Quotes
Quotes about Reason
All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.
Cæsar had his Brutus; Charles the First, his Cromwell; and George the Third ["Treason!" cried the Speaker]--may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.
Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give,
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!
I have heard of reasons manifold
Why Love must needs be blind,
But this the best of all I hold,--
His eyes are in his mind.
The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths,--all these have vanished;
They live no longer in the faith of reason.
"You are old, Father William," the young man cried,
"The few locks which are left you are gray;
You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,--
Now tell me the reason I pray."
Oh for a tongue to curse the slave
Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the councils of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might!
They love their land because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why;
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne,
And think it kindness to his Majesty.
Why should we faint and fear to live alone,
Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die?
Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh.
Though love repine, and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply,--
"'T is man's perdition to be safe
When for the truth he ought to die."
Heroism feels and never reasons and therefore is always right.
With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
A mastiff dog
May love a puppy cur for no more reason
Than that the twain have been tied up together.
There is no better motto which it [culture] can have than these words of Bishop Wilson, "To make reason and the will of God prevail."
Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.
Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?
His eyes
All radiant with glad surprise,
Looked forward through the Centuries
And saw the seeds which sages cast
In the world's soil in cycles past
Spring up and blossom at the last;
Saw how the souls of men had grown,
And where the scythes of Truth had mown
Clear space for Liberty's white throne;
Saw how, by sorrow tried and proved,
The blackening stains had been removed
Forever from the land he loved;
Saw Treason crushed and Freedom crowned,
And clamorous Faction, gagged and bound,
Gasping its life out on the ground.
The wrong way always seems the more reasonable.
Shall the iron argue with the smith what it would be?
Or, shall the wrought iron reason with the monger
To whom it would be sold?
? John Bartlett, compHer reasoning is full of tricks
And butterfly suggestions,
I know no point to which she sticks;
She begs the simplest questions,
And, when her premises are strong
She always draws her inference wrong.
In this awfully stupendous manner, at which Reason stands aghast, and Faith herself is half confounded, was the grace of God to man at length manifested.
