Quotes about reason
page 10

“I have a lot on my mind and not a lot to do so it's going to come out, all of it, and then, then, it may begin to make a sort of sense”

Bryan Lee O'Malley book Lost at Sea

Source: Lost at Sea

“When I leaned a little too close to the doorway, my inner voice piped up, telling me not to be stupid. The guy with the bionic senses was better equipped for this.”

Kelley Armstrong The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Stupidity, Guy

“It was inevitable for people to try to create a sense of normalcy in a place where nothing was normal. It helped one get through the day, to add predictability to a life that was inherently unpredictable.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Life, People, Help

“but she realized that she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to understand her, if only because she had strange sense that he was the kind of man she could fall in love with, even if she didn't want to.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Love, Understanding

“Where's your sense of adventure?"
"Off on a beach somewhere with your sanity?”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Midnight Alley

“Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses.”

Isabel Allende (1942) Chilean writer

People

“For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories and it's a pity we use it so little.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Memory

“Sense will always have attractions for me.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

“When you are in love, things make even more sense, he thought.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Love

“I know the universe has a sense of irony, and sometimes you get reminded just how sadistic that can be.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Narcissus in Chains

Source: Narcissus in Chains

Universe

“Writers have no real area of expertise. They are merely generalists with a highly inflamed sense of punctuation.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

“Good manners reflect something from inside-an innate sense of consideration for others and respect for self.”

Emily Post (1872–1960) American etiquette expert

“Déjà vu is more than just that fleeting moment of surprise, instantly forgotten because we never bother with things that make no sense. It show that time doesn't pass. It's a leap into something we have already experienced and that is being repeated.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph

Time

“We're just fragile machines programmed with a false sense of our own importance. And every now and then the universe sends a reminder that we don't really matter to it…”

Neil Strauss book Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life

Source: Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life

Universe, Falseness

“I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

People, World, Thinking, Parting

“It could be a meeting on the street, or a party or a lecture, or just a simple, banal introduction, then suddenly there is a flash of recognition and the embers of kinship glow. There is an awakening between you, a sense of ancient knowing.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“There it was. Suddenly the strangeness of Quintana of Charyn's face made sense. Because it was a face meant for laughing, but it had never been given a chance. It robbed Phaedra of her breath.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Quintana of Charyn

Chance

“… blame is just a lazy person's way of making sense of chaos.”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Source: All Families are Psychotic

Way, Personality

“Oh yes, I know the way to heaven was easy. We found the little kingdom of our passion that all can share who walk the road of lovers. In wild and secret happiness we stumbled; and gods and demons clamoured in our senses.”

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) English poet, diarist and memoirist

Source: The Poems of Wilfred Owen

God, Happiness, Secret, Way

“Renee was beautiful, but she was my friend now. On the other hand, Annette was my friend, but now she was beautiful. makes about as much sense as anything ever does with girls”

Jordan Sonnenblick (1969) American writer

Source: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie

Beauty, Girl

“Speak your latent conviction… Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Self-Reliance and Other Essays

Time

“Far be it from me to ever let my common sense get in the way of my stupidity. I say we press on.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Stupidity, Way

“I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.”

Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist

Das Naturgesetz und die Struktur der Materie (1967), as translated in Natural Law and the Structure of Matter (1981), p. 34

Mathematics, Idea, Thinking

“Soulmates. That was the word. Maggie could sense what it meant. Two people connected, bound to each other forever, soul to soul, in a way that even death couldn't break. Two souls that were destined for each other.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 3

Death, People, Way, Soul

“No mind is thoroughly well-organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

“She was stronger alone; and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as, with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Support, Appearance

“… [T]here should be a real sense of your imagination and your memories walking and woolgathering, tramping the hills, romping all over the place. Trust them. Don't look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Imagination, Memory, Dance

“There is no affirmation without the one who affirms. in this sense, everything to which you grant your love is yours”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Love

“How do you know but ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five?”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

World, Way, Bird

“Don't be afraid of being scared. To be afraid is a sign of common sense. Only complete idiots are not afraid of anything.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

“Before embarking on important undertakings sit quietly calm your senses and thoughts and meditate deeply. You will then be guided by the great creative power of Spirit.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

“Perhaps this is what it was all about. Leaning on God when life made no sense, as well as when the answers seem clear.”

Tracie Peterson (1959) American writer

Source: A Lady of Secret Devotion

Life, God

“Some of the most relaxing weekends I have ever enjoyed were those I spent quietly with a sense of all work to date completed, and an absorbing mystery.”

Aung San Suu Kyi book Letters from Burma

Source: Letters from Burma

“Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.”

Yann Martel book Beatrice and Virgil

Source: Beatrice and Virgil

Life, Music, Painting

“That’s what existence means: draining one’s own self dry without the sense of thirst.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone's very heart. There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Food, Music, Singing, Heart

“The profoundest of all sensualities
is the sense of truth
and the next deepest sensual experience
is the sense of justice.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Truth, Justice

“In a world like this one, only the random makes sense.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine

World

“Beckendorf walked up with his helmet under his arm. 'She likes you, man.'
'Sure,' I muttered. 'She likes me for target practice.'
'Nah, they always do that. A girl starts trying to kill you, you know she's into you.
'Makes a lot of sense.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Files

Source: The Demigod Files

Girl

“When that piece makes sense, everything else starts to.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“And I add this part here, to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true Sense of things, they will find Deliverance from Sin a much greater Blessing than Deliverance from Affliction.”

Daniel Defoe La vie et les aventures de Robinson Crusoe

Source: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Ch. 6, Ill and Conscience-stricken.

Affliction, Reading, Parting

“Optimism is the first cousin of love, and it's exactly like love in three ways: it's pushy, it has no real sense of humour, and it turns up where you least expect it.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Love, Way, Optimism

“The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one’s life and discover one’s usefulness.”

John Cheever (1912–1982) American novelist and short story writer

Accepting Edward MacDowell Medal (September 8, 1979).

Life

“Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make sense any more.”

Coleman Barks (1937) American poet

World, Soul, Idea, Grass

“What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us?”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

World

“That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

“Makes sense to me. Sometimes starting over is exactly what a person needs. And I think it's admirable. A lot of people don't have the courage it takes to do something like that.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

People, Courage, Thinking, Personality

“"I can't make sense out of that girl," he said to the bard. "Can you?"
"Never mind," Fflewddur said. "We aren't really expected to."”

Lloyd Alexander book The Book of Three

Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book I: The Book of Three (1964), Chapter 12

Girl

“She was here on earth to make sense of its wild enchantments.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago

“Please, Kate. Suspend your dislike of me for a few moments and listen to what I have to say. It makes sense."
"I don't dislike you. It's an oversimplification.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Nature, Beauty, Peaceful

“Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)
Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. V
Context: I do not rely upon superstition, but upon knowledge; not upon miracles, but upon facts; not upon the dead, but upon the living; and when we become absolutely civilized, we shall look back upon the superstitions of the world, not simply with contempt, but with pity.
Context: What is blasphemy? I will give you a definition; I will give you my thought upon this subject. What is real blasphemy?
To live on the unpaid labor of other men — that is blasphemy.
To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body — that is blasphemy.
To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks upon the lips — that is blasphemy.
To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what you believe to be a lie — that is blasphemy.
To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob — that is blasphemy.
To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the ignorant many — that is blasphemy.
To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest fellow-men — that is blasphemy.
To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal pain — that is blasphemy.
To violate your conscience — that is blasphemy.
The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the judge who pronounces an unjust sentence, are blasphemers.
The man who bows to public opinion against his better judgment and against his honest conviction, is a blasphemer.
Why should we fear our fellow-men? Why should not each human being have the right, so far as thought and its expression are concerned, of all the world? What harm can come from an honest interchange of thought?

