ratione providit disposuit ordinavit, nihil [enim] non ratione tractari intellegique voluit. [3] Igitur ignorantes quique deum rem quoque eius ignorent necesse est quia nullius omnino thesaurus extraneis patet. Itaque universam vitae conversationem sine gubernaculo rationis transfretantes inminentem saeculo procellam evitare non norunt.

Tertullian (155–220) Christian theologian

“Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired…”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

“He knew these last lines by heart and mouthed them now in the darkness. My reason for life. Not living, but life. That was the touch. And she was his reason for life, and why he must survive.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

“Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“He shows Himself to the soul in the living mirror of her intelligence;
Not as He is in His nature,
But in images and similitudes,
And in the degree in which the illuminated reason can grasp and understand Him.
And the wise reason, enlightened of God, sees clearly
And without error in images of the understanding
All that she has heard of God,
Of faith, of truth, according to her longing.
But that image which is God Himself,
Although it is held before her, she cannot comprehend;
For the eyes of her understanding
Must fail before that Incomparable Light.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic