“Unless there was a reason for me to stay.”
Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel
Source: Clockwork Angel
Quotes about reason page 17
“Authors write books for one, and only one, reason: because we like to torture people.”
Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians
Source: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians
Emily Giffin (1972) American writer
Source: Love the One You're With
“Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired…”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet
Letter to a Young Clergyman (January 9, 1720), on proving Christianity to unbelievers
“The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is because vampires are allergic to bullshit.”
Richard Pryor (1940–2005) American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer, and MC
Edna O'Brien (1930) Novelist, memoirist, biographer, playwright, poet and short story writer
Source: Saints and Sinners
“The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other,… but to beeach other.”
Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer
Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
“For reasons of my own I take note of the way people act when they’re around mirrors.”
Helen Oyeyemi book Boy, Snow, Bird
Source: Boy, Snow, Bird
Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher
Source: A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
“Emotions by their very nature are not reasonable things.”
Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind
Source: The Name of the Wind
“Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.”
Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate
“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.”
"The Early Essays".
Source: Without Feathers (1975)
“I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if we are not wise enough to see it.”
Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
Variant: Everything happens for a reason, even when we are not wise enough to see it. When there is no struggle, there is no strength.
“Sometimes a legend that endures for centuries… endures for a reason.”
Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol
Source: The Lost Symbol
“Nothing is more perplexing to a man than the mental process of a woman who reasons her emotions.”
Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (1968) Canadian writer
Source: At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much
“If a person fears God, she has no reason to fear anything else.”
Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist
Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters
Variant: You only ask people about themselves so you can tell them about yourself.
Source: Invisible Monsters
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
“Things do happen for a reason, but do we like the reason? Rarely.”
Stephen King book 11/22/63
Source: 11/22/63
“yes is a pleasant country…
love is a deeper season
than reason”
E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet
Source: 1 x 1 (1944), XXXVIII
Source: Selected Poems
“I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist
Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist
Source: The Fry Chronicles
“It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
“Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more.”
Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author
William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying
Variant: ... the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.
Source: As I Lay Dying
Diane Wood Middlebrook (1939–2007) biographer
Source: Anne Sexton: A Biography
“You have to be willing to spend time making things for no known reason.”
Lynda Barry (1956) Cartoonist
Source: Picture This: The Near-sighted Monkey Book
“To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.”
Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine
Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Variant translations: The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties — this knowledge, this feeling … that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.
As quoted in After Einstein : Proceedings of the Einstein Centennial Celebration (1981) by Peter Barker and Cecil G. Shugart, p. 179
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
As quoted in Introduction to Philosophy (1935) by George Thomas White Patrick and Frank Miller Chapman, p. 44
The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
1930s, Mein Weltbild (My World-view) (1931)
Context: The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.
“Until he gives you a reason not to trust him, behave as though you trust him.”
Sherry Argov (1977) American writer
Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship
Laura Hillenbrand book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Source: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
“There is no good reason. Don't waste your life waiting for good reasons… You'll wait and wait.”
Susan Minot (1956) American author and screenwriter
Source: Evening
“As I have said, you have no reason to trust me, and an excellent reason not to.”
Robin McKinley book Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
Source: Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters”
Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)
1790s
Variant: The sleep of reason produces monsters.
“Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right,
By these we reach divinity”
John Donne (1572–1631) English poet
“There are few reasons for telling the truth, but for lying the number is infinite.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
“Why Paris? Paris needs no reason. Paris is its own reason.”
Maureen Johnson book 13 Little Blue Envelopes
Source: 13 Little Blue Envelopes
“We have reason to be afraid. This is a terrible place.”
John Berryman (1914–1972) American poet
“there's a reason regular people don't appear on TV: we're boring.”
David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day
Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.”
Jim Butcher book Grave Peril
Source: Grave Peril
Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher
Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist
Source: The Woman Destroyed
“We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.”
Mark Strand (1934–2014) Canadian-American poet, essayist, translator
“Here, for whatever reason, is the world. And here it stays. With me on it.”
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Charlotte Joko Beck (1917–2011) US American Zen Teacher
Source: Nothing Special
Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
“The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity.”
Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist