Quotes about reason
page 35

David Weber photo
Michael Bloomberg photo

“When you go to Washington now, you can feel a sense of fear in the air – the fear to do anything, or say anything, that might affect the polls, or give the other side an advantage, or offend a special interest.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://mikebloomberg.com/en/issues/public_health/mayor_bloomberg_delivers_opening_address_at_ceasefire_bridging_the_political_divide_conference
Partisanship

Kristoff St. John photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“If a person is unwilling to make a decisive resolution, if he wants to cheat God of the heart’s daring venture in which a person ventures way out and loses sight of all shrewdness and probability, indeed, takes leave of his senses or at least all his worldly mode of thinking, if instead of beginning with one step he almost craftily seeks to find out something, to have the infinite certainty changed into a finite certainty, then this discourse will not be able to benefit him. There is an upside-downness that wants to reap before it sows; there is a cowardliness that wants to have certainty before it begins. There is a hypersensitivity so copious in words that it continually shrinks from acting; but what would it avail a person if, double-minded and fork-tongued he wanted to dupe God, trap him in probability, but refused to understand the improbable, that one must lose everything in order to gain everything, and understand it so honestly that, in the most crucial moment, when his soul is already shuddering at the risk, he does not again leap to his own aid with the explanation that he has not yet fully made a resolution but merely wanted to feel his way. Therefore, all discussion of struggling with God in prayer, of the actual loss (since if pain of annihilation is not actually suffered, then the sufferer is not yet out upon the deep, and his scream is not the scream of danger but in the face of danger) and the figurative victory cannot have the purpose of persuading anyone or of converting the situation into a task for secular appraisal and changing God’s gift of grace to the venture into temporal small change for the timorous. It really would not help a person if the speaker, by his oratorical artistry, led him to jump into a half hour’s resolution, by the ardor of conviction started a fire in him so that he would blaze in a momentary good intention without being able to sustain a resolution or to nourish an intention as soon as the speaker stopped talking.”

Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong, One Who Prays Aright Struggles In Prayer and is Victorious-In That God is Victorious p. 380-381
1840s, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses

Thorstein Veblen photo
Georg Brandes photo
J.M. Coetzee photo
Adi Da Samraj photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Duns Scotus photo
Sri Anandamoyi Ma photo

“When we are rejected in the world, we will recover only as we begin to realize that we must hold on to our sense of who we are and not be defeated by outside evaluations.”

Dr. Rose Marie Toussaint http://haiti.org/dt_team/dr-rose-marie-toussaint/, Pearls of Excellence Exhibit, Haitian Embassy

Plautus photo

“He whom the gods protect : the youth is dying whilst he is in health, and has his senses and his judgment sound.”
Quem di diligent, adolescens moritur, dum valet, sentit, sapit.

Bacchides Act IV, scene 7, line 18.
Variant translation: He whom the gods love dies young. (translator unknown)
Derived from Menander's The Double Deceiver; but only the Plautine version was known until the rediscovery of Menander in the 20th century; sometimes translated as "favor" instead of "love".
Bacchides (The Bacchises)

Jacob Bronowski photo
Robert Barron (bishop) photo
Michel De Montaigne photo
Francis Marion Crawford photo
Enrico Bombieri photo

“When things get too complicated, it sometimes makes sense to stop and wonder: Have I asked the right question?”

Enrico Bombieri (1940) mathematician

Enrico Bombieri, cited in: Leonard F. Koziol (2014), The Myth of Executive Functioning. p. 1

Michel Foucault photo

“There can be no doubt that the existence of public tortures and executions were connected with something quite other than this internal organization. Rusche and Kirchheimer are right to see it as the effect of a system of production in which labour power, and therefore the human body, has neither the utility nor the commercial value that are conferred on them in an economy of an industrial type. Moreover, this ‘contempt’ for the body is certainly related to a general attitude to death; and, in such an attitude, one can detect not only the values proper to Christianity, but a demographical, in a sense biological, situation: the ravages of disease and hunger, the periodic massacres of the epidemics, the formidable child mortality rate, the precariousness of the bio-economic balances – all this made death familiar and gave rise to rituals intended to integrate it, to make it acceptable and to give a meaning to its permanent aggression. But in analysing why the public executions survived for so long, one must also refer to the historical conjuncture; it must not be forgotten that the ordinance of 1670 that regulated criminal justice almost up to the Revolution had even increased in certain respects the rigour of the old edicts; Pussort, who, among the commissioners entrusted with the task of drawing up the documents, represented the intentions of the king, was responsible for this, despite the views of such magistrates as Lamoignon; the number of uprisings at the very height of the classical age, the rumbling close at hand of civil war, the king’s desire to assert his power at the expense of the parlements go a long way to explain the survival of so severe a penal system.”

Source: Discipline and Punish (1977), pp. 51

Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank photo

“I like to find things from unexpected sources. I tend to move between turtlenecks and shirts and ties. I don't really have a uniform in the sense that some people might.”

gq-magazine.co.uk http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2011-02/01/gq-film-norman-foster-how-much-does-your-building-weigh-interview.

Miyamoto Musashi photo
André Maurois photo
John Stuart Mill photo

“A pig can learn more tricks than a dog, but has too much sense to want to do it.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)

Oliver Cowdery photo
Robert Penn Warren photo

“Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

Foreword, Brother to Dragons: A Tale in Verse and Voices — A New Version (1979)

Hendrik Lorentz photo
Frank Stella photo
John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan photo
Jack Kevorkian photo

“Am I a criminal? The world knows I'm not a criminal. What are they trying to put me in jail for? You've lost common sense in this society because of religious fanaticism and dogma.”

Jack Kevorkian (1928–2011) American pathologist, euthanasia activist

Quoted in "Jail: An Inmates Survival Guide"‎ - Page 24 - by Panama Publishing, Inc. - 2007
2000s, 2007

Fred Rogers photo
John Buchan photo
James Braid photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Aldous Huxley photo
Mark Rothko photo
Evagrius Ponticus photo
Honoré de Balzac photo

“The wife is a piece of property, acquired by contract; she is part of your furniture, for possession is nine-tenths of the law; in fact, the woman is not, to speak correctly, anything but an adjunct to the man; therefore abridge, cut, file this article as you choose; she is in every sense yours.”

La femme est une propriété que l'on acquiert par contrat, elle est mobilière, car la possession vaut titre; enfin, la femme n'est, à proprement parler, qu'une annexe de l'homme; or, tranchez, coupez, rognez, elle vous appartient à tous les titres.
Part II, Meditation Number XII: The Hygiene of Marriage.
Physiology of Marriage (1829)

Orson Scott Card photo
Rollo May photo
Abraham Joshua Heschel photo

“Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.”

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

Prologue p. 6
The Sabbath (1951)

John Dryden photo
B.K.S. Iyengar photo
Jim Yong Kim photo
Patrick Modiano photo
G. I. Gurdjieff photo
Dan Quayle photo
Irvine Welsh photo
William Herschel photo
Marsden Hartley photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
Howard Dean photo

“The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. I mean, they're a pretty monolithic party. They pretty much, they all behave the same, they all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party. Again, the Democrats abduct everybody you can think of. So, as this gentleman was talking about, it's a coalition, a lot of it independent. The problem is, we gotta make sure that turns into a party, which means this: I've gotta spend time in the communities, and our folks gotta spend time in the communities. I think, we're more welcoming to different folks, because that's the type of people we are. But that's not enough. We do have to deliver on things, particularly on jobs, and housing, and business opportunities and college opportunities, and so fourth. I think, there has been a lot of progress in the last 20-40 years, but the stakes keep changing. I think there's a lot of folks who vote, maybe right now, in the Asian-American communities, who don't wanna vote Democrats, but they're angry with the President on his immigration policy, the Patriot Act. But, what we need to do while this is going on, is develop a really close relationship with the Asian-American community, so later on there's gonna be a benefit, you know, more equal division. There'll be some party loyalty, as people would rememeber that we were there when it really made a difference. That's really what I'm trying to do. If I come in here 8 weeks before the elections, we're not getting anywhere. Asking if you would vote, you're still mad at the lesser of two evils. So that's why I'm here 3.5 years before the elections. We want different kind of people to run for office, too. We want a very diverse group of people running for office, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos. I think Villaraigosa's election in Los Angeles is incredibly important for the Democratic Party. Bush can go out and talk all he wants about "this is the party of opportunity", you know, he can make his appointments, Condi Rice, or, what's this guy's name, Commerce Secretary, Gutierrez. But you can't succeed electorally if you're a person of color in then Republican Party, there're very few people who have succeeded. You can pick some out, JC Watts, I'm trying to think of an Asian-American who's been a success who's a Republican, I can't think of one off the top of my head. You know, there's always a few, but not many. Because this is the party of opportunity for people of color, and for communities of color. And we're hoping to cement that relationship so that'll always be that way. [Q: You've been very tough on the Republicans, some Democrats criticized you over the weeked for doing that, Joe Biden…] I just got off the phone with John Edwards. What happened was, John Edwards was, in a sense, set up by the reporter, "well you know, Governor Dean said this". Well what I said was, the Republican leadership didn't seem to care much about working people. That's essentially the gist of the quote, and, you know, the RNC put out a press release. I don't think there's a lot of difference between me and John Edwards right now, I haven't spoken to Senator Biden, but I'm sure that I will. Today, it's all over the wires that Durbin and Sheila Jackson Lee and all of these folks are coming to my defense. Look, we have to be tough on the Republicans; the Republicans don't represent ordinary Americans, and they don't have any understanding of what it is to have to go out and try to make ends meet. You know, the context of what I was talking about was these long lines that you have to wait in to vote. How could you design a system that sometimes causes people to vote, to stand in line for 6 or 8 hours, if you had any understanding what their lives are like: they gotta pick up the kids, they gotta work, sometimes they have two jobs. So that was the context of the remarks. [crosstalk/laughter] This is one of those flaps that comes up once in awhile when I get tough, but I think we all wanna be tougher on the Republicans.”

Howard Dean (1948) American political activist

Source: Discussion with reporters Portia Li and Carla Marinucci, in San Francisco http://web.archive.org/web/20060427191647/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/07/MNdean07.TMP&o=1, June 6, 2005

Margaret Mead photo
George Howard Earle, Jr. photo
Édouard Vuillard photo

“We perceive nature through the senses, which give us images of forms of colour, sounds etc. A form which exists only in relation to another form on its own, it does not exist.”

Édouard Vuillard (1868–1940) French painter

11 Nov 1888.
Private Journal - A collage of notes and images, sketches kept 1888-1895 & 1907 to 1940

Sri Aurobindo photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo
Christopher Pitt photo

“To all, proportioned terms he must dispense,
And make the sound a picture of the sense.”

Christopher Pitt (1699–1748) English poet

Book III, p. 103
Vida's Art of Poetry (1725)

Douglas Coupland photo
Enoch Powell photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“If you were to insist I was a robot, you might not consider me capable of love in some mystic human sense, but you would not be able to distinguish my reactions from that which you would call love — so what difference would it make?”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation’s Edge (1982), Chapter 20 “Conclusion” section 4, p. 420

William Jennings Bryan photo
Theresa May photo

“The country needs strong leadership and a clear sense of direction, to give confidence to investors, to keep the economy moving, and to keep people in work.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech declaring bid for the Conservative Party leadership http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-mays-tory-leadership-launch-statement-full-text-a7111026.html (30 June 2016)

Sarah Palin photo

“The Administration says then, there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants.But a lot of us would beg to differ. For example, there are questions we would've liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our US constitutional right to remain silence. Our US constitutional rights. Our rights that you, sir [addressing veteran in audience], fought and were willing to die for to protect in our Constitution. The rights that my son, as an infantryman in the United States Army, is willing to die for. The protections provided — thanks to you, sir! — we're gonna bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution?! And tries to destroy our Constitution and our country. This makes no sense because we have a choice in how we're going to deal with a terrorist — we don't have to go down that road.There are questions that we would have liked answered before he lawyered up, like, "Where exactly were you trained and by whom? You—you're braggin' about all these other terrorists just like you — uh, who are they? When and where will they try to strike next?" The events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to September 11th. That threat — the threat, then, as the U. S. S. Cole was attacked, our embassies were attacked, it was treated like an international crime spree, not like an act of war. We're seeing that mindset again settle into Washington. That scares me, for my children and for your children. Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at grave risk. Because that's not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we're at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a perfesser of law standing at the lectern!”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

National Tea Party Convention keynote speech, Nashville, Tennessee, , quoted in
regarding President Obama
2014

Nicholas Murray Butler photo

“Public opinion* is the unseen product of education and practical experience. Education, in turn, is the function, in co-operation, of the family, the church and the school. If the family fails in its guiding influence and discipline and if the church fails in its religious instruction, then everything is left to the school, which is given an impossible burden to bear. It is just this situation which has arisen in the United States during the generation through which we are still passing. In overwhelming proportion, the family has become almost unconscious of its chief educational responsibility. In like manner, the church, fortunately with some noteworthy exceptions, has done the same. The heavy burden put upon the school has resulted in confused thinking, unwise plans of instruction and a loss of opportunity to lay the foundations of true education, the effects of which are becoming obvious to every one. Fundamental dis cipline, both personal and social, has pretty well disappeared, and, without that discipline which develops into self-discipline, education is impossible.
What are the American people going to do about it? If they do not correct these conditions, they are simply playing into the hands of the advocates of a totalitarian state, for that type of state is at least efficient, and it is astonishing to how many persons efficiency makes stronger appeal than liberty.
Then, too, we have many signs of an incapacity to understand and to interpret liberty, or to distinguish it from license. There is a limit to liberty, and liberty ends where license begins. It is very difficult for many persons to understand this fact or to grasp its implications. If we are to have freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of the press, why should we not be free to say and think and print whatever we like? The answer is that the limit between liberty and license must be observed if liberty itself is to last. To suppose, as many individuals and groups seem to do, that liberty of thought and liberty of speech* include liberty to agitate for the destruction of liberty itself, indicates on the part of such persons not only lack of common sense but lack of any sense o humor. If liberty is to remain, the barrier between liberty and license must be recognized and observed.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Liberty-Equality-Fraternity (1942)

Frank Wilczek photo
Joseph Addison photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
William Ellery Channing photo
James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce photo
Frederick Buechner photo
Esaias Tegnér photo

“A sense of justice is a noble fancy.”

Esaias Tegnér (1782–1846) Swedish poet, professor and bishop

Canto VIII.
Fridthjof's Saga (1820-1825)

Hyman George Rickover photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“Total knowledge is annihilation of the desire to see, to touch, to feel the world sensed only through senses and immune to the knowledge without feeling.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Knowledge http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21394/Knowledge
From the poems written in English

Silvio Berlusconi photo

“There is a natural right that says that when the state asks you for a third of what you earned through back-breaking work, this seems to you a reasonable demand and you give in. If the state asks you for more, or much more, then it is a clear abuse against you and then you try to find evasive ways to make you feel coherent to your intimate sense of morality and it doesn't make you feel ethically guilty.”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

Addressing the commander of the special italian police corp, Guardia di Finanza, whose job is to fight financial fraud and tax evasion in November of 2003, quoted in la Repubblica (17 febbraio 2004) http://www.repubblica.it/2004/b/sezioni/politica/cdlverifica2/candida/candida.html
2003

Joseph Addison photo
Helen Garner photo
Wallace Stevens photo

“Music falls on the silence like a sense,
A passion that we feel, not understand.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Change

Wendy Doniger photo
Herman Kahn photo
Karel Appel photo
Anna Laetitia Barbauld photo
George William Curtis photo