Quotes about reason
page 27

“It is the business of the teacher … to fortify reason and to make conscience sovereign.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 242

“It is above all the impersonal and economically rationalized (but for this very reason ethically irrational) character of purely commercial relationships that evokes the suspicion, never clearly expressed but all the more strongly felt, of ethical religions. For every purely personal relationship of man to man, of whatever sort and even including complete enslavement, may be subjected to ethical requirements and ethically regulated. This is true because the structures of these relationships depend upon the individual wills of the participants, leaving room in such relations for manifestations of the virtue of charity. But this is not the situation in the realm of economically rationalised relationships, where personal control is exercised in inverse ratio to the degree of rational differentiation of the economic structure.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: Sociology of Religion (1922), pp. 216-217

Religion, Exercises, Dependency, Personality

“The reason for the lack of business in this House is perfectly clear and it is not the responsibility of this House to deal with the matter. The Taoiseach and the cabal that runs Fine Gael have decided that they will take over the role previously held by Fianna Fáil as the slightly constitutional party. They have decided to destroy the Seanad by refusing to refer legislation to it.”

David Norris (1944) Irish scholar, independent Senator, and gay and civil rights activist

14 May 2013 http://www.kildarestreet.com/sendebates/?id=2013-05-14a.7&s=speaker%3A210#g37

Business, Housing

“I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.”

Thomas Brown (1662–1704) English translator and writer of satire

Laconics, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). A slightly different version is found in Brown's Works collected and published after his death. Compare: "Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare; Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te" (translation: "I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only I can say, I do not love thee"), Martial, Epigram i. 33; "Je ne vous aime pas, Hylas; Je n'en saurois dire la cause, Je sais seulement une chose; C'est que je ne vous aime pas", Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau, Comte de Rabutin (1618–1693).
Source: See,Talk discussion

Love

“Art goes… imitating that Rationall and most excellent worke of Nature, Man. For by Art is created that great Leviathan called a Common-Wealth or State, (in latine Civitas) which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificiall Joynts; Reward and Punishment (by which fastned to the seate of the Soveraignty, every joynt and member is moved to performe his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Naturall; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi (the peoples safety) its Businesse; Counsellors, by whom all things needfull for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Lawes, an artificiall Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sicknesse; and Civill war, Death.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

Lastly, the Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation.
The Introduction
Leviathan (1651)

Life, Death, God, War

“Sam, Sam, pick oop tha' musket,'
The Sergeant exclaimed with a roar,
Sam said 'Tha' knocked it doon, reason tha'll pick it oop,
Or it stays where it is on't floor”

Stanley Holloway (1890–1982) English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist

Sam, Sam, Pick Oop Tha' Musket

“One of the reasons I became so involved in activism for primate conservation was not just from the books and movie’s I saw, but from looking into the eyes of a chimpanzee in a zoo. I’ll never forget it… it changed my life.”

Charlotte Ross (1968) American actress

"Award-Winning Animal Activist—Actress Charlotte Ross—Campaigns for Great Apes", interview with National Geographic (24 November 2013) https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/11/24/award-winning-animal-activist-actress-charlotte-ross-campaigns-for-great-apes/.

Life, Books, Change, Forgetting

“The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially to the explanation of planet-sized facts of geology and meteorology, through middle-sized facts of ecology and agronomy, down to the latest microscopic facts of genetic engineering. It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a single grand story. Like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, it is unbudgable, not because of some one or two huge chains of argument that might — hope against hope — have weak links in them, but because it is securely tied by thousands of threads of evidence anchoring it to virtually every other area of human knowledge. New discoveries may conceivably lead to dramatic, even "revolutionary" shifts in the Darwinian theory, but the hope that it will be "refuted" by some shattering breakthrough is about as reasonable as the hope that we will return to a geocentric vision and discard Copernicus.”

Daniel Dennett book Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

Hope, History, Knowledge

“Determinism, in the strict sense, is self-contradictory. For if man’s mental processes—specifically, his attempts at reasoning—are not free, if they are determined by environment and heredity, then there is no means of claiming that theory x is true and y is false—since man can have no way of knowing that his mental processes might not be conditioned to force him to believe that x is logical, when in fact it is not.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr. (1949–1992) American libertarian essayist and critic

Source: “Big Business and the Rise of American Statism,” 1969, p. 23

Way, Sense, Falseness

“Time! Time! Time! — we must not impugn the Scripture Chronology, but we must interpret it in accordance with whatever shall appear on fair enquiry to be the truth for there cannot be two truths. And really there is scope enough: for the lives of the Patriarchs may as reasonably be extended to 5000 or 50000 years apiece as the days of Creation to as many thousand millions of years.”

John Herschel (1792–1871) English mathematician, astronomer, chemist and photographer

Letter to Charles Lyell after being inspired by his Principles of Geology (1830-1833)

Truth, Appearance, Time

“Without the constantly living and articulated experience of absurdity, there would be no reason to attempt to do something meaningful. And on the contrary, how can one experience one's own absurdity if one is not constantly seeking meaning?”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5 : The Politics of Hope, p. 114

“Since 'tis certain that Earth and Jupiter have their Water and Clouds, there is no reason why the other Planets should be without them. I can't say that they are exactly of the same nature with our Water; but that they should be liquid their use requires, as their beauty does that they be clear. This Water of ours, in Jupiter or Saturn, would be frozen up instantly by reason of the vast distance of the Sun. Every Planet therefore must have its own Waters of such a temper not liable to Frost.”

Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) Dutch mathematician and natural philosopher

Book I http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/huygens/huygens_ct_en.htm, p. 27 Cosmotheoros (1695; publ. 1698)

Beauty, Nature, Water, Sun

“Now as we call every thing [custom], which proceeds from a past repetition, without any new reasoning or conclusion, we may establish it as a certain truth, that all the belief, which follows upon any present impression, is deriv'd solely from that origin.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 3, Section 8
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 1: Of the understanding

Truth, Past

“The absence of all these values (marriage commitment, parental authority, and grandparent-grandchild relationships) is one of the main reasons for why our societies are faced by these violent criminal offences. As legislators, our primary role is to ensure the freedom and rights of every citizen of this country are protected.”

Koila Nailatikau (1953) Fijian politician

Senate speech, 30 May 2003 (excerpts)

Marriage, Parent, Freedom, Country

“So with each advance in understanding come new questions. So we need to be very humble. We shouldn't have hubris and think that we can understand everything. But history tells us that there is good reason to believe that we will continue making fantastic progress in the years ahead.”

Max Tegmark (1967) Swedish-American cosmologist

Interview http://www.templeton.org/features/grant/fqx/hp-sub01.html with the Co-Founders of the Foundational Questions Institute, Dr.Max Tegmark and Dr. Anthony Aguirre.

History, Understanding, Question, Thinking

“Some men want war for sordid, others for idealistic, reasons; some for personal gain, others for impersonal principle. But most of those who consciously want war and accept it, and so help to create its "inevitability," want it in order to shift the locus of their problems.”

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) American sociologist

The Causes of World War Three (1960)

Men, War, Problem, Help

“Rememberest the gods, and that they wish not to be flattered, but wish all reasonable beings to be made like themselves; and… rememberest that what does the work of a fig-tree is a fig-tree, and that what does the work of a dog is a dog, and that what does the work of a bee is a bee, and that what does the work of a man is a man.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

X, 8
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X

God, Dogs, Tree, Bee

“Among other men Reason awakes in another form—as the impulse towards Personal Freedom, which, although it never opposes the mild rule of the inward Instinct which it loves, yet rises in rebellion against the pressure of a stranger Instinct which has usurped its rights; and in this awakening it breaks the chains,—not of Reason as Instinct itself, but of the Instinct of foreign natures clothed in the garb of external power.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 8

Love, Men, Nature, Freedom

“I don't know how I got into sculpture. I liked its physicality, that's the only reason. I didn't have a program.”

Frank Stella (1936) American artist

Quote: Stella's response to the question: Is that one of the reasons you went into sculpture?
Source: Quotes, 1971 - 2000, Bomb: X Motion Picture and Center for New Art Activities, 2000, p. 28,

“Wherever religion is resorted to as a strong drink, and as an escape from the dull, monotonous round of home, those of its ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please. They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the most righteous; and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the difficulty of getting into heaven will be considered, by all true believers, certain of going there: though it would be hard to say by what process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at.”

Charles Dickens book American Notes

American Notes (1842), Ch. 3

Religion, Home, Flowers, Drink

“And there you In a new embrace, with a new torrent of eternal love: all the elect, angels and men, from the last to the first are embraced It is a living and fruitful unity, which is the source and the fount of all life All creatures are there without themselves as in their eternal origin, One essence and one life with God These enlightened people are lifted up with free mind above reason…To the summit of their spirit Their naked understanding is penetrated with eternal clarity as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. The bare elevated will is transformed and penetrated with fathomless love, just as iron is penetrated by the fire [God] gives Himself in the soul’s essence…Where the soul’s powers are unified…And undergo God’s transformation in simplicity. In this place all is full and overflowing, for the spirit feels itself as one truth and one richness. And one unity with God All spirits thus raised up Melt away and are annihilated by reason of enjoyment in God’s essence They fall away from themselves and are lost in a bottomless unknowingWith God they will ebb and flow, and will always be in repose…They are drunk with love and have passed away into God in a dark luminosity must accept that the Persons yield and lose themselves whirling in essential love, that is, in enjoyable unity; nevertheless, they always remain according to their personal properties In the working of the Trinity. You may thus understand that the divine nature is eternally at rest and without mode according to the simplicity of its essence. It is why all that God has chosen and enfolded with eternal personal love, he has possessed essentially, enjoyably in unity, with essential love.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Little Book of Enlightenment (c. 1364)

Love, Life, Men, God

“At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Robert Jastrow (1925–2008) American astronomer

God and the Astronomers (1978), p. 116; (p. 107 in 1992 edition).

Faith, Dreams, Mountain, Science

“The natural philosophy of Democritus and some others, who did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but attributed the form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of nature, which they term fortune, seemeth to me… in particularities of physical causes more real and better inquired than that of Aristotle and Plato; whereof both intermingled final causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a part of logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of both those persons. Not because those final causes are not true, and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province; but because their excursions into the limits of physical causes hath bred a vastness and solitude in that tract.”

Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning

Book VII, 7
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

Nature, Solitude, Study, Parting

“The use of pictures was creeping into the church already in the third century, because the council of Elvira in Spain, held in 305, especially forbids to have any picture in the Christian churches. These pictures were generally representations of some events, either of the New or of the Old Testament, and their object was to instruct the common and illiterate people in sacred history, whilst others were emblems, representing some ideas connected with the doctrines of Christianity. It was certainly a powerful means of producing an impression upon the senses and the imagination of the vulgar, who believe without reasoning, and admit without reflection; it was also the most easy way of converting rude and ignorant nations, because, looking constantly on the representations of some fact, people usually end by believing it. This iconographic teaching was, therefore, recommended by the rulers of the church, as being useful to the ignorant, who had only the understanding of eyes, and could not read writings. Such a practice was, however, fraught with the greatest danger, as experience has but too much proved. It was replacing intellect by sight. Instead of elevating man towards God, it was bringing down the Deity to the level of his finite intellect, and it could not but powerfully contribute to the rapid spread of a pagan anthropomorphism in the church.”

Walerian Krasiński (1795–1855) historian

Introductory dissertation to John Calvin's Treatise on Relics (1854)

God, People, Way, Imagination

“I oppose Islam, for the simple reason that Islam opposes me and everything I believe in. I don't care how Muslims feel about that. I don't care how anyone feels about it, nor should I be required to. In my opinion, Islam's disgusting treatment of women is a crime against humanity, nothing less. It's a thousand percent wrong, there's no grey area, it's unconscionable and unforgivable, and it's poisoning the whole world. It's not different or relative, it's backward and uncivilised. There's no excuse for it, and no excuse for defending it.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Free speech in Europe" (10 November 2010)
2010

Women, World, Feeling

“More than thirty other islands in the vicinity of San Juan are for the most part and for the same reason depopulated, and the land laid waste.”

Bartolomé de las Casas (1474–1566) Spanish Dominican friar, historian, and social reformer

History of the Indies (1561)

Parting

“A Society of Citizens, as well as every Thing else, requires a certain fixed Order: There ought to be some to govern, and others to obey. And this is the Origin of every Kind of Subjection; which feels itself more or less alleviated, in Proportion to the Situation of the Subjects. And, consequently, as the Law of Nature commands Us to take as much Care, as lies in Our Power, of the Prosperity of all the People; we are obliged to alleviate the Situation of the Subjects, as much as sound Reason will permit. And therefore, to shun all Occasions of reducing People to a State of Slavery, except the utmost Necessity should inevitably oblige us to do it; in that Case, it ought not to be done for our own Benefit; but for the Interest of the State: Yet even that Case is extremely uncommon. Of whatever Kind Subjection may be, the civil Laws ought to guard, on the one Hand, against the Abuse of Slavery, and, on the other, against the Dangers which may arise from it.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

People, Law, Feeling, Nature

“[in Italian Renaissance] there was no 'subject-matter'. What we call subject matter now, was then painting itself. Subject matter came later on when parts of those works were taken out arbitrarily, when a man for no reason is sitting, standing or lying down. He became a bather, she became a bather; she was reclining; he just stood there looking ahead. That is when the posing in painting began… For really, when you think of all the life and death problems in the art of Renaissance, who cares if a Chevalier is laughing or that a young girl has a red blouse on.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

The Renaissance and Order Trans/formation 1, 1951; as quoted in Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, p. 113.
1950's

Life, Death, Art, Girl

“A system with greater organizational diversity has a higher probability of having in hand some form that does a reasonably satisfactory job of dealing with the changed environmental conditions. Adaptation in such a system means reallocating resources from one type of existing organization to another, either by command or by market mechanisms, rather than trying to identify and create appropriate organizational forms.”

Michael T. Hannan (1943) US-American sociologist of Stanford University

Source: Organizational ecology, 1989, p. 8

Change

“I think the initial reason why I became interested in farming is that I wanted to be outdoors. I've always enjoyed being outdoors. And so, I looked around and when I was at high school, probably 14 or so, my parents through friends arranged for me to be able to go work on farms on the weekend.”

Ian Wilmut (1944) embryologist

Interview at the Academy of Acheivement (23 May 1998) http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/wil0int-1.

School, Thinking, Parent

“One reason we cannot forget our law enforcement legacy is that the people we serve and protect cannot forget it, either. So we must talk about our history. It is a hard truth that lives on.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

People, Truth, Law, History

“The Bible says all men are without excuse. Even those who are given no good reason to believe and many persuasive reasons to disbelieve have no excuse, because the ultimate reason they do not believe is that they have deliberately rejected God's Holy Spirit.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Source: Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (1994), p. 37.

Men, God

“Dialogue in Hell:
Twenty-third through twenty-fifth dialogues

Machiavelli: The cult of the prince is a sort of religion and, like all possible religions, this cult prescribes contradictions and mysteries beyond reason.
…I wish my aims to be impenetrable, even to those who are closest to me. I would only communicate my projects when I gave the command for execution….
His counselors ask one another secretly what he will think of next. He personifies in their eyes the Providence whose ways are”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Religion, Way, Communication, Hell

“But the problem of a Chief of Staff in Washington is not that simple. In the military service, an officer is not hailed before an outside authority and therefore required to indicate the advice which he had originally given his commanding general and to explain his reasons therefore. This is the position of the Chief of Staff before a Congressional committee. No sooner has he read his prepared statement supporting the position of the Defense Department than he must face a battery of interrogators bent on bringing forth his original views and contrasting them with the ultimate position of the Secretary of Defense and of the President. Very shortly a Chief of Staff will find himself in the position either of appearing to oppose his civilian superiors or of withholding facts from the Congress. Personally, I have found no way of coping with the situation other than by replying frankly to questions and letting the chips fall where they may.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: The Uncertain Trumpet (1960), p. 112-113

Way, Question, Support, Problem

“If the Easter Islanders couldn't solve their milder local problems in the past, how can the modern world hope to solve its big global problems? People who get depressed at such thoughts often then ask me, “Jared, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the world’s future?” I answer, “I am a cautious optimist.” By that, I mean that, on the one hand, I acknowledge the seriousness of the problems facing us. If we don’t make a determined effort to solve them, and if we don’t succeed at that effort, the world as a whole within the next few decades will face a declining standard of living, or perhaps something worse. That’s the reason why I decided to devote most of my career efforts at this stage of my life to convincing people that our problems have to be taken seriously and won’t go away otherwise. On the other hand, we shall be able to solve our problems – if we choose to do so.”

Jared Diamond book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Source: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005), Chapter "The world as a polder: what does it all mean to us today?", section "Reasons for hope" (Penguin Books, 2011, page 521, .

Life, People, World, Hope

“A: I will now follow Reason whithersoever she shall lead me.”
A: Nunc rationem, quo ea me cumque ducet, sequar.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book II, Chapter V; translation of Andrew P. Peabody
Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC)

“Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence.
Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves. Of never acquiescing in a fraud; of never accepting the secondary-rate in poetry, painting, music, love, friends. Of safeguarding our poetic institutions against the encroachments of mechanized, insensate, inhumane, abstract rationality.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"The Case for Xanthippe" in The Crane Bag (1969).
General sources

Love, Music, Way, Fraud

“My retainers keep me on ice. Dry ice. It slows my metabolism, takes the edge off my appetite, slightly. I lie, bound with heavy chains, between two great slabs of it, naked and sweating, trying to sleep through the torment of a summer's day.

They've given me the local fall-out shelter, the very deepest room they could find, as I requested. Yet my senses move easily through the earth and to the surface, out across the lazy, warm suburbs, restless emissaries skimming the sun-soaked streets. If I could rein them in I would, but the instinct that drives them is a force unto itself, a necessary consequence of what I am and the reason I was brought into being.

Being, I have discovered, has certain disadvantages. I intend seeking compensation, just as soon as the time is right.”

Greg Egan (1961) Australian science fiction writer and former computer programmer

Neighbourhood Watch http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/HORROR/NEIGHBOUR/Neighbour.html Fiction

Lie, Sense, Sleep, Time

“I have more respect for this man than any of my previous managers, and I played for Fred Haney, Danny Murtaugh and Bobby Bragan. This fellow makes me feel that he really appreciates what I do. When he has something to tell you, he tells you in front of everybody. You don’t hear it from some newspaperman. I don’t see why people say he has a big mouth. He knows this business real good and he is doing a great job. He works with the players and he gives them more confidence. Matty Alou never did anything until he came to this man. Donn Clendenon is having his best year and also Willie Stargell. And me, too. That is the reason I want to win so bad. I never played with a club that put out 100 percent like this one. If somebody gets down he comes and talks to the others. No matter what happens, we get together and solve everything. I don’t even think we tried this hard to win in 1960 when they won the pennant and the World Series.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Walker, Clemente Bury Hatchet, Spread Praise" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=SnQsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wssEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3539%2C4912308 by the Associated Press, in The Spartanburg Herald (Wednesday, September 28, 1966), p. 12 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

People, World, Feeling, Confidence

“The worst decay in the two-parent black family unit seems to have occurred not during slavery or as a result of slavery, but much later and for different reasons. Nor is there any evidence that as a consequence of slavery, blacks condoned illegitimacy as acceptable within the community. For the decline and fragility of the contemporary black family, the institution of slavery bears only a minor responsibility.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, The End of Racism (1995), Ch. 3: An American Dilemma

Family, Communication, Parent

“Sam, Sam, pick oop tha' musket,'
Lieutenant exclaimed with some 'eat,
Sam said, 'he knocked it down, reason he picks it oop,
Or it stays where it is, at me feet”

Stanley Holloway (1890–1982) English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist

Sam, Sam, Pick Oop Tha' Musket

“They love their land because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why;
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne,
And think it kindness to his Majesty.”

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867) American writer

Connecticut.

Love, Thinking

“If I give you romantic advice, don't take it. Look what's happening to me. I have the best taste in friends and the worst taste in husbands. I'm never getting married again. That's just stupid. There's no reason on Earth to do that.”

Liza Minnelli (1946) American actress and singer

October 6, 2007 St. Petersburg Times by Shannon Breen.ď

Stupidity

“Ask yourself this question: if you were one of America's Founders, and you'd just surprised the world (and yourself) by winning a war of secession against the most powerful and heavy-handed government on the planet, and the last thing in the world you wanted for yourself, for your children, or for your grandchildren was to fall beneath the heels of its jackboots again, what would you want the Bill of Rights to mean?
And if the first act, under martial law, of that powerful, heavy-handed government had been to try to take your guns away at Lexington and Concord, would you have written a Second Amendment to guarantee its 'right' to own and carry weapons? Would you have written a Second Amendment that was subject to whatever government claims is 'reasonable regulation?”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

Or would you have written the Second Amendment to forbid government from having anything to do with your guns? Anything whatever. "Police Reform," http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle501-20090111-02.html 11 January 2009.

War, Children, World, Law

“Reason has never really directed social reality, but now reason has been so thoroughly purged of any specific trend or preference that it has finally renounced even the task of passing judgment on man’s actions and way of life. Reason has turned them over for ultimate sanction to the conflicting interests to which our world actually seems abandoned.”

Max Horkheimer book Eclipse of Reason

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 9.

Life, World, Way, Reality

“The idea that reason requires an impartial treatment of individuals corresponds to well-known principles. To resolve the questions of distributive justice, Leibniz proposes the following maxim: “Put your self in the place of everyone.” In recent theories, this amounts to saying that the choice of a just organization of society must take place behind a “veil of ignorance,” an idea that can be interpreted in several ways. For utilitarianism, each individual must count as one, and none as more than one. For John Rawls, we have to choose the form of society that favors the least advantaged, whoever they might be. Another impartial idea is that of universal rights, embodied in the two declarations of 1776 and 1789.”

Jon Elster (1940) Norwegian academic

Reason and Rationality (2009)

Justice, Way, Idea, Question

“Moreover, in order that we may be aroused and exhorted all the more to carry this out, Scripture makes known that there are not one, not two, nor a few foes, but great armies, which wage war against us. For Mary Magdalene is said to have been freed from seven demons by which she was possessed [Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2], and Christ bears witness that usually after a demon has once been cast out, if you make room for him again, he will take with him seven spirits more wicked than he and return to his empty possession [Matt. 12:43-45]. Indeed, a whole legion is said to have assailed one man [Luke 8:30]. We are therefore taught by these examples that we have to wage war against an infinite number of enemies, lest, despising their fewness, we should be too remiss to give battle, or, thinking that we are sometimes afforded some respite, we should yield to idleness.
But the frequent mention of Satan or the devil in the singular denotes the empire of wickness opposed to the Kingdom of Righteousness. For as the church and fellowship of the saints has Christ as Head, so the faction of the impious and impiety itself are depicted for us together with their prince who holds supreme sway over them. For this reason, it was said: "Depart, …you cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Matt. 25:41 “Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion” https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1611644453 Book 1, ch.14, sect. 14, edited by John T. McNeill pp.173-174. Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

War, Angels, Thinking, Christ

“My feelings were reaffirmed during the summer of 1968 as a result of the lingering stench of racism in Savannah and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. No matter what the reasons were, I closed out the sixties as one angry young man waiting on the revolution that I was certain would soon come. I saw no way out. I, like many others, felt the deep chronic agony of anomie and alienation. All seemed to be defined by race. We became a reaction to the 'man', his ominous reflection.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Way, Feeling, Waiting, Summer

“But it's not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time — it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco. Decorators. They got to do something. But we don't have to glorify it. You know one of the reasons fashions have made women look so terrible is because the goddamned designers hate women. Designers taking it out on the women. Now they're trying to get some more sexy things coming on again.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Tapes from 1971 as presented in "All the Philosopher King's Men" by James Warren in Harper's Magazine (February 2000)
1970s, Tape transcripts (1971)

Women, Hate, Way, Imagination

“In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of "the common good" and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed. In this world irrationality clings to man like his shadow so that the right things get done for the wrong reasons—afterwards, we dredge up the right reasons for justification. It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral; a world where "reconciliation" means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it, then we have reconciliation.”

Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. 13

Life, Men, World, Law

“Indeed, as I think about it, I have to conclude that these young people before me today are the best reason for hope that this world knows.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Address at Iona College (1984)

People, World, Hope, Thinking

“The system, though it may not be perfect in every part, is, upon the whole, a good one; is the best that the present views and circumstances of the country will permit; and is such an one as promises every species of security which a reasonable people can desire.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 85
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

People, Parting, Perfection, Country

“What reason, I ask, a reason so much vaster than the other, makes dreams seem so natural and allows me to welcome unreservedly a welter of episodes so strange that they could confound me now as I write? And yet I can believe my eyes, my ears; this great day has arrived, this beast has spoken.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

Dreams, Nature

“The mind resorts to reason for want of training.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Training

“To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Source: 1840s, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845), Ch. 10

“I had more flow as a designer. I could just drop down into the zone and stay there for hours. With cartooning, I'm constantly coming up for air, procrastinating, looking for reasons not to be doing it. I spend all day granting myself special dispensation, with 'creative process' as my cover story. Carpenters and deli countermen can't do that, so I think they may feel better about themselves at the end of the day.”

Garry Trudeau (1948) cartoonist

[Doonesbury's War, Gene Weingarten, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102000446_5.html?nav=hcmoduleand=again, Washington Post, October 22, 2006, July 24, 2007]

Feeling, Thinking

“'Live for Loving You' is a kind of song that really can live in many different genres. And, of course, when you do your live performances the first time that you perform a song you want to stay true to the record: because tha's what people want to hear, they want to hear the hit. But then after you have done it fifty thousand times and through many, many different tours, you start experimenting and doing stuff to surprise people. So, the cut that we are doing here for the "iTunes Orginal" is something that we love to do -- because we just took it and really broke it down to a Samba. You know, the Brazilians have an amazing edge -- percussively, I think -- they have amazing rhythms. And this song really fit that rhythm very nicely. So, we wanted to do it acoustically and really cool -- and like we've done many times on tour. Just break it down to just acoustic, no synths and things of that nature: just make it organic. And I love that song for that reason: because you could perform it with just a couple of bongos and some vocals if you had to. And it would still work.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

iTunes interview (released June 2, 2007)
2007, 2008

Love, People, Nature, Thinking

“I was raised Vegan since birth. … I remember watching undercover investigation videos and reading the pamphlets that were mailed to the house when we were kids—I felt deeply for the animals at an early age. I remember how the other parents of my childhood friends would either get upset or interested when their kids would come home after sleepovers at my house—I felt it was my duty to show my friends what was happening to animals. … Veganism is the ultimate form of compassion. … I never considered my being Vegan was for health reasons—it was always for the love and respect I had for animals. And because of that love and respect I have for non-human animals my compassion flows over to all living beings, of all types. … I am encouraged by compassionate souls and the love I see in the eyes of those I've committed my life to stand up for.”

Seba Johnson (1973) Olympic skier

"Interview with Seba Johnson: Vegan Olympic Ski Racer" http://www.vivalavegan.net/articles/561-interview-with-seba-johnson-vegan-olympic-ski-racer.html, Viva La Vegan! (August 2013).

Love, Life, Health, Age

“I do not oppose the insane asylum—but I abhor and condemn the cutthroat system that robs man of his reason, drives him to insanity and makes the lunatic asylum an indispensable adjunct to every civilized community.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

What's the matter with Chicago? (1902)

Communication

“Man's Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense,
that tho' she guide his highest flight heav'nward, and teach him
dignity morals manners and human comfort,
she can delicatly and dangerously bedizen
the rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell.”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

Book I, lines 57-61.
The Testament of Beauty (1929-1930)

Sadness, Hell, Sense, Joy

“Now it stands to reason, mister, any damn fool stares into the sun long enough, he'll end up seeing exactly what some other damn fool tells him he's going to see.”

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States

Non-series books, A Flash of Green

Fools, Sun

“This alliance of reason has so far provided the decisive contribution to preserve stability and order for the people in Europe”

Johanna Mikl-Leitner (1964) Austrian politician (ÖVP), former Member of National Council of Austria and former Federal Interior Minister of …

Mikl-Leitner said in reference to the Balkan countries along the route to the recent immigrant crisis, quoted on Newsweek, "BALKAN ROUTE WILL STAY CLOSED 'PERMANENTLY', SAYS AUSTRIA" http://www.newsweek.com/balkan-route-closed-permanently-austria-435359, March 10, 2016.

People, Decision

“A classical concept in Hinduism has been that a true proposition has to be consistent with sruti, yukti (reason/logic) and anubhava.”

Rajiv Malhotra book Indra's Net

Source: Indra's Net (2014)

“Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Encyclical Fides et Ratio, 14 September 1998 Source: www.vatican.va http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio_en.html

Truth, Question, Nature, Parting

“I saw us as coming from a source self, free of space and time, into this reality. The focus personality (or the self we know) focuses in this life, but is also composed of of other Aspects or parts of the source self that are latent within the psyche, though "alive" in other realities. These form the basic structure of the psyche from which the focus personality emerges. I call these "prime Aspects." A harmonious working relationship between these prime Aspects results in a well-balanced focus personality -- one that is reasonably happy, healthy, and creative.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 197

Life, Reality, Time, Parting

“[The Constructive idea.. ] has revealed a universal law that the elements of a visual art such as lines, colours, shapes, possess their own forces of expression independent of any association with the external aspects of the world; that their life and action are self-conditioned psychological phenomena rooted in human nature; that those elements are not chosen by convention by any utilitarian or other reason as words and figures are, they are not merely abstract signs, but they are immediately and organically bound up with human emotions. The revelation of this fundamental law has opened up a vast field in art giving the possibility of expression to those human impulses and emotions which have been neglected.”

Naum Gabo (1890–1977) Russian sculptor

Naum Gabo (1937) 'Editorial', p. 7 as cited in: W. Rotzler (1989) Constructive Concepts - A History of Constructive Art from Cubism to the Present, Rizzoli.
1936 - 1977, Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art, 1937

Life, World, Law, Art

“Here is a well-known trajectory: You begin with a heartfelt desire to help other people and the conviction, however well or ill founded, that your guild or club or church is the coalition that can best serve to improve the welfare of others. If times are particularly tough, this conditional stewardship — I'm doing what's good for the guild because that will be good for everybody — may be displaced by the narrowest concern for the integrity of the guild itself, and for good reason: if you believe that the institution in question is the best path to goodness, the goal of preserving it for future projects, still unimagined, can be the most rational higher goal you can define. It is a short step from this to losing track of or even forgetting the larger purpose and devoting yourself singlemindedly to furthering the interests of the institution, at whatever costs. A conditional or instrumental allegiance can thus become indistinguishable in practice from a commitment to something "good in itself." A further short step perverts this parochial summum bonum to the more selfish goal of doing whatever it takes to keep yourself at the helm of the institution ("who better than I to lead us to triumph over our adversaries?")We have all seen this happen many times, and may even have caught ourselves in the act of forgetting just why we wanted to be leaders in the first place.”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

People, Question, Time, Future

“When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.”

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French politician

Conversation with Jean Martet (1 January 1928), Ch. 12
Clemenceau, The Events of His Life (1930)

Thinking

“I have studied the art of the ancients and the art of the moderns, avoiding any preconceived system and without prejudice. I no longer wanted to imitate the one than to copy the other; nor, furthermore, was it my intention to attain the trivial goal of "art for art's sake". No! I simply wanted to draw forth, from a complete acquaintance with tradition, the reasoned and independent consciousness of my own individuality.”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

1840s - 1850s, Realist Manifesto', 1851/1855

Art, Study, Drawing

“Let us have "sweet girl graduates" by all means. They will be none the less sweet for a little wisdom; and the "golden hair" will not curl less gracefully outside the head by reason of there being brains within.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"Emancipation — Black and White" (1865)
1860s

Wisdom, Girl

““What is a ‘hunch’?”
“Eh? It’s a belief that something is so, or isn’t so, without evidence.”
“I’d call a hunch the result of automatic reasoning below the conscious level on data you did not know you possessed.””

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 28 (p. 149)

“A lot of the reason I am here is because of my strength, my determination and character. I would just like to talk about a girl called Lucy.I went to her funeral today, she was 10 years old. She came to the game against Charlton where we lifted the Premiership trophy. She had a tumor on the brain - really she should have died the week before that game. But she was so desperate to come and see that game, to watch us play. The character and strength she showed made me put everything in perspective.I would like to dedicate this whole award to her, her family, especially her mother, and I would like to say thanks to everyone tonight.”

Frank Lampard (1978) English association football player

Sincerely yours, Frank (May 22, 2005)

Family, Girl, Game

“He told me, he was just in the same situation [i. e. in a garden], as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasion'd by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to him self. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earths centre? Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it. There must be a drawing power in matter.”

William Stukeley (1687–1765) English antiquarian

A Hastings White (ed.) Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life (1936) pp. 19-20. (1752)
Relating a conversation with Sir Isaac Newton.

Mood, Drawing

“The precursors to a civilization that’s going under are the same, time and time again. … What's human sacrifice if not sending guys off to Iraq for no reason?”

Mel Gibson (1956) American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter

25 September 2006 article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15001985/

Guy, Time

“Never forget, she told the big brown eyes now fixed on her, it's not you but everything else around you that's wrong. If you feel all wrong you have every right to do so. It's not you it's all the rest of it. And if you feel things are weird it's because they are. After all, why else would you feel all wrong my son? No other reason in the world.”

Robert Newman (1964) British comedian, born 1964

The Fountain at the Centre Of The World (2003).

World, Feeling, Forgetting

“Humiliate the reason and distort the soul…”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Idiot

The Idiot (1868–9)

Soul

“It is futile to debate on what is wrong and right with people whose remorse is not their punishment, nor is it reasonable to care about their promise and criticism.”

