Quotes about reason

A collection of quotes on the topic of reason, doing, other, use.

George Carlin quote: “The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”

Maggie Stiefvater quote: “If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human.”

Quotes about reason

“How to be sure that nothing will happen, when you don't always need a reason to become one of those cursed and deceptive beings, those entities thrown from the cradle of God.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

God

“A lot of people said to me that they were able to feel courage or happiness, for instance, when they see my performance. So, I believe that this is my motivation for skating, and that this gives me the reason to go on until the end.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

CBC interview with Scott Russell
Original: (ja) いろんな方々が僕の演技を見た時に勇気を感じたとか、何か幸せになったとか、そういったことを言ってくれて、それが自分にとってのスケートのモチベーションだと思ってますし、それが僕が今スケートを最後までやり通す意味になってるなって思います。

Happiness, People, Feeling, Motivation

“Because it’s the music that engenders the expression, artistry, and technique that is figure skating, I think that music and figure skating are essentially one and the same. [...] It’s my raison d'être. It’s the reason I skate.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2020
Original: (ja) そこに音楽があるから、フィギュアスケートっていう表現だったり、芸術だったり、技術っていうものがそこに生まれてくるのであって、音楽とフィギュアスケートっていうのがほぼイコールだと僕は思ってます。で、僕にとっては… なんて言うか、生きがいです。フィギュアスケートをやる理由です。
Source: Hanyu in an interview from 2019 about the meaning of the music, aired 28 March 2020 in フィギペディア～2019-2020シーズン特別編 (Figurepedia 2019-2020 season special edition) on TV Asahi.

Music, Thinking

“In the second half of the 18th century, first residences-museums were created in Poland. Old palaces were changed to adapt them for exhibitions purposes, or new buildings were erected with separate museum annexes. First such museums in Poland was established in 1802 by Stanisław Kostka Potocki at Wilanów. The museums at Nieborów, Nieśwież, Puławy, Rogalin, Gołuchów and Kórnik followed. At first these museums were established as a response to fashion, later national and patriotic issues became prevailing reasons.”

Marek Żukow-Karczewski (1961) Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist

Residences-museums: Heritage of the european culture in Poland, "Aura" 7, 1991-07, p. 14-16. http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-81720189-fe01-4686-befa-5b1649bfb0d9?q=1248075a-cd0e-4666-81f5-dc2af54d3ff7$4&qt=IN_PAGE

Fashion, Change

“In a world that changes at an exponential rate, members of such world community have to be very proficient in finding reasonable solutions to the problems that they face by themselves.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

citizenship in the changing world of tomorrow.

World, Communication, Problem, Change

“The reflective teacher makes the learners decide for themselves and ensures that the decision is sound and reasonable. He or she asks a lot of questions for the learners to carry out self-assessment.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Teacher

Making love, Question, Decision, Teachers

“I really am… shinobi trash. But the one thing I still learned is this. That void is something that everyone helps you fill. Just because you face adversity and hardships, is no reason to give up on this world. A person willing to throw away all those memories… of their friends and comrades, will never find peace of mind. Resorting to something like that isn't going to bury that hole. If you persevere and endure, someone will be there to support you!”

Hatake Kakashi book Naruto

World, Peace, Support, Learning

“If you are emotionally attached to your tribe, religion or political leaning to the point that truth and justice become secondary considerations, your education and exposure is useless. If you cannot reason beyond petty sentiments, you are a liability.”

Chuba Okadigbo (1941–2003) Nigerian politician

Source: Fani-Kayode urges Buhari to take Okadigbo’s advice, Ifreke Inyang, 23 October 2017, Daily Post, Nigeria, 18 April 2018 http://dailypost.ng/2017/10/23/fani-kayode-urges-buhari-take-okadigbos-advice/,

Truth, Education, Religion, Justice

“No matter how far you go, don't ever forget where you came from. You were born there for a reason, so make sure to return and change the world”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

World, Change, Forgetting

“The difference between where you are now and where you want to be is your reasoning capacity and actions.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Quoted from his first book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Success_and_Failure_Based_on_Reason_and_Reality, "Success and Failure Based on Reason and Reality" https://www.amazon.co.uk/SUCCESS-FAILURE-BASED-REASON-REALITY/dp/9970983903/ on Amazon, (July 2018)

“I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

“My pain may be the reason for somebody's laugh.
But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody's pain.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Pain, Relationship

“The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Variant: The real man wants two different things: danger and play. Therefore he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“But then of course everything always happens for a reason”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

Mockingbird
2000s, Encore (2004)

“If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

Painting

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

People, Learning, Change

“And yet I feel so sad for some reason.”

Vítězslav Nezval book Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Source: Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Sadness, Feeling

“How could Reagan live in a White
House, which has a lot of rooms, and there be homelessness? And he's talking about helping. I don't believe that there is anyone that is going hungry in America simply by reason of denial or lack of ability to feed them. It is by people not knowing where or how to get this help. Why can't he take people off the street and put them in his White House? Then he'll have people from the streets to help him with his ideas. Not helpless! Homeless! Not helpless They haven't been homeless forever. They've done things in society. The White House would be tainted because he doesn't want to get dirty.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Source: Resurrection, 1971-1996

People, Idea, Help, Housing

“Life is suffering, and suffering can make you resentful, murderous, and then genocidal, if you take it far enough. So you need an antidote to suffering. And maybe you think that you can build walls of luxury around yourself, and that that will protect you from the suffering. Good luck with that. That isn't going to work. Maybe you think that you could build a delusion and live inside that. Well, that's going to fall apart. What is there, then, that's going to help you fight against suffering? That's easy: It's the Truth. The Truth is the antidote to suffering. The reason for that is because the Truth puts reality behind you, so that you can face the reality that's coming straight at you without becoming weak and degenerating and becoming resentful and wishing for the destruction of Being, because that's the final Hell. The final Hell is your soul wishing for the destruction of everything, because it's too painful, and you're too bitter. And that happens to people all the time.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Life, Pain, People, Truth

“I only came here to give.
If you come to doubt, I'll give you every reason to doubt. If you come suspicious, I'll give you every reason to be suspicious. But if you come seeking Love, I'll show you more love than you've ever known.”

Mahavatar Babaji Hindu Yogi

Haidakhan Babaji, as quoted in "The legend of Herakhan Baba", by Dio Urmilla Neff in Yoga Journal, No. 32 (May-June 1980), p. 53; Haidakhan Babaji's claims to be Mahavatar Babaji/Hariakhan Baba are disputed by the Self-Realization Fellowship founded by Paramahansa Yogananda.
Disputed

Love

“Life isn't about how popular you are… What girl or boy you are dating or who you know.Life is about always being true to who you are or what you believe in. Never let anyone convince you that their way is better than your way. In the end all we have is our hearts… and our minds. This is the reason we sing… this is the reason we cry… this is why we live.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Life, Way, Girl, Boy

“Give the opponents more than one reason to stare at your feet.”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

“Never let your personal desires and emotions outcompete your reasoning capacity.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Personality

“The teacher should not assume that he/she is always correct, or try to make the worst cases appear reasonable before his pupils. On the other hand, the teacher should accept the corrections as much as they love to do it to others.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Love, Teachers, Appearance

“You need a reason to be angry. You don't need a reason to be happy.”

Louis Sachar book Sideways Stories From Wayside School

Sideways Stories From Wayside School
Source: Sideways Stories from Wayside School

Happiness

“Your humans slaughter each other because of the color of your skin, or your faith or your plitics -- or for no reason at all -- too many of you hate as easily as you draw breath. - Magneto”

Stan Lee (1922–2018) American comic book writer

Hate, Faith, Color, Drawing

“The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.”

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Russian composer, pianist, and conductor

Music, Feeling, Thinking, Heart

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 128

Love, Valentine's Day, For Him, love

“As there are misanthropists, or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises from too great confidence of inexperience; you trust a man and think him altogether true and good and faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false and knavish; and then another and another, and when this has happened several times to a man, especially within the circle of his most trusted friends, as he deems them, and he has often quarreled with them, he at last hates all men, and believes that no one has any good in him at all. …The reason is that a man, having to deal with other men, has no knowledge of them; for if he had knowledge he would have known the true state of the case, that few are the good and few the evil, and that the great majority are in the interval between them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Men, Hate, World, Faith

“So many people are most miserable these days.
The reason they find it so difficult to be happy is that they always view the past to be better than it was, the present dramatically worse than it is, and the future less resolute than it will be.
The idea of happiness is foreign to them.
Is this not something that is innate because babies are born with
"tabula rasa" which refers to the epistemological idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. However I don't disagree with the doctrine of Innatism which holds that the mind is born already in possession of certain knowledge.
A smile, for instance is natural and innate!
So it is a combination of the two schools of thought.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Happiness, People, School, Smile

“People always have two reasons for doing things: a good reason and the real reason.”

Unknown author

People

“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

People, Truth, Literature, Study

“People fall in love without reason, without even wanting to. You can't predict it. That's love.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Love, People

“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

“Anything Anytime Anyplace For No Reason At All (or AAAFNRAA)”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

“The will for victory which gives a commander the strength to see a grave crisis through is something very different from Hitler's will, which in the last analysis stemmed from a belief in his own 'mission'. Such a belief makes a man impervious to reason and leads him to think that his own will can operate even beyond the limits of hard reality - whether these consist in the presence of far superior enemy forces, in the conditions of space and time, or merely in the fact that the enemy also happens to have a will of his own.”

Erich von Manstein (1887–1973) German general

Lost Victories, Hitler As Supreme Commander

Thinking, Reality, Time, Victory

“The highest powers in our nature are our sense of moral excellence, the principple of reason and reflection, benevolence to our creatures and our love of the Divine Being.”

Edward Jenner (1749–1823) English physician, scientist and pioneer of vaccination

The Life of Edward Jenner M.D. Vol. 2 (1838) by John Baron, p. 447

Love, Nature, Sense

“To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself is the reason.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei: The Dissident, 2011

“For some reason, people think that music must tell us only about the pinnacles of the human spirit, or at least about highly romantic villains. Most people are average, neither black nor white. They're gray. A dirty shade of gray. And it's in that vague gray middle ground that the fundamental conflicts of our age take place.”

Dmitri Shostakovich book Testimony

Page 94
Testimony (1979)

People, Age, Music, Thinking

“The reason I sell 6 million records, the reason I could go to jail and come out without a scratch, the reason I can walk around, the reason I am who I am today is because I can look directly in to my face and find my soul, it's there, it's not sold, i didn't sell it, it's still within me, I still feel it, my heart is still connected to my body.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Interview on the set of Gang Related (1996)

Feeling, Soul, Heart

“We often contradict an opinion for no other reason than that we do not like the tone in which it is expressed.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

I.303 http://books.google.com/books?id=Nl-vaAdJD3MC&q=&quot;we+often+contradict+an+opinion+for+no+other+reason+than+that+we+do+not+like+the+tone+in+which+it+is+expressed&quot;&pg=PA137#v=onepage <br class="br">Human, All Too Human (1878)

“The reason why China suffers bitterly from endless wars is because of the existence of feudal lords and kings. A reliance on ancestral temples initially brought stability, but the revival of states results in the spread of soldiers. Doing so will never bring about stability!”

Qin Shi Huang (-258–-210 BC) founding emperor of the Qin Dynasty

Records of the Grand Historian, by Sima Qian

War, Suffering

“I've always been an actor, the reason I've been successful in the rap-game I think is that I treat my albums like movies, and I treat writing it like I'm a character writing a story, you know, for each album whatever I'm going through, whatever stages I'm going through, and I do it vividly with vivid pitcure, with action and description, and an beginning and with an end, and conflict, and you know, redemption, things like that. So I feel like I always been an actor and acting is my first love.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Interview on the set Gridlock'd (1996)

Love, Feeling, Game, Thinking

“I know you want to study me psychologically. That's reasonable and I appreciate it. At least you don't lecture to me and pry into my affairs. You have a good technique as a psychiatrist. Let the other fellow talk and stick his neck into the noose. I don't mean that the way it sounds. But you hardly say anything. Someday I'm going to ask you questions.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

To Leon Goldensohn (21 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

Way, Question, Study

“Susan [Silver] was really busy with one of her bands, and there was about a month where I never left the house. I didn’t go out in public; I didn’t talk to anyone on the phone—I went a little psycho. If I hadn’t been alone so long, I would not have gone as far as I actually went. But one day, I went from wondering what I would look like with a shaved head to ‘That’s pretty cool.’ Then I put my hair in a big envelope and mailed it off to my wife. The funny thing was, I did this really silly, personal thing for no reason, and then all of a sudden it was on MTV News and in Newsweek, and I still hadn’t left the house. I thought it was strange, because I don’t know how anyone found out about my hair, and I don’t know why they cared.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

On why he shaved his head in 1993 ** Interview with Details Magazine, December 1996 https://pitchfork.com/features/article/10081-chris-cornell-searching-for-solitude/, <br class="br">Soundgarden Era

Business, Housing, Personality

“Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.”

Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) Italian criminologist

Source: The Man of Genius (1891), p. x.

Men, Travel, Sense

“Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason!”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)
Context: There is a great difference between one idler and another idler. There is someone who is an idler out of laziness and lack of character, owing to the baseness of his nature. If you like, you may take me for one of those. Then there is the other kind of idler, the idler despite himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action who does nothing because his hands are tied, because he is, so to speak, imprisoned somewhere, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because disastrous circumstances have brought him forcibly to this end. Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason! I know that I could be a quite a different person! How can I be of use, how can I be of service? There is something inside me, but what can it be? He is quite another idler. If you like you may take me for one of those.

Feeling

“Love me or hate me, it's one or the other. Always has been. Hate my game, my swagger. Hate my fadeaway, my hunger. Hate that I'm a veteran. A champion. Hate that. Hate it with all your heart. And hate that I'm loved, for the exact same reasons.”

Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player

Love, Hunger, Hate, Making love

“I made a metamorphose, I'm a new person today, because I used to strongly and honestly, honestly! I feel like I can represent my generation so much because I honestly did not care whether I lived or died. But now I can not die, with people thinking I'm a rapist or a criminal, I can not leave until this shit is straight, you know I'm not suicidal. I can't go until ya'll really know what time it is. And then after that, BOOM!, It's all over and we can see how this shit fall, but that's how it is, and the reason being is because if I can't live free, if I can't live with the same respect as the next man, I don't wanna be here, because god has cursed me to see what life should be like, If God wanted me to be this person and be happy here, he wouldn't let me feel so oppressed, he wouldn't let me feel so trampled on, you know what I'm saying, he wouldn't let me think the things I think. So I feel I'm doing Gods work, you know what I'm saying just because I don't have nothing to pass around for people to put money in a bucket don't mean I ain't doing God's work.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Ed Gordon interview (1994)

Life, Money, God, Happiness

“We think to survive but reason to prosper in life, for one to draw the difference between the two requires reason.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Life, Thinking, Drawing

“Smiling for no reason is the only REASON to smile!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Smile

“Going beyond good and evil is training to start loving the things you hated and trying to hate the things you loved so much for no reason.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Love, Hate, Evil, Training

“What I wanted to express very clearly and intensely was that the reason these people had to invent or imagine heroes and gods is pure fear. Fear of life and fear of death.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter

Life, Death, God, People

“Humor is reason gone mad.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Madness

“The reason for my starting a diary is that I have no real friend.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

“If a theory of justice is to guide reasoned choice of policies, strategies or institutions, then the identification of fully just social arrangements is neither necessary nor sufficient.”

Amartya Sen book The Idea of Justice

Source: The Idea of Justice

Justice

“Tragedy, he precieved, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there were still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Love, Friendship, Family, Time

“When the bird of the heart begins to sing, too often will reason stop up her ears.”

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet

Bird, Singing, Heart

“We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark.”

Whoopi Goldberg (1955) American actress

People

“The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

People

“Faith and reason are not, as many seem to be arguing today, mutually exclusive. They never have been. The letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament defines faith as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of the things not seen.”

Francis S. Collins (1950) Geneticist; Director of the National Institutes of Health

Source: Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith

Faith, Hope

“The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Beauty, Question, Thinking

“One should always be in love. That's the reason one should never marry.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Love

“And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Love, Truth

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter One (17 February 1903)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
Context: No one can advise or help you — no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.

Heart

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

"Me and My House" in Harper's (November 1955); republished in Notes of a Native Son (1955)
Source: The Fire Next Time

Pain, Hate, People, Imagination

“No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“Someday, everything will make perfect sense. So for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears, be strong and keep reminding your self that everything happens for a reason.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

Smile, Sense, Tear, Strong

“As a general rule of biology, migratory species are less 'aggressive' than sedentary ones.

There is one obvious reason why this should be so. The migration itself, like the pilgrimage, is the hard journey: a 'leveller' on which the 'fit' survive and stragglers fall by the wayside.

The journey thus pre-empts the need for hierarchies and shows of dominance. The 'dictators' of the animal kingdom are those who live in an ambience of plenty. The anarchists, as always, are the 'gentlemen of the road'.”

Bruce Chatwin book The Songlines

Source: The Songlines

Animals

“Time makes more converts than reason.”

Thomas Paine book Common Sense

Source: Common Sense

Time

“The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Sign of the Four

Source: The Sign of Four

“Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Children, Future

“Mary is the great mother. She is the mother. That's what Mary is. Whether she existed or not, is not the point. She exists at least as a hyper-reality. She exists as the mother. What's the sacrifice of the mother? That's easy: if you're a mother who's worth her salt, you offer your son to be destroyed by the world. That's what you do. And that's what's going to happen. He's going to be born, he's going to suffer, he's going to have his trouble in life, he's going to have his illnesses, he's going to face his failures and catastrophes, and he's going to die. That's what's going to happen, and if you're awake you know that, and then you say, 'well, perhaps he will live in a way that will justify that.' And then you try to have that happen. And that's what makes you worthy of a statue like [The Pieta]. 'Is it right to bring a baby into this terrible world?' Well, every woman asks herself that question. Some say no, and they have their reasons. Mary answers 'yes' voluntarily. Mary is the archetype of the woman who answers yes to life voluntarily. Not because she is blind. She knows what's going to happen. So, she's the archetypal representation of the woman who says yes to life knowing full well what life is. She's not naive. She's not someone who got pregnant in the backseat of a 1957 Chevy during one night of half-drunk idiocy. Not that. She does so consciously. Consciously, knowing what's to come. And then she allows it to happen, which is a testament to mothers.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Bible Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers
Concepts

Life, World, Way, Failure

“Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil … a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons … never to truth.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

"A Plea For Intolerance" (1931)

Truth, Evil, Personality, Patience

“[Nehru's] animus against Hinduism was derived from his love for Communism. He knew next to nothing about Buddhism; the only reason be hailed it as well as its hero, Ashoka, was that in his perception Buddhism was a 'revolt' against 'reactionary' Brahminism. Had he known the truth about Buddhism, he would have dropped it like a hot potato. The same psychology made him fall for Islam. Otherwise he was equally ignorant of, and equally indifferent to all religions. The Secularism which he espoused was not borrowed from the modem West. For him, it was only a smokescreen for Hindu-baiting. The fashion was picked up fast by a servile intelligentsia and became a national cult.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Freedom of expression - Secular Theocracy Versus Liberal Democracy (1998)

Love, Truth, Religion, Communication

“I live and work with three basic assumptions, 1) There is no problem in science that can be solved by a man that cannot be solved by a woman. 2) Worldwide, half of all brains are in women. 3) We all need permission to do science, but, for reasons that are deeply ingrained in history, this permission is more often given to men than to women.”

Vera Rubin (1928–2016) American astronomer

As quoted in NPR obituary http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/26/507022497/vera-rubin-who-confirmed-existence-of-dark-matter-dies-at-88

Women, Men, History, Problem

“That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason; there is nothing more excellent than the universe, therefore the universe exercises reason.”

Zeno of Citium (-334–-263 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, ii. 8.; iii. 9.

Exercises, Universe

“On second thought, maybe the atheist cannot find God, for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman.”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

p. 44 http://books.google.com/books?id=W6bPGIL-_-8C&pg=PA44&dq=%22On+second+thought,+maybe+the+atheist%22: Sometimes misattributed to Francis Thompson, whose quote "An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident" Peter was commenting on. <br class="br">Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977)

God

“Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of the body over the mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem in itself.”

Susanna Wesley (1669–1742) Mother of Methodism

Letter to John Wesley, June 8, 1725

God, Sense

“Now, as there is an infinity of possible universes in the Ideas of God, and as only one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for God's choice, which determines him toward one rather than another. And this reason can be found only in the fitness, or the degrees of perfection, that these worlds contain, since each possible thing has the right to claim existence in proportion to the perfection it involves.”

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher

Or, comme il y a une infinité d'univers possibles dans les idées de Dieu, et qu'il n'en peut exister qu'un seul, il faut qu'il y ait une raison suffisante du choix de Dieu qui le détermine à l'un plutôt qu'à l'autre. Et cette raison ne peut se trouver que dans la convenance, dans les degrés de perfection que ces mondes contiennent, chaque possible ayant droit de prétendre à l'existence à mesure de la perfection qu'il enveloppe.
La monadologie (53 & 54).
The Monadology (1714)

God, World, Idea, Universe

“Administration, which calls for the application of wide knowledge and many personal qualities, is above all the art of handling men, and in this art, as in many others, it is practice that makes perfect. This is one of the reasons why we should release our future engineers for practical work as early as possible; there are many drawbacks to staying too long at school.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Source: Henri Fayol addressed his colleagues in the mineral industry, 1900, p. 909

Men, School, Art, Knowledge

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

God, Age, World, Education

“Every reasonable human being should be a moderate Socialist.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

As quoted in The New York Times (18 June 1950); also in Thomas Mann: A Critical Study (1971) by R. J. Hollingdale, Ch. 2

“I just don't think religion should be a money making organization. There is never a need to send churches or cults money for any reason. If you want to feel good about yourself or make your God happy, give your money directly to a charity or a homeless person. But once again this is my opinion, and I don't want to be in a position of also dictating.”

John Roecker (1966) American film director

An Epic Interview with John Roecker, FilmJerk, www.filmjerk.com, Kristopher, Terrell, August 23, 2003 http://www.filmjerk.com/interviews/article.php?id_int=12,

Money, God, Happiness, Religion

“If you take away Eau Rouge, you take away the reason why I do this.”

Ayrton Senna (1960–1994) Brazilian racing driver

Source: Interview, 1993 http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/december-2008/28/senna-connection

“I can respect the artistic aim of a composer if he arrives at the so-called modern idiom after an intense period of preparation…Such composers know what they are doing when they break a law; they know what to react against, because they have had experience in the classical forms and style. Having mastered the rules, they know which can be violated and which should be obeyed. But, I am sorry to say, I have found too often that young composers plunge into the writing of experimental music with their school lessons only half learned. Too much radical music is sheer sham, for this very reason: its composer sets about revolutionizing the laws of music before he learned them himself.”

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Russian composer, pianist, and conductor

Interviewed by David Ewen in The Etude, 1941; cited from Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (Boston, MA: Northeastern Universities Press, 1997) pp. 235-6

School, Law, Music, Learning

“Successive technological revolutions have immeasurably widened the psychological gap between generations. With some reason, perhaps, the man of the age of electricity and of the airplane feels himself removed from his masters.”

Marc Bloch (1886–1944) French historian, medievalist, and historiographer

The Historian's Craft, pg.36

Age, Feeling, Success

“The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.”

Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series

J. K. Rowling, as quoted in ‪Harry Potter's Bookshelf : The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures‬ (2009) by John Granger 
2000s
Context: I think most of us if you were asked to name a very evil regime would think of Nazi Germany. … I wanted Harry to leave our world and find exactly the same problems in the Wizarding world. So you have to the intent to impose a hierarchy, you have bigotry, and this notion of purity, which is a great fallacy, but it crops up all over the world. People like to think themselves superior and that if they can pride themselves on nothing else, they can pride themselves on perceived purity. … The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.

People, Truth, Books, Question

“Know that whatever conforms to reason, logic, and the advantages and needs of our people conforms equally to Islam.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

As quoted in Kemalizm, Laiklik ve Demokrasi [Kemalism, Laicism and Democracy] (1994) by Ahmet Taner Kışlalı
Context: Religion is an important institution. A nation without religion cannot survive. Yet it is also very important to note that religion is a link between Allah and the individual believer. The brokerage of the pious cannot be permitted. Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable. We are against such a situation and will not allow it. Those who use religion in such a manner have fooled our people; it is against just such people that we have fought and will continue to fight. Know that whatever conforms to reason, logic, and the advantages and needs of our people conforms equally to Islam. If our religion did not conform to reason and logic, it would not be the perfect religion, the final religion.

People

“My faith is in the unknown, in all that we do not understand by reason; I believe that what is beyond our comprehension is a simple fact in other dimensions,”

Charlie Chaplin book My Autobiography

My Autobiography, p. 291
Context: I believe that faith is a precursor of all our ideas. Without faith, there never could have evolved hypothesis, theory, science or mathematics. I believe that faith is an extension of the mind. It is the key that negates the impossible. To deny faith is to refute oneself and the spirit that generates all our creative forces. My faith is in the unknown, in all that we do not understand by reason; I believe that what is beyond our comprehension is a simple fact in other dimensions, and that in the realm of the unknown there is an infinite power for good.

Faith, Understanding

“Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity.”

Alan Turing Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals

"Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals," section 11: The purpose of ordinal logics (1938), published in Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, series 2, vol. 45 (1939)
In a footnote to the first sentence, Turing added: "We are leaving out of account that most important faculty which distinguishes topics of interest from others; in fact, we are regarding the function of the mathematician as simply to determine the truth or falsity of propositions."
Context: Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity. The activity of the intuition consists in making spontaneous judgements which are not the result of conscious trains of reasoning... The exercise of ingenuity in mathematics consists in aiding the intuition through suitable arrangements of propositions, and perhaps geometrical figures or drawings.

Exercises, Mathematics

“Those with financial advantage reason that selfishness is necessary and fortify themselves even further.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Norie Huddle interview (1981)
Context: Humanity is moving ever deeper into a crisis which has no precedent. It is a crisis brought about by evolution being intent on completely integrating differently colored, differently cultured, and intercommunicating humanity, and by evolution being intent on making integrated humanity able to live sustainedly at a higher standard of living for all than has ever been experienced by any. Probably ninety-nine percent of humanity does not know that we have the option to make it; we do. It can only be accomplished, however, through a Design Science Revolution.
Those in supreme power, politically and economically, aren’t yet convinced that our Planet Earth has anywhere nearly enough life support for all humanity.
They assume it has to be either you or me, that there is not enough for both. Those with financial advantage reason that selfishness is necessary and fortify themselves even further.

Selfishness

“You know that you can't go out there and change the world tomorrow morning. It just takes time, and the realization of that does not produce frustration. What produces frustration, is when you expect the world to join with your cause it's so reasonable. It is not reasonable to unreasonable people.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

People, World, Change, Time

“An ordinary teacher instructs and leaves his disciple, but a great teacher strives to make his disciple see reason by pushing him to his limits.”

Swami Samarpanananda Monk, Author, Teacher

Junglezen Sheru ( Page 140 )

Making love, Teachers

“The spiritual experience of oneness conduces to the same insight as reasoning through science. Both convey the insight of fundamental interconnection between ourselves, other people, other forms of life, the biosphere and, ultimately, the universe. Science and spirituality, far from being mutually exclusive and conflicting elements, are complementary partners in the search for the path that can enable humanity to recover its oneness with the world. Science demonstrates the urgent and objective need for it; and spirituality testifies to its inherent value and supreme desirability.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2

Life, People, World, Search

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Heart, Cute, Romantic, Valentine's Day

“The gap between success and failure is reason based on reality.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Quoted from his speech during the launch for his book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_As_The_World_Masterpiece, "Reason as the World Masterpiece" https://www.amazon.co.uk/REASON-AS-WORLD-MASTERPIECE-UGANDAS/dp/9970652001 in Kampala, Book launch Speach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKAoWtWgP2U (March 10 2021) <br class="br">2020s

Failure, Reality, Success

“Employment is a good source of start up capital and basic survival but never a direct path to long term reasonable prosperity.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

2018

“Emotions are a cancer in one's path to the road of prosperity in life, Emotions Defeat Reason.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Life

“Each heart is a pilgrim,
each one wants to know
the reason why the winds die
and where the stories go.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Song lyrics, A Day Without Rain (2000)
Source: da Pilgrim, n.° 9

Heart