Quotes about reason (7298 quotes, page 71)

“Mine is a message of hope. As I said, as I was surrounded by a loving family, cherished by all of them, one thing was clear – if your heart has a reason to keep beating, it will. My hope is that stories like mine can inspire more potential donors.”

Sudhir Choudhrie (1949) Indian businessman

"Heart to heart: Sudhir Choudrie discusses life after a transplant" https://www.easterneye.biz/heart-heart-sudhir-choudrie-discusses-life-transplant/, EasternEye (February 8, 2017)

Family , Hope , Heart , Love

“What is most dangerous is that although this virus will eventually disappear, the assault on our civil liberties is not likely to be reversed. From this point on, whenever local officials, county officials, state governors, or federal bureaucrats decide there is sufficient reason to suspend the Constitution they will not hesitate to do so. Anyone who challenges the suspension of the Constitution “for our own good” will be labeled “unpatriotic” and perhaps even reported to the authorities. We have already seen hotlines springing up across the country for Americans to report other Americans who dare venture outside to enjoy the sun and build up their vitamin D protection against the coronavirus. The government is justified in cancelling the Constitution, we are told, because we are in an emergency situation caused by the Covid-19 virus. But do people forget that the Constitution itself was written and adopted while we were in an “emergency situation”? Did the framers of the Constitution fail to add an 11th Amendment to the Bill of Rights saying, “oh by the way, none of this counts if we get sick?””

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Of course not! Those who wrote our Constitution understood that these rights are not granted by the government, but rather by our Creator. Thus it was never a question as to when or under what conditions they could be suspended: the government had no authority to suspend them at all because it did not grant them in the first place.
2020, End the Shutdown; It’s Time for Resurrection!

Country , Sun , Forgetting , People

“So I’m going to say this once again: North Korea’s immediate goal is the withdrawal of US troops. Its ultimate goal is the unification of the peninsula under the star flag. And yes, it has good reason to believe this can be done without a war.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, On Experts and Exegetes (September 2017)

War , Star

“One reason for the increased interest in studies of identity in anthropology may be the fact that issues to do with the nature of groups have become hugely important in politics worldwide in the last decades.”

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962) Norwegian social anthropologist and professor

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 9 : Social Identity

Study , Nature

“Studies of thought and modes of reasoning have been central in the history of anthropology from the nineteenth century to the present day.”

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962) Norwegian social anthropologist and professor

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 8 : Thought

Study , History

“The main reason for this (global emergency) declaration (of COVID-19) is not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries. Our (WHO) greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems.”

Tedros Adhanom (1965) Director-General of the World Health Organization, former Minister in Ethiopia

Tedros Adhanom (2020) cited in "China virus death toll rises to at least 212 as WHO declares global emergency" https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2020/01/31/china-virus-death-toll-rises-to-at-least-212-as-who-declares-global-emergency, The Star Online, 31 January 2020.

Health , Country

“A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise... But it is necessary to know how to disguise this nature well and to be a great hypocrite and a liar.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 18; translated by ‎Peter Bondanella

Nature

“I was born in a house with a million rooms, built on a small, airless world on the edge of an empire of light and commerce that the adults called the Golden Hour, for a reason I did not yet grasp.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Source: House of Suns (2008), Chapter 1 (p. 3; opening words)

Light , World , Housing

“A few centuries from now, if involuntary suffering still exists in the world, the explanation for its persistence won't be that we've run out of computational resources to phase out its biological signature, but rather that rational agents – for reasons unknown – will have chosen to preserve it.”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

" The Radical Plan to Phase out Earth's Predatory Species https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-radical-plan-to-eliminate-earths-predatory-species-1613342963", io9, 30 Jul. 2014

World , Suffering

“I simply don't think it is reasonable to use IQ tests to produce results of questionable value, which may then serve to justify racists in their own minds and to help bring about the kinds of tragedies we have already witnessed earlier in this century.”

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

"Alas, All Human" in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1979
General sources

Thinking , Help , Question

“[T]o require that a so-called layman should not use his own reason in religious matters, particularly since religion is to be appreciated as moral, but instead follow the appointed clergyman and thus someone else's reason, is an unjust demand because as to morals every man must account for all his doings. The clergyman will not and even cannot assume such a responsibility.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996), pages 94-95
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

Religion

“Mass education was designed to turn independent farmers into docile, passive tools of production. That was its primary purpose. And don't think people didn't know it. They knew it and they fought against it. There was a lot of resistance to mass education for exactly that reason. It was also understood by the elites. Emerson once said something about how we're educating them to keep them from our throats. If you don't educate them, what we call "education," they're going to take control -- "they" being what Alexander Hamilton called the "great beast," namely the people. The anti-democratic thrust of opinion in what are called democratic societies is really ferocious. And for good reason. Because the freer the society gets, the more dangerous the great beast becomes and the more you have to be careful to cage it somehow.”

Noam Chomsky book Class Warfare

Quotes 1990s, 1995–1999, Class Warfare, 1995

Education , Thinking , People

“[I]f suffering is bad for animals when we cause it, it is also bad for them when other animals cause it. That suffering is bad for those who experience it is not a human prejudice; nor is an effort to prevent wild animals from suffering a moralistic attempt to police the behavior of other animals. Even if we are not morally required to prevent suffering among animals in the wild for which we are not responsible, we do have a moral reason to prevent it, just as we have a general moral reason to prevent suffering among human beings that is independent both of the cause of the suffering and of our relation to the victims. The main constraint on the permissibility of acting on our reason to prevent suffering is that our action should not cause bad effects that would be worse than those we could prevent.”