“Sasuke: Snakes can sense things through temperature, and they can also do it with their sense of smell by passing the smell in the mouth."

Itachi: You've learnt a lot… Dr. Snakes”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

“Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's.”

Dorianne Laux (1952) American poet

Source: The Poet's Companion: A Guide To The Pleasures Of Writing Poetry

“Everyone is a hypocrite in one sense or another and I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Cry

“In order that people may be happy in their work,
these three things are needed:
they must be fit for it;
they must not do too much of it;
and they must have a sense of success in it.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Happiness, People, Success

“Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.”

John Hodgman (1971) American humorist

Life, Pain

“And
always embrace things, people earth
sky stars, as I do, freely and with
the appropriate sense of space.”

Frank O'Hara (1926–1966) American poet, art critic and writer

A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island (l. 64-67) (1958).

People, Star

“Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism

Source: An Essay on Criticism

“We have artists with no scientific knowledge and scientists with no
artistic knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all,
and the result is not just bad, it is ghastly.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Knowledge

“I've always known I was gay, but it wasn't confirmed until I was in kindergarten.

It was my teacher who said so. It was right there on my kindergarten report card: PAUL IS DEFINITELY GAY AND HAS VERY GOOD SENSE OF SELF.”

David Levithan Boy Meets Boy

Source: Boy Meets Boy

Teachers

“It is the same way with dating. The time you are most prepared for dating is when you don't need anyone to complete you, fulfill you, or instill in you a sense of worth or purpose.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: Waiting and Dating

Way, Time

“The real marriage of true minds is for any two people to possess a sense of humor or irony pitched in exactly the same key, so that their joint glances on any subject cross like interarching searchlights.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

Source: A Backward Glance

Marriage, People

“What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.”

Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day

Source: The Remains of the Day

Beauty, Feeling

“Where is your sense of patriotism?"

I keep it hid away safe, along with my sense of trust, Mr. Clent. I don't use 'em much in case they get scratched.”

Frances Hardinge book Fly by Night

Source: Fly by Night

“She was everything I wanted. She was beautiful and charming, with a quick sense of humor, and she supported me in everything I did.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Beauty, Support

“Terrible thing to live in fear. Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense. Where I won't have to be afraid all the time.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Source: Different Seasons

Fear, Time

“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

People, Horse

“Please!’
That word didn’t make sense to Nico. The Underworld had no mercy. It only had justice.
‘You’re already dead,’ Nico said. ‘You’re a ghost with no tongue, no memory. You won’t be sharing any secrets.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Secret, Justice, Memory, Dead

“Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Source: Invisible Man

“My sense of humor will always stand in the way of my seeing myself, my family, my race or my nation as the whole intent of the universe.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road

Family, Way, Universe

“When going back makes sense, you are going ahead.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

“Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at it. It's too risky. Ya get a sense of it and then you look away.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Sun

“In the end, coming to faith remains for all a sense of homecoming, of picking up the threads of a lost life, of responding to a bell that had long been ringing, of taking a place at a table that had long been vacant.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Life, Faith

“[A] novel is not moral in the usual sense of the word. It can be called moral when it shakes us out of our stupor and makes us confront the absolutes we believe in.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran

“I am going to become a writer for Cosmo - you don’t have to make any sense at all. Or maybe I’ll be a bloke, they don’t have to make sense either.”

Louise Rennison book Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

Source: Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

“Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows
with the ability to say no to oneself.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

“Now I understand. When you love someone, you have to try things even if they don't make sense to anyone else.”

Gennifer Choldenko book Al Capone Does My Shirts

Source: Al Capone Does My Shirts

Love, Understanding

“there are things you do because they feel right and they may make no sense and they may make no money and it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each other's cooking and say it was good.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Variant: Real Reason:
There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good.

Love, Money, Feeling, Cooking

“If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth