Quotes about reason
page 64

“As writers we have to walk in the world in touch with that present, alert part of ourselves, that animal sense part that looks, sees, and notices - street signs, corners, fire hydrants, newspaper stands.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Be an animal". p.91
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

World, Animals, Parting

“Locals have the right to live in peace. Let these young outlaws who abandoned God come to their senses.”

Hanna Rahmé (1960) Roman Catholic bishop

Maronite bishop stopped at gunpoint in a country where anarchy reigns http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Maronite-bishop-stopped-at-gunpoint-in-a-country-where-anarchy-reigns-35027.html (August 12, 2015)

God, Peace

“The methods of coping with crime have no doubt undergone several changes, but mainly in a theoretic sense. In practice, society has retained the primitive motive in dealing with the offender; that is, revenge.”

Emma Goldman book Anarchism and Other Essays

Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure

Motivation, Revenge, Change

“The essence of Medicine is story-- finding the right story, understanding the true story, being unsatisfied with a story that does not make sense. Healthcare, on the other hand, deconstructs story into thousands of tiny pieces-- pages of boxes and check marks for which no one is responsible.”

Victoria Sweet Physician

Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing (2017)

Understanding, Box

“The past is therefore a permanent dimension of the human consciousness, an inevitable component of the institutions, values and other patterns of human society. The problem for historians is to analyse the nature of this 'sense of the past' in society and to trace its changes and transformations.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Chap. 2 : The Sense of the Past
On History (1997)

Nature, Problem, Change, Past

“We are now in a moment where people have no excuses to deny the injustice that's happening in the middle of a global pandemic. Things feel different this time because we were able to tap into a sense of our own agency, our own power and our genuine love for each other.”

Opal Tometi (1984) Nigerian–American writer, strategist and community organizer

Black Lives Matter Was Always Designed to Be a Global Movement, Vice] (7 July 2020)

Love, People, Feeling, Time

“The term `geometry'...refers to a pattern of processing within our brains related to our spatial and visual senses, more than it refers to a separate content area of mathematics.”

William Thurston (1946–2012) mathematician

Foreword to Teichmüller Theory

Mathematics

“Common sense is the great thing in all this. You eat what you find through a minimum requirement keeps your body healthy. Each individual and each group finds for itself the diet which suits its purposes, climate, tradition and background.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)

“Men were born to die! Life has only one purpose: to understand the sense of your own misery.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Donna Giovanna, Act IV, scene iii.

Life, Men, Understanding

“Men are like wine. You taste them, they seem good, they arouse your senses... But after? You suddenly find yourself with your head spinning. And if you are not careful, if you don’t chose only those high quality ones, you will end up feeling also nauseated.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Donna Giovanna, Act I, scene ii.
Theater Quotes

Men, Feeling, Wine

“Art is most simply and most usually defined as an attempt to create pleasing forms. Such forms satisfy our sense of beauty and the sense of beauty is satisfied when we are able to appreciate a unity or harmony of formal relations among our sense-perceptions.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

The Meaning of Art, London : Faber & Faber, 1931
Other Quotes

Beauty, Art

“Time might fly
girls may cry
lights may die
but the skies don't lie
It'll all make perfect sense
if you follow me
Come follow me now”

Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer

"Skies Don't Lie" (song) <br class="br"> ("Skies Don't Lie" on YouTube (with lyrics)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJToHBj8Eb4 <br class="br">Studio albums, Playing in the Shadows (2011)

Lie, Girl, Light, Time

“It is all true that we have got the same senses, but our systems and outputs cannot all be the same.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“The judge also must behave like a little child, in order to make sense out of a senseless case.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Always use the sharp knife of the philosophers to make sense at anything presented before you and come to the land of logic.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Being rich is associated with being intelligent in our society. Thus, all the billionaires and millionaires make sense every time they talk.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Intelligence, Time

“Since every religion is based upon a philosophical idea, it would make sense that we are all following the philosophies of our religious founders.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Religion, Idea

“Since you can't expect the Kingdom of God to be on your feet or your arms, it would make sense to find it in your head. It's all in your mind.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God

“Sleeping is like hitting a reset button of thoughts, thus, generating fresh ideas and getting a sense of relaxation at the end.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Idea, Sleep

“The truth is infinite. Whatever you know is only useful to your survival and protective to your senses.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Truth

“You must allow your spirit to explore the elements beyond the senses and be prepared for any outcome.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“My favorite part of my job is never having to doubt that I’m doing something of value. And I don’t mean this in the global sense; there are more practical ways to help people. But I do think that--and this may be selfish--I am working at something that’s making me a better human.”

Kirstin Chen Singaporean writer

As quoted in "Kirstin Chen Ventures Out Of Singapore With Novel Set In 1950s Maoist China" in Forbes (27 April 2018) https://www.forbes.com/sites/priscaang/2018/04/27/kirstin-chen/?sh=235a75302016

People, Way, Thinking, Help

“Nothing ... nothing in the universe, is of any importance, or is authentic to any serious sense, except the illusions of romance. For man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams. These axioms — poor, deaf and blinded spendthrift!”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

are none the less valuable for being quoted.
The Gander, in Book Seven : What Saraïde Wanted, Ch. XLV : The Gander Also Generalizes
The Silver Stallion (1926)

Dreams, Universe, Animals

“To have a sense of the sacred is to be aware that all qualities or values not only proceed from the Infinite but also attract towards It.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2003, The Play of Masks, World Wisdom, 4, 978-0-94153214-3]
Spiritual life, Sense of the sacred

“The sense of the sacred is the capacity to perceive, or feel, the presence of the Celestial in earthly symbols, whether sacramental or natural; and this implies the sense of dignity as well as of devotion.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2016, La conscience de l’Absolu, Hozhoni, 57, 978-2-37241-020-5]
Spiritual life, Sense of the sacred

Feeling, Nature

“In the elementary sense of the word, faith is our assent to a truth that transcends us; but spiritually speaking, it is our assent, not to transcendent concepts, but to immanent realities, or to Reality as such; now this Reality is our very substance.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2019, Esoterism as Principle and as Way, World Wisdom, 234, 978-1-93659765-9]
Spiritual life, Faith

Truth, Faith, Reality

“Only a democracy of the world can now overcome this stasis. Ana-stasis is the power to come over stasis, and, in this sense, anastasis is health.”

Shaj Mohan Indian philosopher

from The Crown of the Stasis

Health, World, Democracy

“I don't fear being outspoken. The only thing I fear is losing my sense of integrity or losing sight of the values on which I guide my life. So I don't think it's particularly brave or unusual for me to speak out.”

Constance Wu (1982) American actress

As quoted in "Constance Wu Opens Up About Activism and Speaking Up For What’s Right" in Teen Vogue (27 February 2017) https://www.teenvogue.com/story/constance-wu-activism-speaking-up-whats-right-big-hundred-mirys-list

Life, Fear, Thinking

“It was only a hypothesis, but it made an uncomfortable amount of sense.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

Source: The Masked City (2015), Chapter 12 (p. 156)

“With the eye in a natural state sight follows necessarily ... In the same way the life of blessedness is as a familiar second nature to those who have kept clear the senses of the soul.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Infants' Early Deaths

Life, Way, Soul, Nature

“I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty (1859), Ch. 1: Introductory

Question

“Without a sense of history, our expectations are the product of how we live now.”

David Fleming (1940–2010) British activist

Lean Logic, (2016), p. 152, entry on Expectations https://leanlogic.online/expectations/

History

“Charity should be self-sustainable. That is, it should create more wealth rather than perpetuating the cycle of poverty and dependence. In this sense, the best form of charity would be providing quality education for children and more importantly, building a good character in them.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Interview with Forbes Magazine (2009)

Children, Education, Dependency, Wealth

“The poor are like foxes: they need intelligence in order to survive. The rich, however, have power; they don’t need good sense.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Singer from the Sea (1999), Chapter 2, “The Library” (p. 48)

Intelligence

“Fear walks out of the door when there is hope around. My fear start trembling when it senses the presence of hope and When fear sees the hand of hope in my hands, it runs away.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Fear, Hope

“It doesn't matter who you are as an actor; that's really always in the script. It wouldn't make sense a lot of times to drastically change things. It would threaten to change the story arc and all that kind of stuff. I think really what an actor does is an instrument, not a player.”

Penn Badgley (1986) American actor and musician

Source: "Penn Badgley Explores Joe Goldberg's 'Primal' Parenting In You Season 3" in ELLE https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a37886117/penn-badgley-you-season-3-interview/ (18 October 2021)

Thinking, Change, Time

“I think my life has been wonderful. I have done what I felt like. I was given courage and I was given adventure and that has carried me along. And then also a sense of humor and a little bit of common sense. It has been a very rich life.”

Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) Film actress from Sweden

Source: 2007: Movie Icons, ISBN 9783822822081 , page 174 , Verlag Taschen GmbH

Life, Courage, Thinking

“A warrior is someone who seeks freedom. Sadness is not freedom. We must snap out of it. Having a sense of detachment entails having a moment's pause to reassess situations.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: The Eagle's Gift, (1981)

Sadness, Freedom

“Power rests on the kind of knowledge that one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless? They will not prepare us for our unavoidable encounter with the unknown.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from The Teachings of Don Juan (Chapter 4)

Knowledge

“The passing of time brings healing, sets our priorities right and provide us with new sense of meaning and urgency.”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher

Source: The Wisest of All Times is Now! p. 8. (2021)

Time

“The tragedy about Romeo and Juliet is not that they died so young but that the boy-meets-girl reflex should be so overpowering as to defeat all common sense.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Podkayne of Mars

Source: Podkayne of Mars (1963), Chapter 10 (p. 125)

Girl, Boy

“Because of the nature of my work and because I was suffering from a grave ailment, my doctors advised me to take part in cultural activities to improve the balance of my sense of hearing and sense of sight. Thus, I came into contact with some literature and art.”

Jiang Qing (1914–1991) Chinese political figure and wife of Mao Zedong

Source: Speech at the Reception for the Representatives of the Beijing Workers Propaganda Team and the People's Liberation Army Propaganda Team (14 September 1968)

Art, Literature, Nature, Suffering

“Books just don’t register with this crowd. They think I lack common sense; I think they lack a part of their souls.”

Maureen Corrigan (1955) American journalist and writer

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading (2005)
Source: Interlude, “Books, What a Jolly Company They Are” (p. 57)

Books, Soul, Thinking, Parting

“If a woman is wearing very few clothes it will have an impact on the man unless they are robots. It’s common sense.”

Imran Khan (1952) Prime Minister of Pakistan

Source: June 2021, Outrage after Pakistan PM Imran Khan blames rape crisis on women https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/25/outrage-after-pakistan-pm-imran-khan-blames-crisis-on-women

Clothes

“Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

q. 2, art. 3, arg. 19
This is known as the Peripatetic axiom.
De veritate (c. 1256–1259)

“[O]ne of the great things about science is it forces us to refine our idea of what's common sense. It forces us to have our beliefs conform to the evidence of reality rather than the other way around. The universe may not be like we'd like it to be, but it doesn't really care.”

Lawrence M. Krauss book A Universe from Nothing

"Lawrence Krauss: A Universe from Nothing" (2031) <br class="br">Source: 7:09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46sKeycH3bE&t=429s

Way, Idea, Reality, Universe

“In a certain sense, rural education is the foundation of rejuvenating the country and the key to benefiting the people.”

Liu Yandong (1945) Chinese politician

Source: "刘延东：让农村孩子接受更好的义务教育" http://www.gov.cn/guowuyuan/2013-06/18/content_2589584.htm (18 June 2013)

People, Education, Country

“One of the missions of the underground priests was to encourage these people and to tell them that yes, we're suffering, but we're doing this for Christ. That's why the Church survived; people were humans, in all the best sense of the word.”

Volodymyr Viytyshyn (1959) Polish archbishop

Source: In becoming a priest, you were agreeing to be a martyr https://osvnews.com/2018/08/15/underground-period-marks-ukrainian-church/ (15 August 2018)

People, Suffering, Christ

“Of course, the vision of many works, such as the sense of picture and imagery, is actually unconscious by the writer. If the writer is conscious, he will write very artificial things.”

Geling Yan (1958) Chinese writer and screenwriter

Source: "Yan Geling: I Am Also A Person In The Cave" https://www.bannedbook.org/en/bnews/lifebaike/20211010/1635954.html (10 October 2021)

“For man holds his ground only by surpassing himself, in the same sense in which it is said that one ceases to love if one does not love increasingly everyday.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

Source: Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952), p. 238

Love

“But for those who lived in non-Christian lands, it was decreed that the work of conversion was an imperative. It is, in a sense, a pity that this work will always be remembered for its association either with conquest, with religious fratricide or with imperialism.”

Christopher Hitchens book The Missionary Position

Source: 2010s, 2011, The Missionary Position, Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice (2012)

“He saw the humorous aspect of everything, which is the real test of the tragic sense.”

Henry Miller book The Colossus of Maroussi

"He" is Miller's friend George Katsimbalis, the "Colossus" of the book's title.
The Colossus of Maroussi (1941)

“Comedy is a weird but very beautiful thing. Even though it seems foolish and silly and crazy, comedy has the most to say about the human condition. Because if you can laugh, you can get by. You can survive when things are bad when you have a sense of humor.”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

Source: All About Me (New York: Ballantine Books, 2021), p. 451

Beauty

“I predict that news outlets will try to compensate for the loss of relevant news by focusing on stories that are more shocking and depressing than ever. At least that way they'll get your attention and sell advertising even if the stories aren't "news" in the traditional sense.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Source: Books, The Dilbert Future (1997)

Way, Loss

“Perhaps it is my job to offend some scientists. I'm not asking them to be reckless or unprofessional, but I do want to reinforce a sense of urgency.”

Christopher Reeve (1952–2004) actor, director, producer, screenwriter

Source: As quoted I Nigel Williams, “Reeve's stem-cell legacy” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982204007973, “Current Biology” , Volume 14, Issue 21, 9 November 2004, Pages R907-R908

“Well, killing me makes no sense because Georgia already has a Western-educated political class.”

Mikheil Saakashvili (1967) Georgian-Ukrainian politician, President of Georgia and Governor of Odessa

Interview with the New York Times (2008) <br class="br">Source: As quoted in "An American Friend" https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/magazine/19WWln-q4-t.html (19 October 2008), The New York Times

Education

“We always have to be serious about public health in a global sense and surveillance for "the next one", because we don't know where it will emerge.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Source: As quoted in "Coronavirus: Bill Gates describes what we did wrong, and how to do better" by Lisa M. Krieger, The Mercury News (21 October 2020)

Health

“People need to feel they belong to their country. Their need for community is most pronounced in a time of adversity. The people who are hit hardest by a depression, who feel that their children will suffer, look for loyalty from the rest of the community and the government. The present immigration programme, in its indifference to the feelings of the old Australians, erodes those loyalties. The multicultural policy, and its emphasis on what is different and on the rights of the new minority rather than the old majority, gnaws at that sense of solidarity that many people crave for.”

Geoffrey Blainey book All for Australia

All for Australia (1984)

Children, People, Feeling, Communication

“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting ... Read it a hundred times; it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Source: 1930s, The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)

Time, Reading

“[C]onstitutional silences, like silences of other kinds, aren’t just occasional gaps or omissions in an otherwise-seamless design. They’re everywhere and come in as many flavors and varieties as sounds. Ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings are in a sense manifestations of silence.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

Soundings and Silences (2016)

Silence

“Spending all your money before you have a business model, makes about as much sense as drinking all your water before you hike across a desert so that you won’t have to carry the canteen.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

Money, Drink, Business, Water

“My virgin sense of sound was steeped
In the music of young streams;
And roses through the casement peeped,
And scented all my dreams.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

"Prelude", stanza XI; p. ix., At the Gate of the Convent (1885)

Dreams, Music

“The highest degree of knowledge. To become a Buddha one has to break through the bondage of sense and personality; to acquire a complete perception of the REAL SELF and learn not to separate it from all otherselves; to learn by experience the utter unreality of all phenomena of the visible Kosmos foremost of all; to reach a complete detachment from all that is evanescent and finite, and live while yet on Earth in the immortal and the everlasting alone, in a supreme state of holiness.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) occult writer

Buddha (Sk.). Lit., “The Enlightened.”
The Theosophical Glossary (1892)

Knowledge, Learning, Personality

“Banning Fox News as a source is just good sense, says Wikipedia.”

Larry Sanger (1968) American former professor, co-founder of Wikipedia, founder of Citizendium and other projects

Source: ” Wikipedia Is More One-Sided Than Ever”, blog post, 2021 https://larrysanger.org/2021/06/wikipedia-is-more-one-sided-than-ever/

“Power is habit-forming. We grew addicted to it. Few things survive the centuries’ slow decay: senses grow dull; passions grow weak; and ideals die. Only the taste for power lives on as an excuse for survival.”

Jack Williamson book Star Bridge

Source: Star Bridge (1955), Chapter 20, “Prime Mover” (p. 275)

Passion

“(It is) the Russian world we are fighting for, and in this sense, each of us is Russian.”

Anatoly Bibilov (1970) Russian politician

Source: Anatoly Bibilov (2021) cited in " Tskhinvali Leader in Donbas: “We Fight for Russian World” https://civil.ge/archives/439581" on Civil, 9 September 2021.

World, Fight

“Are you a man? Then you should have an human heart. But have you indeed? What is your heart made of? Is there no such principle as Compassion there? Do you never feel another's pain? Have you no Sympathy? No sense of human woe? No pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was you a stone, or a brute? Did you look upon them with the eyes of a tiger? When you squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the ship, or when you threw their poor mangled remains into the sea, had you no relenting? Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape from your breast? Do you feel no relenting now? If you do not, you must go on, till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will the Great GOD deal with You, as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Source: 1770s, Thoughts Upon Slavery (1774)

God, Pain, Feeling, Tear

“The worst criminals were not the men who did the deed. The crime of mobs and courtiers, infuriated by the lust of vengeance and of power, is not so strange a portent as the exultation of peaceful men, influenced by no present injury or momentary rage, but by the permanent and incurable perversion of moral sense wrought by a distorted piety.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Source: 1860s, The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew (1869)

Men, Peace, Rage

“How can Christian theology truly speak of the hope of Jesus Christ, unless that hope begins and ends with the liberation of the poor in the social existence in which theology takes shape? In America this means that there can be no talk about hope in the Christian sense unless it is talk about the freedom of black, red, and brown people.”

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: God of the Oppressed (1975, 1997), p. 128 (1975 edition)

People, Hope, Freedom, Christ

“The friend of the heart is the one who with his love senses where it is necessary and rushes to support you strongly without you saying anything.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) L'amico del cuore è colui che con il suo amore intuisce dove è necessario ed accorre a sostenerti prepotentemente senza che tu dica niente.

Love, Support, Heart

“He who meditates into the mysteries of the Holy Quran is sagacious in true sense.”

Sari al-Saqati (772–867) Iraqi sufi

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam, p. 43

“She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don’t know what she was - anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.”

Charles Dickens book David Copperfield

Source: David Copperfield

Love

“A sense of humor—bitter or otherwise—is the hallmark of a survivor.”

Charles E. Gannon (1960) American novelist

Source: Fire with Fire (2013), Chapter 14 (p. 185)

“I would say in compound sense of what little I know is it’s definitely darker in tone, and in terms of advice for taking kids of a certain age, it’s going to be prohibitive for certain people of a certain age because it is scary.”

Benedict Cumberbatch (1976) English actor and film producer

"Benedict Cumberbatch: ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is genuinely scary’" in Esquire Middle East https://www.esquireme.com/culture/interviews/benedict-cumberbatch-doctor-strange-in-the-multiverse-of-madness-is-genuinely-scary

People, Age

“We press the enemy backward with memories, with the power of history, with scenes of sense and order.”

Jack Cady (1932–2004) American writer

Source: Kilroy Was Here (1996), p. 158

History, Memory