Khem Veasna (1971) Cambodian politician

Quoted on his facebook profile (25 December 2013)

People

“According to many of our political and intellectual elites, both liberal and conservative, the minority in a democracy enjoys only such rights as the majority chooses to bestow upon them. The Bill of Rights in the American Constitution—and similar bills in state Constitutions—are regarded as gifts from the majority to the minority. But the American Constitution, and the state constitutions subordinate to it have, at one time or another, sanctioned both slavery and Jim Crow, by which the bills of rights applied to white Americans were denied to black Americans. But according to the elites, it is not undemocratic for the minority to lose. From this perspective, both slavery and Jim Crow were exercises of democratic majority rule. This is precisely the view of democracy by the Sunnis in Iraq, and is the reason they are fighting the United States.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Central Idea (2006)

Exercises, Democracy, Time, Fight

“You're an ape for the exact same reason that you are a mammal.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Reason Rally Ra Rant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isrST6wOUJA (March 28, 2012)

“You also remember well who first burned the bridges of your railroad, who forced Union men to give up their slaves to work on the rebel forts at Bowling Green, who took wagons and horses and burned houses of persons differing with them honestly in opinion, when I would not let our men burn fence rails for fire or gather fruit or vegetables though hungry, and these were the property of outspoken rebels. We at that time were restrained, tied by a deep seated reverence for law and property. The rebels first introduced terror as a part of their system, and forced contributions to diminish their wagon trains and thereby increase the mobility and efficiency of their columns. When General Buell had to move at a snail's pace with his vast wagon trains, Bragg moved rapidly, living on the country. No military mind could endure this long, and we are forced in self defense to imitate their example. To me this whole matter seems simple. We must, to live and prosper, be governed by law, and as near that which we inherited as possible. Our hitherto political and private differences were settled by debate, or vote, or decree of a court. We are still willing to return to that system, but our adversaries say no, and appeal to war. They dared us to war, and you remember how tauntingly they defied us to the contest. We have accepted the issue and it must be fought out. You might as well reason with a thunder-storm.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

1860s, 1864, Letter to James Guthrie (August 1864)

Men, War, Law, Time

“Jesus Christ has not come to establish social justice any more than he has come to establish the power of the state or the reign of money or art. Jesus Christ has come to save men, and all that matters is that men may come to know him. We are adept at finding reasons—good theological, political, or practical reasons, for camouflaging this. But the real reason is that we let ourselves be impressed and dominated by the forces of the world, by the press, by public opinion, by the political game, by appeals to justice, liberty, peace, the poverty of the third world, and the Christian civilization of the west, all of which play on our inclinations and weaknesses. Modern protestants are in the main prepared to be all things to all men, like St. Paul, but unfortunately this is not in order that they may save some but in order that they may be like all men.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

Source: The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), p. 254

Men, Money, World, Peace

“One question may possibly have dwelt in the reader's mind during the perusal of these observations, namely, Why should not the Deity have given to the animal the faculty of vision at once? … Why resort to contrivance, where power is omnipotent? Contrivance, by its very definition and nature, is the refuge of imperfection. To have recourse to expedients, implies difficulty, impediment, restraint, defect of power. … amongst other answers which may be given to it; beside reasons of which probably we are ignorant, one answer is this: It is only by the display of contrivance, that the existence, the agency, the wisdom of the Deity, could be testified to his rational creatures.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 3 : Application of the Argument.

Wisdom, Question, Nature, Animals

“Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of it is destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways that the program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth that humanity derives from the program. When there is a deliberate choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate destruction.
The reason a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness. This is Kantian ethics; or, the Golden Rule. Since I do not like the consequences that result if everyone hoards information, I am required to consider it wrong for one to do so. Specifically, the desire to be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that creativity.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

Money, World, Way, Parting

“Prejudices are rarely overcome by argument; not being founded in reason they cannot be destroyed by logic.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 26.

““Umm,” said Ooo, dubiously.
“Do I detect a questioning tone in your voice?” inquired the bird tartly. “Which might imply that you find a flaw in my reasoning?””

Lin Carter book The Wizard of Zao

Source: The Wizard of Zao (1978), Chapter 5 (p. 65)

Question, Bird

“Something inhuman has come to Tarker's Mills, as unseen as the full moon riding the night sky high above. It is the Werewolf, and there is no more reason for its coming now than there would be for the arrival of cancer, or a psychotic with murder on his mind, or a killer tornado. Its time is now, its place is here, in this little Maine town where baked bean church suppers are a weekly event, where small boys and girls still bring apples to their teachers, where the Nature Outings of the Senior Citizen's Club are religiously reported in the weekly paper. Next week there will be news of a darker variety.
Outside, its tracks begin to fill up with snow, and the shriek of the wind seems savage with pleasure. There is nothing of God or Light in that heartless sound—it is all black winter and dark ice.
The cycle of the Werewolf has begun.”

Stephen King book Cycle of the Werewolf

January
Cycle of the Werewolf (1983)

God, Pleasure, Girl, Boy

“The statute in section 3(1) contains a definition of a “racial group”. It means a “group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins.” That definition is very carefully framed. Most interesting is that it does not include religion or politics or culture. You can discriminate for or against Roman Catholics as much as you like without being in breach of the law. You can discriminate for or against Communists as much as you please, without being in breach of the law. You can discriminate for or against the “hippies” as much as you like, without being in breach of the law. But you must not discriminate against a man because of his colour or of his race or of his nationality, or of “his ethnic or national origins.” … You must remember that it is perfectly lawful to discriminate against groups of people to whom you object - so long as they are not a racial group. You can discriminate against the Moonies or the Skinheads or any other group which you dislike or to which you take objection. No matter whether your objection to them is reasonable or unreasonable, you can discriminate against them - without being in breach of the law.’}}”

Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge

Denning judged in the Court of Appeal at the time, and held that Sikhs were not a racial or ethnic group. His ruling was overturned in the House of Lords, notably by Ian Fraser, Baron Fraser of Tullybelton, who outlined seven points by which ethno-religious groups were to be defined.
Judgments

People, Religion, Law, Personality

“It is easier to be a lover than a husband, for the same reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day, than to say bright things from time to time.”

Honoré de Balzac book Physiology of Marriage

Il est plus facile d'être amant que mari, par la raison qu'il est plus difficile d'avoir de l'esprit tous les jours que de dire de jolies choses de temps en temps.
Part I, Meditation V: Of the Predestined, aphorism LXIX.
Physiology of Marriage (1829)

Lovers, Time

“I refused this evening at Oxford University to debate with an Israeli, a supporter of the apartheid state of Israel. The reason is simple: no recognition, no normalisation. Just boycott, divestment and sanctions, until the apartheid state is defeated. I never debate with Israelis nor speak to their media. If they want to speak about Palestine – the address is the PLO.”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/feb/21/george-galloway-debate-israeli-oxford Oxford debate about Israel in the West Bank February 21,

Support, Universe

“Keep both heart and hand in your own possession, till you see good reason to part with them; and if such an occasion should never present itself, comfort your mind with this reflection, that though in single life your joys may not be very many, your sorrows, at least, will not be more than you can bear. Marriage may change your circumstances for the better, but, in my private opinion, it is far more likely to produce a contrary result.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XLI : Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast; Helen to Esther

Life, Marriage, Change, Heart

“There are many reasons, some of them so deep-seated emotionally as to be very difficult of expression. Possibly the simplest explanation is that we started along this road … and I cannot stop until I have won.”

Jeannette Piccard (1895–1981) American balloonist, scientist, teacher and priest

Her reason for flying as explained to her father
Quoted in [Shayler, David J. and Moule, Ian A., Women in Space — Following Valentina, Springer-Praxis, 2005, 978-1-84628-078-8, 10.1007/1-84628-078-8_1, http://www.springerlink.com/content/v110844356183tq8/]

“The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.” She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation. Without truth, it is easy to fall into an empiricist and sceptical view of life, incapable of rising to the level of praxis because of a lack of interest in grasping the values — sometimes even the meanings — with which to judge and direct it. Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth, which alone is the guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development. For this reason the Church searches for truth, proclaims it tirelessly and recognizes it wherever it is manifested. This mission of truth is something that the Church can never renounce. Her social doctrine is a particular dimension of this proclamation: it is a service to the truth which sets us free. Open to the truth, from whichever branch of knowledge it comes, the Church's social doctrine receives it, assembles into a unity the fragments in which it is often found, and mediates it within the constantly changing life-patterns of the society of peoples and nations”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2009, Cartias in Vertitate (29 June 2009)

Life, People, Truth, Way

“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2004 memorandum to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, D.C.
2003

Evil

“We treat the children like children. It is the powerful with their war that treats them like they are adults. We talk to them. We teach them that the word, together with love and dignity, is what makes us human beings. We don't teach them how to fight. Well, yes, but only how to fight with their words. They learn. They know that the reason we are in all this is so that they won't have to do the same. And they talk and they also listen. Contrary to what you say, we teach the children that words don't kill but that yes it is possible to kill words and, along with them, the act of being human.”

Subcomandante Marcos (1957) Mexican activist

"I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet" http://www.csuchico.edu/zapatist/HTML/Archive/Communiques/etaJAN.html January, 2003

Love, War, Children, Learning

“Here are six popular theses in the philosophical and psychological literature on motivation:1. Motivation is present in the animal kingdom but does not extend throughout it.
2. Motivated beings have a capacity to represent goals and means to goals.
3. A motivation-encompassing attitude may have either a goal or a means as its object.
4. Motivation varies in strength.
5. The stronger an agent’s motivation to A is, in comparison to the agent’s motivation for alternative courses of action, the more likely the agent is to A, other things being equal.
6. Whenever agents act intentionally, there is something they are effectively motivated to do.Divergent conceptions of motivation may be at work in philosophical thought about motivational matters. My concern in this book is a notion of motivation consistent with (among other things) these six claims. Readers who accept all six claims are likely to be more interested in the result than those who do not, but I conjecture that most readers do accept all of these claims, on some reading or other. Also, readers who reject one or more of these theses or who believe that no acceptable conception of motivation is consistent with all of them will be offered good reason to change their minds!”

Alfred Mele (1951) American philosopher

Introduction
Motivation and Agency (2003)

Books, Literature, Motivation, Change

“To create a Fiji where people of different ethnicities, religions and cultures can live and work together for the good of all, can differ without rancour, govern without violence and accept responsibility as reasonable people intent on serving the best interest of all.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

Excerpts from a speech to the Fiji Institute of Accountants, 28 April 2005

People, Religion

“Thoughts convince thinkers; for this reason, thoughts convince seldom.”

Karlheinz Deschner (1924–2014) German writer and activist

Denken überzeugt Denkende; darum überzeugt Denken selten.
Nur Lebendiges schwimmt gegen den Strom, Aphorismen. 1985.

“If by enlightenment and intellectual progress we mean the freeing of man from superstitious belief in evil forces, in demons and fairies, in blind fate—in short, emancipation of fear—then denunciation of what is currently called reason is the greatest service reason can render.”

Max Horkheimer book Eclipse of Reason

Eclipse of Reason (1947)

Fate, Fear, Evil

“There is not only a close analogy between the operations of the mind in general reasoning and its operations in the particular science of Algebra, but there is to a considerable extent an exact agreement in the laws by which the two classes of operations are conducted.”

George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician

Source: 1850s, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), p. 6; As cited in: Leandro N. De Castro, Fernando J. Von Zuben, Recent Developments in Biologically Inspired Computing, Idea Group Inc (IGI), 2005 p. 236

Law, Science

“Is it the being tied to One that offends us? Why this ought rather to recommend it to us, and would really do so, were we guided by reason, and not by humor and brutish passion. He who does not make friendship the chief inducement of his choice, and prefer it before any other consideration does not deserve a good wife, and therefore should not complain if he goes without one…
The Christian institution of marriage provides the best that may be for domestic quiet and content, and for the education of children.”

Mary Astell (1666–1731) English feminist writer

As quoted in Women's Political & Social Thought: An Anthology, p. 112. Editors Hilda L. Smith, Berenice A. Carroll. Editorial Indiana University Press, 2000. ISBN 0253337585.

Friendship, Marriage, Children, Education

Quotes about reason page 27

Quotes about reason
page 27