Quotes about reasoning
page 2

“In pure theosophy there is no question of wishing to remove from God His mysteries by means of unveilings and specifications; for however acute our discernments, the divine mystery remains complete by reason of the Infinitude of the Real.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2014, In the Face of the Absolute, World Wisdom, 99, 978-1-936597-41-3]
God, Outline

God, Question

“Divine anthropomorphism responds to human theomorphism: if God can manifest Himself in human modalities, it is because man is "made in the image of God", and this is the very reason for man’s existence and for the cosmic miracle that he is.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2008, Christianity / Islam, World Wisdom, 105-106, 978-1-933316-49-9]
God, Outline

God

“Reason perceives the general and proceeds by logical operations, whereas Intellect perceives the principial − the metaphysical − and proceeds by intuition.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2006, Gnosis: Divine Wisdom, World Wisdom, 36, 978-1-933316-18-5]
Human being, Intellect

“Be assured I will die as I have lived, and that you will have no reason to blush for me.”

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798) Irish politician

Letter to his wife, Matilda Tone (10 November 1798), quoted in T. W. Moody, R. B. McDowell and C. J. Woods (eds.), The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763–98, Volume III: France, the Rhine, Lough Swilly and Death of Tone, January 1797 to November 1798 (2007), p. 403

“The reason why there are hardly ever completely knock-down arguments, except between very like minded philosophers, is that philosophers, unlike chemists or geologists, are licensed to question everything, including methodology.”

J. J. C. Smart (1920–2012) Australian philosopher and academic

Ockhamist Comments on Strawson, in Anthony Freeman (ed.), Consciousness and its Place in Nature: Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism?, Exteter, 2006, pp. 158-159
Other quotes

Question

“Society lives by faith, develops by reason.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

7 May 1870
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries

Faith

“The main reason for choosing a project is not really the renown of the director that's making the project. I feel like it's the fact of an actor to constantly want to do different things.”

Song Kang-ho (1967) South Korean actor

As quoted in "Song Kang Ho and Ko Asung Talk SNOWPIERCER, Working with Director Bong Joon Ho, Reuniting to Play Father and Daughter & Working with Hollywood Stars" in Collider (28 June 2014) https://collider.com/song-kang-ho-ko-asung-snowpiercer-interview/

Feeling

“Evil will come to nought and will be completely destroyed. The divine, pure goodness will contain in itself every nature endowed with reason; nothing made by God is excluded from his kingdom once everything mixed with some elements of base material has been consumed by refinement in fire.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

A Treatise on 1 Corinthians 15.28 https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2019/10/04/in-illud-tunc-et-ipse-filius/

God, Nature, Evil

“I truly believe the reason why there is a demand for rom-coms is because humans, whether its conscious or subconscious, have a need to feel happy and to see love.”

Lana Condor (1997) Vietnamese-American actress

As quoted in "Lana Condor is just a girl, starring in a Netflix hit, asking you to love the rom-com revival" in Think Progress (18 September 2018) https://archive.thinkprogress.org/lana-condor-to-all-the-boys-netflix-1be6a8d818aa/

Love, Happiness, Feeling

“The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children, apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind, the lower animals.”

John Stuart Mill book Principles of Political Economy

Book V, Chapter 11, Section 9
Principles of Political Economy (1848-1871)

Children, Animals, Parting

“The source of every Crime, is some defect of the Understanding; or some error in Reasoning, or some sudden force of the Passions. Defect in the Understanding, is Ignorance; in Reasoning, Erroneous Opinion.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Second Part, Chapter 27, p. 152
Leviathan (1651)

Error, Understanding, Passion

“When a scientific principle puts on the toga of social dignity, it turns itself into a bell or a parrot; such phantoms have always been the most dangerous enemies of reason.”

Miroslav Krleža (1893–1981) Croatian writer

Aristocrats of Spirit, in: Eseji IV, p.76 (Zora, 1963)
Essays

“I am a slave to reason. I think about everything - big or small.”

Fadzayi Mahere (1985) Zimbabwean lawyer and politician

https://www.pindula.co.zw/Fadzayi_Mahere.

Thinking

“Inability to cooperate with others. More people lose their positions and their big opportunities in life, because of this fault, than for all other reasons combined.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938)

Life, People

“A joke can only get laughs for one reason because it resonates.”

Yang Li (1992) Chinese stand-up comedian

Source: "She Mocked Men’s Bluster. Then Came the Complaints." in The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/world/asia/male-confidence-comedian-china.html (30 December 2020)

“The reason that angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Angels, Flying

“Ten years is a long time to be a part of anything and to have a group of people in your life for any reason, let alone one that really was a part of my most formative years.”

Vincent Martella (1992) American actor

Source: Batman: Death in the Family's Vincent Martella Talks Reprising Jason Todd Role https://www.cbr.com/batman-death-in-the-family-jason-todd-interview/ (October 9, 2020)

Life, People, Time, Parting

“We read literature for a lot of reasons, but two of the most compelling ones are to get out of ourselves and our own life stories and—equally important—to find ourselves by understanding our own life stories more clearly in the context of others’.”

Maureen Corrigan (1955) American journalist and writer

Source: Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading (2005), Chapter 1 (p. 34)

Life, Literature, Understanding, Reading

“I am a peace man. I haven't got any use for wars and there is no more humor in 'em than there is reason for 'em.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Daily Telegram (4 December 1931), as quoted in Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams (1979), p. 104; also in Will Rogers Speaks: Over 1,000 Timeless Quotations for Public Speakers (1995) edited by Bryan B. Sterling and ‎Frances N. Sterling, p. 304
Daily telegrams

War, Peace

“The limitation of the story to a single sequence and the essentially ad hoc nature of causal attributions call into question the whole procedure of using stories as evidence, and of thinking that they establish causality or patterns of reasons.”

Robyn Dawes (1936–2010) American psychologist

Source: Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally (2001), Chapter 7, “Good Stories” (p. 113)

Question, Nature, Thinking

“If forgers and other malefactors are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authorities, there is much more reason for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

Source: Summa Theologica (1265–1274) II–II, q. 11, art. 3 co

Death

“Overcapacity in steel production is a worldwide problem. The main reasons for this are the slow recovery of the global economy and shrinking demand.”

Liu Yandong (1945) Chinese politician

Source: "Chinese Vice Premier: Germany Can Trust Us" in Handelsblatt https://www.handelsblatt.com/english/politics/handelsblatt-interview-chinese-vice-premier-germany-can-trust-us/23542860.html?ticket=ST-3429686-pwkpyaicAuKXkd15MSqn-cas01.example.org (25 November 2016)

Problem

“The reason, however, why the philosopher may be likened to the poet is this: both are concerned with the marvellous.”

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

Source: Commentary on the Metaphysics (c. 1270–1272), 1, 3; quoted in Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture (New York, 1952), p. 88

“I don't think it's reasonable to make someone pay for a game and then make them prepare a network connection and charge a monthly fee”

Satoru Iwata (1959–2015) Japanese video game programmer and businessman

Source: Reuters interview https://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/8683/iwata-discusses-online-plans

Game, Thinking

“There is no doubt that we have a different vision of the past. What’s important is that I see no reasons for any kind of conflicts in the future. We have no interests that could be contradictory in the future.”

Ivica Dačić (1966) Serbian politician

Source: "Ivica Dacic: Forced solutions don’t lead to stability of the region" in The Srpska Times https://thesrpskatimes.com/ivica-dacic-forced-solutions-dont-lead-to-stability-of-the-region/ (18 September 2018)

Past, Future

“I travel in every state now, back on the road, and the Red states are a joy and the Blue states are a pain in the ass. For no reason.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Source: Sen. Chris Coons and Caitlin Flanagan, Natural Immunity, (2021)

Pain, Travel, Joy

“I do not believe that iron bars and brutal treatment have ever been cures for crime. And certainly I feel that in our great enlightened country, there is no reason for going back to middle ages and their form of torture for the criminal.”

Mary Harris Jones (1837–1930) Irish-born American labor and community organizer

Source: Autobiography of Mother Jones

Age, Feeling, Country

“If you think America is irredeemable, turn on the news or get a passport and a ticket on one of those sketchy airlines that puts its web address on the plane. There’s a reason Afghan mothers are handing their babies to us.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Source: The Lesson of Afghanistan', (2021)

Thinking, Baby

“The genome is littered, one might almost say clogged, with the equivalent of computer viruses, selfish, parasitic stretches of letters which exist for the pure and simple reason that they are good at getting themselves duplicated. We are full of digital chain letters and warnings about marmalade.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 8 “Self-Interest” (p. 127)

Selfishness

“There's no reason to be in the car when the car crashes even if you love the car.”

John Schnatter (1961) American entrepreneur, founder of Papa John's

Love, Cars

“The reason that I like to use classical myths as models is because African American writers and African American stories are usually understood as occurring in some kind of vacuum — because of slavery.”

Jesmyn Ward (1977) American writer

Source: On using mythology in her works in “INTERVIEWS: Powell's Interview: Jesmyn Ward, Author of 'Sing, Unburied, Sing'” https://www.powells.com/post/interviews/powells-interview-jesmyn-ward-author-of-sing-unburied-sing in Powell City of Books (2017 Aug 29)

“There wasn’t even any reasoning. Secrecy was just a bureaucrats’ reflex.”

China Miéville Embassytown

Source: Embassytown (2011), Chapter 22 (p. 276)

“We are unable to give life, and therefore ought not wantonly to take it away from the meanest insect, without sufficient reason; they all receive it from the same benevolent hand as ourselves, and have therefore an equal right to enjoy it.”

Soame Jenyns (1704–1787) British writer

Source: The Works of Soam Jenyns (1793), p. 190

Life

“If we disown history we are at its mercy. To have a reasonable knowledge of the past is to possess an anchor which is likely to prevent us from being swept towards false ideas about the present and future.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

Source: The Great Seesaw: A New View of the Western World, 1750-2000 (1988)

History, Idea, Knowledge, Past

“Reason, which is based upon the world common to us all, which furnishes us with truths like "twice two is four" and "nothing happens without a cause" this reason not only cannot justify and explain these new terrors and anxieties of Tolstoy's; it condemns them pitilessly as unreasonable, motiveless, arbitrary, and consequently unreal and visionary.”

Lev Shestov (1866–1938) Russian theologian

Source: In Job's Balances: on the sources of the eternal truths, The Last Judgment; Tolstoy's Last Words p. 101

Truth, World

“The horror genre—which I define as perfectly horrible things happen to perfectly nice people for no reason at all.”

Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930–1999) Novelist, editor

Source: Introduction to The Cloud of Evil in Marion Zimmer Bradley (ed.), Sword and Sorceress 7 (1990), p. 27

People

“Where any work can be done conformably to the reason which is common to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear; for where we are able to get profit by means of the activity which is successful and proceeds according to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VII, 53

Men, God, Fear, Success

“I am on the radio for one reason: to attract the largest audience I can and hold it. I am not in a think tank.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

1990s

Thinking

“The thing is, kids love scary stories. They love dramatic stories. They love that kind of stuff. It’s one of the reasons why I write books now. I’m able to write the kind of stuff I like, whereas in TV I can’t do that anymore.”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

Source: Rejection, Scares, and Ryan Gosling: Looking Back at Nickelodeon’s “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/10/interview-are-you-afraid-of-the-dark-dj-machale (October 30, 2014)

Love, Books

“Let us stop this system of putting people in positions just because of the contacts they have. That is a major reason why we remain a poorly governed and undeveloped country.”

Grace Alele-Williams (1932–2022) mathematician

Source: https://guardian.ng/features/how-to-have-more-female-vice-chancellors-in-nigerian-varsities/Prof Grace Alele on allowing qualified people in position regardless of the gender.

People, Country

“The situation outlined is immaterial to us. We could help humanity, but there is no reason that we should. Humanity is a transient factor and is none of our concern.”

Clifford D. Simak book A Choice of Gods

Source: A Choice of Gods (1972), Chapter 22 (p. 130)

Help

“The song was something I believed in. I wish people would listen to the artist instead of judging the artist for no reason.”

Mohammad Rasoul Arsalan Pour

People

“Children should above all be taught self-reliance, love for all men, altruism, mutual charity, and more than anything else, to think and reason for themselves... Aim at creating free men and women, free intellectually, free morally, unprejudiced in all respects, and above all things, unselfish.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book The Key to Theosophy

Source: The Key to Theosophy (1889)

Love, Women, Men, Children

“Low sample size—one of the reasons why magic and science are hard to reconcile.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Whispers Under Ground

Source: Whispers Under Ground (2012), Chapter 10, “Russell Square” (p. 106)

Science

“What are you doing? Take back the Senate!
You’ve got guns. Use them. We give you guns for a reason, use them.
Lethal force should have been used.
How come you didn’t protect us? It’s doing your job.”

Lindsey Graham (1955) United States Senator from South Carolina

Source: 6 January 2021, reported 1 November 2021 by Joseph Choi of "The Hill" here https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/579453-graham-told-officers-on-jan-6-to-use-their-guns-on-rioters-report Context: despite what Graham said, lethal force WAS used, as Ashli Babbitt was shot to death

“Philosophy asks for a reason, not just a scientific fact.”

Catherine Rowett (1956) Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia (born 1956)

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 1 : Lost words, forgotten worlds

“I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel; that it has a right to the land. This is the most important reason: Because God said so.”

James Inhofe (1934) American politician

Source: " Peace in the Middle East http://inhofe.senate.gov/pressreleases/peace.htm", Senate Floor speech regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict ()

God, Support

“Aviation is said to be the cradle of cosmonautics, and with good reason.”

Ivan Kozhedub (1920–1991) Soviet aviator, thrice hero of the Soviet Union

"Aviation History: Interview with World War II Soviet Ace Ivan Kozhedub" in History Net https://www.historynet.com/aviation-history-interview-with-world-war-ii-soviet-ace-ivan-kozhedub.htm

“While "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" was a term of art dating to 1386, and had thus accumulated centuries of intellectual baggage, there's no reason to think the Framers had all that in mind.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

To End a Presidency (2018)

Art, Thinking

“[W]e should beware of "hearing" silences where nearly all readers, setting aside how they would like a particular controversy to end, identify determinative text... "The heart has its reasons," as Pascal famously said, "that reason does not know."”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

Good enough. And those heartfelt reasons deserve a hearing. But when they defy reason, the meaning of living by the rule of law is that reason should prevail.
Soundings and Silences (2016)

Silence, Heart

“There are as many reasons to be silent as there are to speak, and as many ways to hear meaning in the sounds of silence.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

Soundings and Silences (2016)

Way, Silence

“There's a reason why you only do tax policy in a major way every few years — it's really complicated.”

Mark Warner (1954) United States Senator from Virginia

Source: " Senate Democrats target billionaires https://www.axios.com/senate-democrats-billionares-tax-biden-7078079f-7235-4ae6-ab7d-d3bd0476517e.html" (October 23, 2021)

Way

“What makes people stay on your side is that believability, that authenticity. . . . . You don't need to talk about the policy details as much as you should give people a reason to trust you.”

Katie Hill (politician) (1987) former U.S. Representative from California

Source: interview https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/katie-hill-california-democrat-738027/ with Rolling Stone (2018)

People

“There are two reasons most people don’t attain wealth: they didn’t think they were smart enough to get rich and they were never taught how to create wealth.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

People, Thinking, Wealth

“The reality is; there is something which exist but what that something is; remains a question. Either because we are not capable to reveal it yet or because with time and movement it changes itself and has no truth in it. But what’s the reason for its existence without having or revealing any truth, that’s the evidence we need to find.”

Zaman Ali (1993) Pakistani philosopher

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11085116-the-reality-is-there-is-something-which-exist-but-what

Truth, Question, Reality, Change

“This is a kindness, a thing done to another human being for no reason other than compassion. A private, dignified act of basic human decency, which history, being the bastard that it is, will probably neglect to commemorate.”

Alastair Reynolds book On the Steel Breeze

Source: On the Steel Breeze (2013), Chapter 28 (p. 304)

History

“I’ll argue to the death against stupid legislation, but some rules exist for a reason.”

Alastair Reynolds book On the Steel Breeze

Source: On the Steel Breeze (2013), Chapter 5 (p. 43)

Death, Stupidity

“Don’t get me wrong: I believe that people who circumcise for religious reasons should have the right to do so.”

Rod Dreher (1967) American journalist

2020s, Gary Shteyngart’s ‘Gentile Region’ (2021)

People

“You seem to be wanting
everything yesterday.
Always the impossible.
That's what you seem to portray.
Give me one good reason
why even if I stay,
you won't walk away from me
tomorrow. Today.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Tomorrow, Today" (song) Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Tomorrow, Today" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai9Bp-w04vU (song on YouTube) Song lyrics

“The knowledge we get by tinkering, via trial and error, experience, and the workings of time, in other words, contact with the earth, is vastly superior to that obtained through reasoning, something self-serving institutions have been very busy hiding from us.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Skin in the Game

Source: Skin in the Game (2018), p. 7

Error, Business, Knowledge, Time

“Let Will but set its appetite on war,
And Reason will promptly invent offence,
And furnish blood with arguments.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Prince Lucifer (1887), Abdiel in Act III, sc. iii; p. 80.

War

“We just don't have the facility to give proper care for all of our patients (in the Northern Mariana Islands), and that's the reason why we have this medical referral program, to send our patients out.”

Ralph Torres (1979) an American Republican politician from Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands

Source: Ralph Torres (2021) cited in: " Torres: At least $10M needed for medical referral program https://www.postguam.com/news/cnmi/torres-at-least-10m-needed-for-medical-referral-program/article_8005ba4e-c681-11eb-bd3d-3f3499b70b2e.html" in The Guam Daily Post, 7 June 2021.

“There's nothing in the world that I'd like more
than to be left standing outside your door,
where perhaps I might be asked to come in.
There I could very easily demonstrate
of what now appears to be my fate,
you see I'm hooked on something
and it's not heroin.
Oh, I just can't get enough of you.
No, I can't get enough. What am I gonna do?
I've tried every trick in the book that's going,
now I've decided that they're not worth knowing,
my predicament is as simple as this:
I'm not satisfied, and the reason is
I just can't get enough of you.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Can't Get Enough of You" (song) Song lyrics Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Can't Get Enough of You" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S51SnVzay3Y (song on YouTube)

Fate, Books, World, Appearance

“Do what you want to within reason
but remember, take your time:
nothing stops for those
who can't afford to wait.
The best advice that I can give you
is to hold on to your head
and as long as you are good and kind
you'll always be a friend of mine.
And it's true to say that a good friend is hard to find
But I'd like to think that you are
a friend of mine.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"A Friend of Mine" (song) Song lyrics Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "A Friend of Mine" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYaGJ3f28OI (song on YouTube)

Thinking, Time, Waiting

“... I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no reason to doubt it. ... I think that evolutionary biologists have contributed enormously to our understanding of the world. Although Darwin's mechanism - natural selection working on variation - might explain many things, however, I do not believe it explains molecular life.”

Michael J. Behe (1952) American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate

Source: Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996), page 5

Life, World, Idea, Understanding

“I deny that villany is ever necessary. It is impossible that it should ever be necessary for any reasonable creature to violate all the laws of justice, mercy, and truth. No circumstances can make it necessary for a man to burst in sunder all the ties of humanity. It can never be necessary for a rational being to sink himself below a brute. A man can be under no necessity of degrading himself into a wolf. The absurdity of the supposition is so glaring, that one would wonder any one can help seeing it.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Source: 1770s, Thoughts Upon Slavery (1774)

Truth, Justice, Law, Wolf

“Beware, lastly, of imagining you shall obtain the end without using the means conducive to it. God can give the end without any means at all; but you have no reason to think He will. Therefore constantly and carefully use all those means which He has appointed to be the ordinary channels of His grace. Use every means which either reason or Scripture recommends, as conducive (through the free love of God in Christ) either to the obtaining or increasing any of the gifts of God. Thus expect a daily growth in that pure and holy religion which the world always did, and always will, call “enthusiasm;” but which, to all who are saved from real enthusiasm, from merely nominal Christianity, is “the wisdom of God, and the power of God;” the glorious image of the Most High; “righteousness and peace;” a “fountain of living water, springing up into everlasting life!””

John Wesley book Sermons on Several Occasions

1770s, Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)
Source: Sermon 37 "The Nature of Enthusiasm"

Love, Life, Wisdom, God

“Beware you are not a fiery, persecuting enthusiast. Do not imagine that God has called you (just contrary to the spirit of Him you style your Master) to destroy men’s lives, and not to save them. Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and let think. Use no constraint in matters of religion. Even those who are farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than reason, truth, and love.”

John Wesley book Sermons on Several Occasions

1770s, Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)
Source: Sermon 37 "The Nature of Enthusiasm"

Love, Men, God, Truth

“A time came when the Catholics, having long relied on force, were compelled to appeal to opinion. That which had been defiantly acknowledged and defended required to be ingeniously explained away. The same motive which had justified the murder now prompted the lie. Men shrank from the conviction that the rulers and restorers of their Church had been murderers and abetters of murder, and that so much infamy had been coupled with so much zeal. They feared to say that the most monstrous of crimes had been solemnly approved at Rome, lest they should devote the Papacy to the execration of mankind. A swarm of facts were invented to meet the difficulty: The victims were insignificant in number; they were slain for no reason connected with religion; the Pope believed in the existence of the plot; the plot was a reality; the medal is fictitious; the massacre was a feint concerted with the Protestants themselves; the Pope rejoiced only when he heard that it was over. These things were repeated so often that they have been sometimes believed; and men have fallen into this way of speaking whose sincerity was unimpeachable, and who were not shaken in their religion by the errors or the vices of Popes. Möhler was pre-eminently such a man. In his lectures on the history of the Church, which were published only last year, he said that the Catholics, as such, took no part in the massacre; that no cardinal, bishop, or priest shared in the councils that prepared it; that Charles informed the Pope that a conspiracy had been discovered; and that Gregory made his thanksgiving only because the King's life was saved. Such things will cease to be written when men perceive that truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.”

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

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

Life, Men, Truth, Lie

“Always be grateful to the one who stands by your side when you cry.
He never asks a reason why, just standing by your side.”

Kazeronnie Mak

Cry

“We have our gurus, we admire them – and with good reason. But they become in the end a source of laziness because we just accept them and we know the little we know of them without feeling the need either to pursue their work very thoroughly, or the need to question it.”

Ranulph Glanville (1946–2014) British cyberneticist (1946-2014)

Source: Ranulph Glanville, cited in Mick Ashby. " Time for Ethical Systems and Third Order Cyernetics https://vimeo.com/511633171," at ISSS, 6th februari 2021.

Feeling, Question

“But then of course everything always happens for a reason
I guess it was never meant to be
But it's just something we have no control over and that's what destiny is”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Mockingbird"
2000s, Encore (2004)

“Doth logic in the lily hide,
And where's the reason in the rose?”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

The Door of Humility (1906)
Source: "Rome", XLI, line 11; p. 116.

“What power was this—chance, will you say? But chance, what else can it mean
Than the hidden Cause of things by human reason unseen?”

Lewis Morris (poet) (1833–1907) Welsh poet in the English language

"Evensong", line 25, in Songs of Two Worlds: Third series (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875), p. 23.

Chance

“Earth governments in moments of stress are not famous for being reasonable.”

Isaac Asimov book History

Source: Short fiction, The Early Asimov Book One (1972), History (p. 297)

“There is no doubt in my mind that, from the third-person point of view, monarchy is the most reasonable form of government. By embodying the state in a fragile human person, it captures the arbitrariness and the givenness of political allegiance, and so transforms allegiance into affection.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

The Meaning of Conservatism (2001), p. 193

Personality

“Let your desires be governed by reason.”
Appetitus rationi pareat.

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

“A just man stand's on the side of the right with such conviction, thát neither the passion of a mob, nor the violence of a despot can make him overstep the bounds of reason.”

Baltasar Gracián (1601–1658) Spanish Jesuit and baroque prose writer and philosopher

Passion

“I sometimes think that my own weakness lies in not realizing the full depths of the weakness and stupidity of men. As a reasonable creature myself I seem to have an unfortunate tendency to expect others unlike myself to be reasonable.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (p. 267)
Short fiction, The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein (1999)

Men, Stupidity, Thinking

“Freedom of speech cannot be a reason to incite racial or cultural discrimination and tear society apart. We hope Sweden can earnestly respect the religious beliefs of minority groups, including Muslims.”

Wang Wenbin (1971) Chinese diplomat

Wang Wenbin (2022) cited in " Respect religious beliefs of Muslims, China tells Sweden https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220420-respect-religious-beliefs-of-muslims-china-tells-sweden/" on Middle East Monitor, 20 April 2022.

Hope, Tear, Freedom

“There’s no reason someone needs a weapon of war with 100 rounds, 100 bullets, that can be fired from that weapon. Nobody needs that, nobody needs that.”

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

8 April 2021 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/547162-biden-calls-for-ban-on-assault-weapons-and-high-capacity-magazines 2021, April 2021

War

“The Church carries out its mission through the help provided by the offerings of the faithful. And we don't know how much people will be able to give. Precisely for this reason we must be sober, rigorous. We must manage the finances with the passion and diligence of a good family man”

Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves (1959) Roman Catholic clergyman

Guerrero: Holy See’s bottom line is in view of mission https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2020-05/guerrero-holy-see-economy-mission-deficit-default-income-expense.html (13 May 2020)

People, Family, Faith, Passion

“The reason laziness is rarely pushed as a lifestyle option is down to one simple reason: money. There are fortunes to be made out of active lifestyles. Gyms charge fees. But no one is going to make money out of sleep. It is free.”

Tom Hodgkinson (1968) British writer

free of charge sayings https://quotestats.com/topic/free-of-charge-sayings/ (?)

Money, Sleep

“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That's why Jesus says, "Love your enemies." Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they're mistreating you. Here's the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don't do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can't stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they're mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they'll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That's love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There's something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)

Love, Hate, People, Way

“It sounds reasonable to me. Reasonable, but not true. Big difference.”

Charles Sheffield book Proteus In The Underworld

Source: Behrooz Wolf (aka The Proteus Trilogy), Proteus In The Underworld (1995), Chapter 19 (p. 251)

“Here comes May,
didn't know you for long
but damn you were wrong to fall away,
you had your reasons
so I let you fade away,
now I'm nostalgic in May.”

Marian Renta

Music lyrics, Great Deep (2021) —"May"

“The problem we've encountered is the inept policies of the whole ruling class of the country, and we shouldn't be looking to the people for the reason”

Vitali Klitschko (1971) Ukrainian boxer and politician

behind them
2013
Source: [Кличко: Я не вижу себя в правительстве Януковича. Нет смысла подымать этот вопрос, https://gordonua.com/news/maidan/kichko-ya-ne-vizhu-sebya-v-pravitelstve-yanukovicha-7366.html, 2022-06-13, gordonua.com]

People, Problem, Country

“I think the reason that we seek distraction is that working on stuff that we care about is often scary. It brings us into contact with all the ways in which we’re limited—our talents might not be up to what we’re trying to do, and we can’t control how things will unfold.”

Oliver Burkeman (1975) British journalist

"The Best Time-Management Advice Is Depressing But Liberating" (2021 August 11)

Way, Thinking

“Every art, and every system, and in like manner every action and purpose aims, it is thought, at some good; for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the good is, ‘that at which all things aim.’”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Bk I, Ch I
The Ethics Of Aristotle (Vol. I)

Art

“Each of us has his own reason.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Ognuno di noi ha il suo perché.

“I think it is reasonable to posit that it is often the people who have had too easy a time—who have been pampered and elevated falsely in their self-esteem—who adopt the role of victim and the mien of resentment.”

Jordan Peterson book Beyond Order

Source: Books, Beyond Order (2021), p. 339

People, Thinking, Time, Falseness

“We cannot renounce our faith and not give a reason for it to those who wish to hear us. We need not hide our faith in Jesus Christ out of fear, nor should we keep quiet when there is an opportunity to bear witness to it.”

Antonio Dorado Soto (1931–2015) Spanish bishop

Bishop tells Spanish Catholics not to fear “psychological torture” (15 June 2005), Catholic News Agency https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/4164/bishop-tells-spanish-catholics-not-to-fear-psychological-torture

Fear, Faith, Christ

“No one can possess what we call good judgement, which is about the same thing as an instinct for recognizing Reasonable Probabilities, whose mind is not trained to follow truth. And in many of the most important things of life. Reasonable Probabilities are our only guides.”

Victor Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow (1887–1952) British politician, agriculturalist and colonial administrator (1887-1952)

12 September 1936, Advice to the pupils of the Bishop Cotton School, Simla, also quoted in Speeches and Statements of the Marquess of Linlithgow, p. 19-20

Life, Truth, Training

“You will find, dear boy, on these chivalric adventures of yours, that manly courage and fortitude, even when bolstered by the fortunate possession of an enchanted sword such as Dastagerd, are not quite enough: one requires, as well, the use of logic, reason, deduction, and, in a word—intelligence!”

Lin Carter book Kesrick

Source: Kesrick (1982), Chapter 16, “The Fairy of the Fountain” (p. 105)

Intelligence, Boy, Courage

“The Socialists, and I am still one, although an exasperated one, never brought forward the question of irredentism, but left it to the Republicans. We are in favour of a national war. But there are also reasons, purely socialist in character, which spur us on towards intervention.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

“Mussolini the ‘Man of the War’” speech delivered at the Mazza, Parma (13 December 1914) p. 15
1920s, Mussolini as Revealed in his Political Speeches (November 1914—August 1923) (1923)

War, Question

“It is absolutely clear to everyone that the reasons for such a disastrous war as we have endured for seven years now have nothing to do with the demand for democracy or freedom. They have much more to do with a dirty game of world economics.”

Joseph Tobji (1971) archeparch of Maronite Catholic Archeparchy of Aleppo

“If it weren‘t for the Church, we‘d be dead by now” https://acninternational.org/werent-church-wed-dead-now/ (6 February 2018)

War, World, Democracy, Game

“Now, some of you might wonder how come I have ten children, right? One of the main reasons is because I want to have my own picket line.”

Dolores Huerta (1930) American labor leader

1974 speech, in Voices of Multicultural America: Notable Speeches Delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans, 1790-1995 by Deborah Gillan Straub

Children

“A line of reasoning does not lead but follows us to truth.”

Raheel Farooq Pakistani writer

Why I Am a Muslim: And a Christian and a Jew (2020)

Truth