Jeff McMahan (philosopher) (1954) American philosopher

" The Meat Eaters http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/the-meat-eaters/", The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2010

Bad luck , Suffering , Animals , Relation ships

“I think that the fundamental way in which we know Christianity is true is through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. I do not think that arguments and evidence are necessary in order for faith to be rational, or for you to know that God exists and has revealed himself in Christ. So I would say that the fundamental way we know Christianity is true is through the witness of the Holy Spirit and reason and argument then can confirm the Spirit's witness. The person who has good apologetic arguments passes, in a sense, a double warrant for his faith. He has the warrant provided by the Holy Spirit, and then he has the double warrant provided by argument and evidence. But should he lack the argument and evidence he can still be warranted just on the basis of the Holy Spirit. That's knowing Christianity to be true.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

God , Faith , Personality , Thinking

“What can we say about metaphysical naturalism? Again, I want to make two points.
# My arguments for the existence of God show that metaphysical naturalism is not true. There is a personal, transcendent reality beyond the physical universe.
# Secondly, I think that metaphysical naturalism is so contrary to reason and experience as to be absurd.
In the following arguments, the first premise in every case is taken from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Rosenberg Dr. Rosenberg]’s own book.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

God , Personality , Nature , Universe

“England and France, the two most civilized nations on earth, who are in contrast to each other because of their different characters, are, perhaps chiefly for that reason, in constant feud with one another. Also, England and France, because of their inborn characters, of which the acquired and artificial character is only the result, are probably the only nations who can be assumed to have a particular and, as long as both national characters are not blended by the force of war, unalterable characteristics. That French has become the universal language of conversation, especially in the feminine world, and that English is the most widely used language of commerce among tradesmen, probably reflects the difference in their continental and insular geographic situation.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 226
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

World , War , Universe

“...the prince is not subject to his law, nor to the laws of his predecessors, but well to his own just and reasonable conventions.”

Robert Filmer (1588–1653) English writer

Source: The Power of Kings, p. 318

Law

“The third reason capitalism gets blame here is that alternative systems—those not driven by a profit-first logic—could manage viruses better. While not profitable to produce and stockpile everything needed for a viral pandemic, it is efficient. The wealth already lost in this pandemic far exceeds the cost to have produced and stockpiled the tests and ventilators, the lack of which is contributing so much to today's disaster. Capitalism often pursues profit at the expense of more urgent social needs and values. In this, capitalism is grossly inefficient. This pandemic is now bringing that truth home to people.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

Truth , Home , Wealth , People

“The second reason I focus on capitalism is that the responses to today's economic collapse by Trump, the GOP and most Democrats carefully avoid any criticism of capitalism. They all debate the virus, China, foreigners, other politicians, but never the system they all serve. When Trump and others press people to return to churches and jobs—despite risking their and others' lives—they place reviving a collapsed capitalism ahead of public health.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

People , Health

“In the light of the coronavirus pandemic, I focus criticism on capitalism and the vulnerabilities it has accumulated for several reasons. Viruses are part of nature. They have attacked human beings—sometimes dangerously—in both distant and recent history. In 1918, the Spanish Flu killed nearly 700,000 in the United States and millions elsewhere. Recent viruses include SARS, MERS and Ebola. What matters to public health is each society's preparedness: stockpiled tests, masks, ventilators, hospital beds, trained personnel, etc., to manage dangerous viruses. In the U.S., such objects are produced by private capitalist enterprises whose goal is profit. It was not profitable to produce and stockpile such products, that was not and still is not being done. Nor did the U.S. government produce or stockpile those medical products. Top U.S. government personnel privilege private capitalism; it is their primary objective to protect and strengthen. The result is that neither private capitalism nor the U.S. government performed the most basic duty of any economic system: to protect and maintain public health and safety. U.S. capitalism's response to the coronavirus pandemic continues to be what it has been since December 2019: too little, too late. It failed. It is the problem.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

History , Light , Health , Nature

“Where there is no standard, there can be no improvement. For these reasons, standards are the basis for both maintenance and improvement.”

Masaaki Imai (1930) Japanese business theorist and consultant

Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Approach to a Continuous Improvement Strategy, Second Edition (ed. McGraw Hill Professional, 2012), ISBN 9780071790352

“Aristotle thought that men were naturally superior to women and Greeks naturally superior to other races; Victorians thought white men had to shoulder the burden of being superior to savages; and Nazis thought Aryans were a master race. We have come to reject these and many other supposedly natural hierarchies; the history of what we consider moral progress can be viewed as, in large part, the replacement of hierarchical worldviews with a presumption in favor of forms of egalitarianism. This substitution places the burden of proof on those who would deny equal consideration to the interests of all concerned, rather than on those who seek such consideration. Consequently, some reason is needed to justify the fairness of maintaining a hierarchical worldview when we are dealing with animals.”

Steve F. Sapontzis (1945)

Source: Morals, Reason, and Animals (1987), p. 107

History , Nature , Women , Animals

“It is both a pointless and a churlish thing to praise the old days at the expense of the new, though there are a number of things a man might reasonably have preferred to commercial television and the hydrogen bomb.”

A. A. Thomson (1894–1968) cricketer and author

Odd Men In (1958)

“That if the best of Kings—the most virtuous of Queens—and the most perfect Constitution, could make any nation happy, the people of this country had every reason to think themselves so.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Speech in the West Riding of Yorkshire, reported in the Leeds Intelligencer (4 May 1790), quoted in Robert F. Wearmouth, Methodism and the Common People of the Eighteenth Century (Epworth Press, 1945), p. 257
1790s

Country , Happiness , People , Perfection

“Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason. It is our part, by religion and reason joined, to counteract them all we can.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Letter to John Benson (5 October 1770); published in Wesley's Select Letters (1837), p. 207
1770s

Passion , World , Religion , Parting

“Few people seem to perceive fully as yet that the most far-reaching consequence of the establishment of the common origin of all species is ethical; that it logically involved a readjustment of altruistic morals, by enlarging, as a necessity of rightness, the application of what has been called the 'Golden Rule' from the area of mere mankind to that of the whole animal kingdom. Possibly Darwin himself did not quite perceive it. While man was deemed to be a creation apart from all other creations, a secondary or tertiary morality was considered good enough to practise towards the 'inferior' races; but no person who reasons nowadays can escape the trying conclusion that this is not maintainable. And though we may not at present see how the principle of equal justice all round is to be carried out in it entirety, I recognize that the League is grappling with the question.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Letter to the Humanitarian League (1910)

Justice , Question , Personality , People

“I do not judge them, criticise nor take sides. I address them as representatives of the human race, nothing more. Then I project a picture of the world divided against itself into countless pockets of insanity, and with it the question why this should be so? Why should semi-rational beings behave worse than those with no reason at all- Why ?”

Desmond Leslie (1921–2001) British pilot, film maker, writer, and musician

The Amazing Mr. Lutterworth (1958)

World , Question

“There can be no question of a general overriding ‘Germanic’ or ‘Celtic’ identity amongst the different barbarian groups. Shared language might have facilitated communication and alliance but there is no evidence for or reason to suppose a higher level of ethnic identity on this basis.”

Guy Halsall (1964) English historian

Source: Quotaes, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568 (2007), p. 58

Communication , Question

“The “reasons” and “causes” why things happen, in other words, aren’t fundamental; they are emergent. We need to dig in to the actual history of the universe to see why these concepts have emerged.”

Sean Carroll (1966) American theoretical cosmologist

Chap. 5 : Reasons Why
The Big Picture (2016)

Universe , History

“Metaphysical principles are tempting shortcuts but not reliable guides. There are good reasons why things often seem to happen for reasons—and also reasons why that’s not a bedrock principle.”

Sean Carroll (1966) American theoretical cosmologist

Chap. 5 : Reasons Why
The Big Picture (2016)

“The danger of asteroid or comet impact is one of the best reasons for getting into space … I'm very fond of quoting my friend Larry Niven: "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!"”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

"Meeting of the Minds : Buzz Aldrin Visits Arthur C. Clarke" by Andrew Chaikin (27 February 2001) http://web.archive.org/web/20010302082528/http://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/aldrin_clarke_010227.html
2000s and posthumous publications

Quotes

“It means "Ask the next question." Ask the next question, and the one that follows that, and the one that follows that. It's the symbol of everything humanity has ever created, and is the reason it has been created. This guy is sitting in a cave and he says, "Why can't man fly?"”

Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985) American speculative fiction writer

Well, that's the question. The answer may not help him, but the question now has been asked.
The next question is what? How? And so all through the ages, people have been trying to find out the answer to that question. We've found the answer, and we do fly. This is true of every accomplishment, whether it's technology or literature, poetry, political systems or anything else. That is it. Ask the next question. And the one after that.

His explanation of the meaning of a small symbol he used when writing his signature, as quoted in an interview with David Duncan (with an image of his signature) http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/misc/duncan.html, sometime around 1980.

Question , Guy , Flying

“It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training. From the age of 17 I had never even witnessed the excitement attending a Presidential campaign but twice antecedent to my own candidacy, and at but one of them was I eligible as a voter.
Under such circumstances it is but reasonable to suppose that errors of judgment must have occurred. Even had they not, differences of opinion between the Executive, bound by an oath to the strict performance of his duties, and writers and debaters must have arisen. It is not necessarily evidence of blunder on the part of the Executive because there are these differences of views. Mistakes have been made, as all can see and I admit...”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Eighth State of the Union Address (1876)

Training , Age , Error , Parting

“Is it not apparent that the policy of sanctions involves, I do not say war, but a risk of war? Is it not apparent that that risk must increase in proportion to the effectiveness of the sanctions and also by reason of the incompleteness of the League? Is it not also apparent from what has happened that in the presence of such a risk nations cannot be relied upon to proceed to the last extremity of war unless their vital interests are threatened?”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the 1900 Club at Grosvenor House, London (10 June 1936) on the Italo-Abyssinian War, quoted in The Times (11 June 1936), p. 10
Chancellor of the Exchequer

War

“A big reason for optimism about the end of animal farming is that it doesn't have to be the end of meat.”

Jacy Reese (1992) American social scientist

The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and Activists Are Building an Animal-Free Food System (2018)

Animals , Optimism

“Thus, the willingness of workers in recent years to trade off smaller increases in wages for greater job security seems to be reasonably well documented.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Testimony Before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate February 26, 1997 https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/hh/1997/february/testimony.htm
1990s

“Nothing can be of more importance than to separate prejudice and mistake on the one hand from reason and demonstration on the other.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

Book III, Ch.1
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

“If a great city or a great state should fall as the result of an apparent "accident", the there would be a general reason why it required only an accident to make it fall.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"No One Left To Lie To" (1991).
1990s, For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)

Making love

“If Vedanta is the "national religion" of India and its universalism at the same time, and if its unique combination of spirituality and reason makes it a philosophical religion, it is to Sankara, after the Upanisadic seers, that the credit should go.”

Govind Chandra Pande (1923–2011) Indian historian

Life and Thought of Sankaracharya (1998)

Religion , Making love , Time , Universe

“The change of way of worship under duress or for other reasons has not changed their forefathers or their culture. Culture is associated with a country and not with a religion.”

Balraj Madhok (1920–2016) Indian politician

B. Madhok: Indianisation quoted in Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001) by Koenraad Elst

Way , Religion , Country , Change

“...where we were obliged to part company with our friends was here—that we held and still hold that war was neither intended nor desired by the Government and the people of Great Britain, but that it was forced upon us without adequate reason, entirely against our will.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the Liverpool Street Station Hotel, London (20 June 1901) on the Boer War, quoted in Speeches by The Earl of Oxford and Asquith, K.G. (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1927), p. 40
Opposition MP

War , People , Parting

“The easiest way to do Transmission Meditation is to join an existing group. If there is no group in your area within a reasonable distance, you can form your own group by joining with two other people. More people are more useful, but a basic group of three is a practical working group.”

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

Source: Transmission: A Meditation for the New Age (1983)

Way , People

“Ultimately, the reason why love and compassion bring the greatest happiness is simply that our nature cherishes them above all else. The need for love lies at the very foundation of human existence. It results from the profound interdependence we all share with one another.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Compassion and the Individual https://www.dalailama.com/messages/compassion-and-human-values/compassion

Happiness , Nature , Love , Making love

“...the errors of Rome...[are] rank idolatry—a subversion of all civil as well as religious liberty, and the utter disgrace of reason and of human nature.”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester William Warburton (October 1762), quoted in W. S. Taylor and J. H. Pringle (eds.), Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham: Vol. II (London: John Murray, 1838), p. 188
1760s

Error , Nature

“[T]he state may be reasonably called upon to place instruction in pure science within the reach of all its citizens. ...The scientific habit of mind is one which may be acquired by all, and the readiest means of attaining to it ought to be placed within the reach of all.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Science

“Three reasons why young people don't have to worry about their future: education, politics and me.”

Paavo Väyrynen (1946) Finnish politician

Source: Presidential Election Campaign 2012

Education , Future , People

“The reason i maintain some optimism is that i think philosophically we're in pretty good shape... People...want to know the truth...”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

2019

Truth , Optimism , Thinking , People

“…I had a lot of different reasons for writing the book but at its core was the desire to write for black teenage girls growing up reading books they were absent from. That was my experience as a child. Children of Blood and Bone is a chance to address that. To say you are seen.”

Tomi Adeyemi (1993) American author

On her primary motivation to write Children of Blood and Bone in “Tomi Adeyemi: ‘We need a black girl fantasy book every month’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/10/tomi-adeyemi-interview-children-of-blood-and-bone-sarah-hughes in The Guardian (2018 Mar 10)

Chance , Reading , Girl , Children

“I have been looking for spontaneous generation for twenty years without discovering it. No, I do not judge it impossible. But what allows you to make it the origin of life? You place matter before life and you decide that matter has existed for all eternity. How do you know that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists to consider that life has existed during eternity, and not matter? You pass from matter to life because your intelligence of today cannot conceive things otherwise. How do you know that in ten thousand years, one will not consider it more likely that matter has emerged from life? You move from matter to life because your current intelligence, so limited compared to what will be the future intelligence of the naturalist, tells you that things cannot be understood otherwise. If you want to be among the scientific minds, what only counts is that you will have to get rid of a priori reasoning and ideas, and you will have to do necessary deductions not giving more confidence than we should to deductions from wild speculation.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

Original: (fr) La génération spontanée, je la cherche sans la découvrir depuis vingt ans. Non, je ne la juge pas impossible. Mais quoi donc vous autorise à vouloir qu'elle ait été l'origine de la vie? Vous placez la matière avant la vie et vous faites la matière existante de toute éternité. Qui vous dit que, le progrès incessant de la science n'obligera pas les savants, qui vivront dans un siècle, dans mille ans, dans dix mille ans... à affirmer que la vie a été de toute éternité et non la matière.? Vous passez de la matière à la vie parce que votre intelligence actuelle, si bornée par rapport à ce que sera l'intelligence des naturalistes futurs, vous dit qu'elle ne peut comprendre autrement les choses. Qui m'assure que dans dix mille ans on ne considérera pas que c'est de la vie qu'on croira impossible de ne pas passer à la matière? Si vous voulez être au nombre des esprits scientifiques, s, qui seuls comptent, il faut vous débarrasser des idées et des raisonnements a priori et vous en tenir aux déductions nécessaires des faits établis et ne pas accorder plus de confiance qu'il ne faut aux déductions de pures hypothèses."

As quoted in Pasteur et la philosophie (2004), by Patrice Pinet, p. 63

Partially quoted in Louis Pasteur : Free Lance of Science (1950) by René Dubos, p 396

Confidence , Future , Intelligence , Self-confidence

“Part of the reason so many Americans are so defensive is because we’ve been led to believe that racist is a fixed category, that it’s a tattoo, it’s a label. Of course they’re going to say, I’m not a racist, I’m not a bad person.”

Ibram X. Kendi (1982) American author and historian

But racist is describing what you’re saying in the moment.

On why racist is a crucial descriptive term in “How to Be an Antiracist Author Ibram X. Kendi on What We Get Wrong About Racism” https://time.com/5647303/how-to-be-antiracist-author-interview/ in Time Magazine (2019 Aug 8)

Parting , Personality , Bad luck , Tattoo

“...they perceived that no beginnings should be considered too small to be capable of quickly becoming great by uninterrupted endurance and having no obstacle to their growth by reason of being despised.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

sec. 4
Parallel Lives, Caesar

“My birthplace is Jam, and my pen
Has drunk from (knowledge of) Sheikh-ul-Islam Ahmad Jam,
Hence in the books of poetry
My pen nam is Jami for these two reasons.”

Jami (1414–1492) Persian poet

Jami's Divan, p. 70-80
about himself

Knowledge , Books

“Of all the various ways which the imagination has distorted truth, there is none which has worked so much harm as an exaggerated respect for past ages. This reverence for antiquity is repugnant to every maxim of reason, and is merely the indulgence of a poetic sentiment in favour of the remote and unknown.”

Henry Thomas Buckle (1821–1862) English historian

History of Civilisation in England. Vol 1, 1st pub 1857, also page 100. Worlds Classics , Pub. 1903. London Grant Richards.

Imagination , Past , Truth , Age

“Is Corona laboratory-made? Nah. I think it's way more reasonable to assume that a bat fucked a pangolin. And some guy then fucked that pangolin. Mystery solved. Occam's razor.”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

73rd Communique of the CPSUZoeD https://www.derstandard.at/jetzt/livebericht/2000116238563/
Quotes as Nikita P. Chrusov

Way , Guy , Thinking

“We have to take advantage of rebuilding to elevate the (Taitung) city, or we'll have gotten clobbered by (Typhoon) Nepartak for no reason.”

Justin Huang (1959) Taiwanese politician

Source: Justin Huang (2017) cited in " Using Tourism to Save the Economy https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=1672" on Commonwealth Magazine Group, 18 September 2017

“I tend to be an optimist about human nature but a political pessimist…I think we’re living in very, very scary times and we have to find ways of looking squarely at it and finding reasons for optimism.”

Kamila Shamsie (1973) Pakistani writer

Source: On balancing pessimism and optimism in “Kamila Shamsie: 'We have to find reasons for optimism’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/08/kamila-shamsie-we-have-to-find-reasons-for-optimism-home-fire in The Guardian (2018 Jun 8)

Optimism , Time , Nature , Thinking

“At such moments the voice of reason always sounds like blasphemy and dissenters are of the devil.”

Marion L. Starkey (1901–1991) American historian & writer

Source: The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials (1949), Chapter 7, “John Proctor’s Jade” (p. 102)

“The United States of America fought a horrific civil war that ended slavery. Yes, slavery was the reason for the Civil War.”

Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian

Source: 2010s, Why the Left Hates America (2015)

War

“If science, and devoting oneself to it, had no other use than avoiding exhausting temptations, rushes of hope that give worry, and thoughts that sadden the soul, that alone should give us reasons to seek it… Kinglets have sought distraction in chess, wine, music, hunting and much else that only bring harm in this world and the other.”

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

ibid

Soul , Hope , Music , World

“Leaders need their followers to be perpetually dissatisfied; it’s good for the leadership business. If everything were perfect and great, there’d be no reason to follow anybody.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

Business , Perfection

“The pursuit of happiness is a toxic value that has long defined our culture. It is self-defeating and misleading. Living well does not mean avoiding suffering; it means suffering for the right reasons. Because if we’re going to be forced to suffer by simply existing, we might as well learn how to suffer well.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

Happiness , Suffering , Learning , Self-confidence

“The whole justification for permitting the corporate executive to be selected by the stockholders is that the executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal. This justification disappears when the corporate executive imposes taxes and spends the proceeds for “social” purposes. He becomes in effect a public employe, a civil servant, even though he remains in name an employe of private enterprise. On grounds of political principle, it is intolerable that such civil servants—insofar as their actions in the name of social responsibility are real and not just window‐dressing—should be selected as they are now. If they are to be civil servants, then they must be selected through a political process. If they are to impose taxes and make expenditures to foster “social” objectives, then political machinery must be set up to guide the assessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served. This is the basic reason why the doctrine of “social responsibility” involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (Sept. 1970)

Way , Making love

“Turn where we may,—within,—around,—the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve. Now, therefore, while every thing at home and abroad forebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against the spirit of the age,—now, while the crash of the proudest throne of the continent is still resounding in our ears,—now, while the roof of a British palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of forty kings,—now, while we see on every side ancient institutions subverted, and great societies dissolved,—now, while the heart of England is still sound,—now, while the old feelings and the old associations retain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away,—now, in this your accepted time,—now in this your day of salvation,—take counsel, not of prejudice,—not of party spirit,—not of the ignominious pride of a fatal consistency,—but of history,—of reason,—of the ages which are past,—of the signs of this most portentous time. Pronounce in a manner worthy of the expectation with which this great Debate has been anticipated, and of the long remembrance which it will leave behind. Renew the youth of the State. Save property divided against itself. Save the multitude, endangered by their own ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save the greatest, and fairest, and most highly civilized community that ever existed, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the rich heritage of many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible. The time is short. If this Bill should be rejected, I pray to God that none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes with unavailing regret, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social order.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Speech in the House of Commons (2 March 1831) https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1831/mar/02/ministerial-plan-of-parliamentary-reform#column_1204 in favour of the Reform Bill
1830s

Home , God , Time , Law

“Fact is, nothing can justify our existence. Existence of any flavor is not only unjustified, it is useless, malignantly so, and has nothing to recommend it over nonexistence. A person’s addiction to existence is understandable as a telltale of the fear of nonexistence, but one’s psychology as a being that already exists does not justify existence as a condition to be perpetuated but only explains why someone would want to perpetuate it. For the same reason, even eternal bliss in a holy hereafter is unjustified, since it is just another form of existence, another instance in which the unjustifiable is perpetuated. That anyone should have a bias for heaven over nonexistence should by rights be condemned as hedonistic by the same people who scoff at Schopenhauer for complaining about the disparity between “the effort and the reward” in human life. People may believe they can choose any number of things. But they cannot choose to undo their existence, leaving them to live and die as puppets who have had an existence forced upon them whose edicts they must follow. If you are already among the existent, anything you do will be unjustified and MALIGNANTLY USELESS.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

Fear , Understanding , Personality , People

“A non-mathematical presentation has necessary limitations; and the reader who wishes to learn how certain exact results follow from Einstein's, or even Newton's, law of gravitation is bound to seek the reasons in a mathematical treatise. ...[T]he geometry of relativity in its perfect harmony expresses a truth... which my bowdlerised version misses.
But the mind is not content to leave scientific Truth in a dry husk of mathematical symbols, and demands that it shall be alloyed with familiar images.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)

Law , Learning , Perfection , Truth

“Let us not admit discourses by Epicureans or Pyrrhonists – though indeed the gods have already in their wisdom destroyed their works, so that most of their books are no longer available. Nevertheless, there is no reason why I should not, by way of example, mention these works too, to show what sort of discourses priests must especially avoid; and if such discourses, then much more must they avoid such thoughts.”

Julian (emperor) (331–363) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer

Fragmentum Epistulae 288a-305d
General sources

Way , God , Books , Wisdom

“Cause, Principle, and One eternal
From whom being, life, and movement are suspended,
And which extends itself in length, breadth, and depth,
To whatever is in Heaven, on Earth, and Hell;
With sense, with reason, with mind, I discern,
That there is no act, measure, nor calculation, which can comprehend
That force, that vastness and that number,
Which exceeds whatever is inferior, middle, and highest;
Blind error, avaricious time, adverse fortune,
Deaf envy, vile madness, jealous iniquity,
Crude heart, perverse spirit, insane audacity,
Will not be sufficient to obscure the air for me,
Will not place the veil before my eyes,
Will never bring it about that I shall not
Contemplate my beautiful Sun.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

"Of Love" as translated in The Infinite in Giordano Bruno : With a Translation of His Dialogue, Concerning the Cause, Principle, and One (1978) by Sidney Thomas Greenburg, p. 89
Variant translation:
Cause, Principle and One, the Sempiterne,
On whom all being, motion, life, depend.
From whom, in length, breadth, depth, their paths extend
As far as heaven, earth, hell their faces turn :
With sense, with mind, with reason, I discern
That not, rule, reckoning, may not comprehend
That power and bulk and multitude which tend
Beyond all lower, middle, and superne. Blind error, ruthless time, ungentle doom,
Deaf envy, villain madness, zeal unwise,
Hard heart, unholy craft, bold deeds begun,
Shall never fill for one the air with gloom,
Or ever thrust a veil before these eyes,
Or ever hide from me my glorious sun.
As quoted in "Giordano Bruno" by Thomas Davidson, The Index Vol. VI. No. 36 (4 March 1886), p. 429
Cause, Principle, and Unity (1584)

Life , Hell , Time , Sun

“Will there never come a season
Which shall rid us from the curse?
Of a prose which knows no reason
And an unmelodious verse:
When the world shall cease to wonder
At the genius of an Ass,
And a boy's eccentric blunder
Shall not bring success to pass:When mankind shall be delivered
From the clash of magazines,
And the inkstand shall be shivered
Into countless smithereens:
When there stands a muzzled stripling,
Mute, beside a muzzled bore:
When the Rudyards cease from Kipling
And the Haggards Ride no more.”

James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892) English poet, tutor to Prince Albert Victor

To R. K.

Season , World , Boy , Success

“I write from my soul. This is the reason that critics don’t hurt me, because it is me. If it was not me, if I was pretending to be someone else, then this could unbalance my world, but I know who I am.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

World , Hurt , Soul

“If you’re a parent, you want to teach your kids to be kind, you want to teach them to care about other people and you want to teach them not to discriminate for no reason.”

Daniel Chong (animator) (1978) American artist

We Bare Bears Creator Daniel Chong On Life Lessons And The Future Of Bears https://geekculture.co/geek-interview-we-bare-bears-creator-daniel-chong-on-life-lessons-and-the-future-of-bears/ (August 24, 2020)

People , Parent

“I've been through a lot. But I think it all happened for a reason. I think what I went through made me appreciate the game even more. Even life, really. I wasn't guaranteed to be here.”

Frank Gore (1983) American football running back

Reflecting on life and his NFL career:

Life , Game , Thinking

“My first year, my rookie year at the 49ers, I had two labrum tears. Both shoulders. I had a chance to get the surgery before the season or play ball, and I told my coaches that I wanted to play and then get the surgeries. The reason was, when I came out [of college], everybody said I was injury-prone, and I just wanted to show them how tough I was and how much I love the game. That’s what that year was about. I got the surgeries after that first year in San Francisco. Both shoulders.”

Frank Gore (1983) American football running back

On Injuries
“After the surgeries, I respected Ronnie Brown, I respected Benson, I respected Cadillac. But I told people, ‘Once I get healthy I WILL NEVER be outrushed by any of those guys. No one in my draft class will ever outrush me again. That second year I proved that.
“How I did that … I don’t know. It’s not me. It’s God. God got me here. God and hard work. Respecting the game. Love, man. Love. Love the game. Love my teammates. Every time I get ready to strap up, show the world today that no one is better.”

Chance , Game , Season , Love

“Present excitement will at all times magnify present dangers, but true philosophy must teach us that none more threatening than the past can remain to be overcome; and we ought (for we have just reason) to entertain an abiding confidence in the stability of our institutions and an entire conviction that if administered in the true form, character, and spirit in which they were established they are abundantly adequate to preserve to us and our children the rich blessings already derived from them, to make our beloved land for a thousand generations that chosen spot where happiness springs from a perfect equality of political rights.”

Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) American politician, 8th President of the United States (in office from 1837 to 1841)

Inaugural address (1837)

Confidence , Time , Past , Happiness

“The fathers of American Democracy had no exaggerated respect for the State, because they were pre-eminently men of reason and common sense. They never, for instance, identified the State with the People. They knew that the State is, by very definition, an instrument of oppression and coercion, and their idea was to make it strong enough to keep order and ward off enemies, and limit it otherwise very strictly.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 102

Democracy , Strong , People , Sense

“Our children, it seems to me, learn the history of events, but are woefully unversed in the history of thought… The result of this kind of teaching is to diminish all respect for intellect, reason and experience.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
pp. 48-49
Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

Children , Learning , History

“Credulity in arts and opinions... is likewise of two kinds viz., when men give too much belief to arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art. The sciences that sway the imagination more than the reason are principally three viz., astrology, natural magic, and alchemy... Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons that he had left them gold, buried somewhere in his vineyard; while they by digging found no gold, but by turning up the mould about the roots of the vines procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavours to make gold have brought many useful inventions to light.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Source: De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623) as quoted by Edward Thorpe, History of Chemistry, Vol. 1, p. 43.

Imagination , Search , Light , Art

“Well, the purpose of reform really is directed to the encouraging of growth and employment. I quite agree that to launch into a full scale battle on general reform for academic reasons would be unwise. The central purpose behind the reform must therefore be to encourage those changes in our tax laws which will encourage economic growth for that purpose, and not merely because it might have some longer range interest or significance. The primary job will be to encourage the flow of capital into those areas which stimulate the national growth and not diminish it. But it is going to be a tough fight, because once you spell out, as I said before, reform, it's bound to affect adversely the interests of some, while favoring the interests of others. Therefore reform may be a longer task, and we are anxious that in the effort to get reform, that we do not lose the very important matter of tax reduction for the sake of the economy.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Fight , Change , Law , Effort

“Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions, and any new recession would break all deficit records. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. The experience of a number of European countries and Japan have borne this out. This country's own experience with tax reduction in 1954 has borne this out. And the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget, and tax reduction can pave the way to that employment. The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Way , Truth , Country

“Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. The Government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate the modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment. [...] For all these reasons, next year's tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes, for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Business , Home , Personality , Effort

“The world is your oyster if you’re unafraid to tell your own story and keep it universally appealing. But you have reason to be afraid of making live action children’s drama in Australia if the system is dismantled.”

Jonathan M. Shiff Australian television producer

Source: Interview with Jonathan Shiff https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/screen-news/2018/06-18-international-tv-sales-snapshot-for-2017/part-4-interview-with-jonathan-shiff (18 June 2018)

World , Universe , Making love , Children

“Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred; for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together, and will be always attained by one who abstains from interfering with the property of his citizens and subjects or with their women. And when he is obliged to take the life of any one, to do so when there is a proper justification and manifest reason for it; but above all he must abstain from taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Then also pretexts for seizing property are never wanting, and one who begins to live by rapine will always find some reason for taking the goods of others, whereas causes for taking life are rarer and more quickly destroyed.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 17; translated by Luigi Ricci

Loss , Fear , Death , Forgetting

“...the major objective of Brazilian society is the strengthening of peace. We believe that the ideological conflict between West and East cannot and should not be solved militarily, because if in a nuclear war we saved our lives, we would not be able to save, whether we won or were won, our reason for living.”

João Goulart (1918–1976) 24th President of Brazil

Source: João Goulart: Uma Biografia. Jorge Ferreira. 2011. Page 276. ISBN 978-85-200-1056-3

War , Peace

“There’s no reason, with a good Republican governor that welcomes business into the state of Louisiana, that we can’t get the space command there with our present governor there, we can build the starship Enterprise into the state before he’ll let good business into the state.”

Ralph Abraham (politician) (1954) American physician and congressman

Ralph Abraham: We’ll Make Louisiana the ‘Leading Candidate’ for U.S. Space Command https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/03/16/ralph-abraham-well-make-louisiana-the-leading-candidate-for-u-s-space-command/ (16 March 2019)

Business

“History, faith, and reason show the way, the way of unity. We can see each other, not as adversaries, but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature. For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America. If we do that, I guarantee you, we will not fail. We have never, ever, ever, ever failed in America when we′ve acted together.And so today, at this time, in this place, let′s start afresh, all of us. Let′s begin to listen to one another again.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, January, Presidential Inaugural Address (2021)

Peace , Faith , Time , History

“Our fathers, in New England, in the Middle Colonies, and in the South, brought African slaves to America for reasons of their own, which it is impossible to justify, and useless now to censure. The God of our fathers has set them free by overruling a vast amount of human selfishness and passion in long-continued political and military conflict. Let the dead past bury its dead. Forgetting the things which are behind, let us reach forth to those things which are before.”

John Albert Broadus (1827–1895) American pastor and theologian

"As to the Colored People" (1 February 1883), as quoted in Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary https://sbts-wordpress-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/sbts/uploads/2018/12/Racism-and-the-Legacy-of-Slavery-Report-v4.pdf#page=6 (December 2018), by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, pp. 38–39

Selfishness , God , Dead , Past

“See how the flower leans instinctively
Toward the light.
See how the heart reaches out instinctively
For no reason but to touch…”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Sensual World (1989)

Light , Flowers , Heart

“There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than in philosophical debates to endeavour to refute any hypothesis by a pretext of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads us into absurdities, 'tis certainly false; but 'tis not certain an opinion is false, because 'tis of dangerous consequence.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 3, Section 2
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions

Falseness , Religion

“Reason and Instinct!”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

How we love to play with words that please our pride;
Our noble race's mean descent by false forged titles seek to hide! For "gift divine" I bid you read the better work of higher brain,
From Instinct diff'ering in degree as golden mine from leaden vein.
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

“But nature could not and cannot ever be constrained into self-improvement by sporadic or even endemic or epidemic cases of slow or swift suicide and slaughter, so long as the premature extinction of the whole human race was not and is not seriously threatened. Threaten this seriously, and she will forthwith become our most obedient humble servant. This is the forcible plan of "strikes" by labour against capital, applied in its utmost extension by man against nature; as you have already mere trades'-unions, organise a universal Man-union, and threaten, if all your demands are not immediately granted, to "strike" living, to "turn out" of human existence, and you will at once bring- the everlasting employer to reason.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part VII, p. 92
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Universe , Self-confidence , Suicide , Nature

“Each of us has his own reason.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Ognuno di noi ha il suo perché.
Source: prevale.net

“I want to be the thought that makes you smile on the street for no reason.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Voglio essere il pensiero che ti fa sorridere per strada senza motivo.
Source: prevale.net

Smile , Making love

“I think there are probably too many smart people pursuing Internet stuff, finance, and law, that is part of the reason why we haven’t seen as much innovation.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Source: Book Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance

Parting , Thinking , People , Law

“The brain isn't the cause of experience for the same reason that lightning isn't the cause of atmospheric electric discharge, or that flames aren't the cause of combustion. Just as flames are but the image of the process of combustion, the body-brain system is but the image of localized experience in the stream of universal consciousness.”

Bernardo Kastrup Dutch computer scientist and philosopher

" Why the World Is Imagined: Summary https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2018/12/why-world-is-imagined-summary.html", Metaphysical Speculations, 1 Dec. 2018

Universe

“But one no longer wonders when one realizes that in the higher classes there is an unerring instinct of what tends to maintain and of what tends to destroy the organization by virtue of which they enjoy their privileges. The fashionable lady had certainly not reasoned out that if there were no capitalists and no army to defend them, her husband would have no fortune, and she could not have her entertainments and her ball-dresses. And the artist certainly does not argue that he needs the capitalists and the troops to defend them, so that they may buy his pictures. But instinct, replacing reason in this instance, guides them unerringly. And it is precisely this instinct which leads all men, with few exceptions, to support all the religious, political, and economic institutions which are to their advantage.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter XII, Conclusion—Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Support , Fashion , Men

“And this is the only explanation of the dreadful intensity with which men of modern times strive to stupefy themselves, with spirits, tobacco, opium, cards, reading newspapers, traveling, and all kinds of spectacles and amusements. These pursuits are followed up as an important, serious business. And indeed they are a serious business. If there were no external means of dulling their sensibilities, half of mankind would shoot themselves without delay, for to live in opposition to one's reason is the most intolerable condition. And that is the condition of all men of the present day. All men of the modern world exist in a state of continual and flagrant antagonism between their conscience and their way of life. This antagonism is apparent in economic as well as political life. But most striking of all is the contradiction between the Christian law of the brotherhood of men existing in the conscience and the necessity under which all men are placed by compulsory military service of being prepared for hatred and murder—of being at the same time a Christian and a gladiator.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience

Time , Law , Reading , Business

“No one I imagine is so stupid as to believe that truth or even an approximation of truth is derived from counting pieces of marked paper and that the largest pile of papers is it. What makes democracy so fragile is the certain knowledge, even by the winners, that it is often wrong and if they think it’s right now, then it’s either been wrong at some time in the past or will be at some time in the future. There is then a shaky agreement on both sides of a democratic debate that there is some more fundamental reason for using this method to make decisions than that it is always right. In Western Europe over the last century or so that shaky agreement has not always held together and indeed it still is far from ordinary worldwide. A common everyday reason why most people accept democratic results is that they are rarely always on the losing side. And in the case of government elections they can have another opportunity to persuade the majority that the opinion they hold is correct and hope that the mistakes of the previous few years are not so very bad. On a much deeper level however respecting the “will of the people” comes from a profoundly scary place.”

Justin Barrett (1971) Irish activist

A Republic of Innocent Dead Cannot Live https://nationalparty.ie/a-republic-of-innocent-dead-cannot-live/ (June 4, 2018)

Democracy , Imagination , Time , Past

“There are two possible ways to solving a dilemma, in justice or elsewhere; begin with the facts, and follow out their logic where it leads one, or begin with the desired outcome, and reason backward to the necessary steps to achieve it.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (2012), Chapter 24 (p. 527)

Way , Justice

“Your experience has so much to do with how you view difference and how you approach being in the world. For example, in the grocery store, if someone comes down the aisle, I always preemptively move to the side—I’ve had many experiences where I get a glare or a huffy scolding or even a racial slur if the person feels I’m in the way. My parents did the same; years of experience as part of a racial minority taught them that to be noticed often means being harassed, so they try to avoid attention of any kind. On the other hand my husband, who is white, continues whatever he’s doing. His reasoning is ‘If I’m in the way, they’ll just ask me to move,’ and he’s right. The world treats him differently, so he sees it very differently.”

Celeste Ng (1980) American novelist

On how she approaches the world differently than her Caucasian husband in “’Memory at its Core’: An Interview with Celeste Ng” https://www.loc.gov/poetry/interviews/celeste-ng.html (Library of Congress; Summer 2018)

Personality , Way , Parent , World

“Cotton is to-day by far the most important textile used by mankind, and wool is next. And we may expect that this sartorial reform, already so far advanced, will go on, and that the more enlightened generations of the future, for both moral and economic reasons, will clothe themselves entirely in fabrics of bloodless origin.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Cost of a Skin, p. 74

Clothes , Future

“[S]ince vegetal fat is identical chemically with animal fat, and vegetal protein with animal protein, since these substances are found abundantly in non-flesh products, and since the only other food substances used by man (starch and sugar) are not found except in plants and plant products, it may be asserted positively that from the standpoint of food-supply there is no reason why man should prey when he eats. The plant world contains all of the compounds necessary for human alimentation, it contains them abundantly, it contains them in forms of the highest delicacy and the greatest variety and economy, and it contains them in a much more prime condition than they are found in the diseased tissues of our mistreated servants.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), What Shall We Eat?, pp. 92–93

World , Animals , Disease , Food

Quotes about reason page 71

Quotes about reason
page 71