Great Throughts Treasury

"The heart has its reasons that the reason knows nothing of." - Blaise Pascal

"The last function of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which surpass it." - Blaise Pascal

""Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why," may be a good enough motto for men who are on their way to be shot. But from such men expect no empires to be built, no inventions made, no great discoveries brought to light." - Bruce Barton

"Religion consists in believing that everything which happens is extraordinarily important. It can never disappear from the world, precisely for this reason." - Cesare Pavese

"The first external revelations of the dry-rot in men is a tendency to lurk and lounge; to be at street corners without intelligible reason; to be going anywhere when met; to be about many places rather than any; to do nothing tangible but to have an intention of performing a number of tangible duties to-morrow or the day after." - Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens

"Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first and then compels us to tower, by reason of our blindness. But alas! when we are at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of misery." - Charles Caleb Colton

"If sensuality be our only happiness, we ought to envy the brutes; for instinct is a surer, shorter, safer guide to such happiness than reason." - Charles Caleb Colton

"It has been said that a thing is not necessarily against reason, because it happens to be above it." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Speaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants - both know too much of him." - Charles Caleb Colton

"The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Use the losses and failures of the past as a reason for action, not inaction." - Charles J. Givens

"He is next to the gods whom reason and not passions impels." - Claudian, latin Claudius Claudianus NULL

"To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason." - C. S. Lewis, fully Clive Staples "C.S." Lewis, called "Jack" by his family

"What the world, which truly knows nothing, calls “mysticism” is the science of ultimates… the science of self-evident Reality, which cannot be “reasoned about,” because it is the object of pure reason or perception." - Coventry Patmore, fully Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore

"God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason." - Dag Hammarskjöld

"The present moment is significant, not as the bridge between past and future, but by reason of its contents, contents which can fill our emptiness and become ours, if we are capable of receiving them." - Dag Hammarskjöld

"Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses." - Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey

"Whatever gave you the idea that fear was some kind of reason not to do something?... The only time you have a chance to show courage is when you're afraid." - Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman

"When I am happy for no reason whatsoever, then I am in bliss, as that comes from going beyond the poles of opposites." - Deepak Chopra

"The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them." - Denis E. Waitley

"[During dire days under the Nazis] Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he’s called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God – the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Few things are needful to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies the fool; and this is the reason why so many of mankind are miserable." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"He is not a reasonable man who by chance stumbles upon reason, but he who derives it from knowledge, from discernment, and from taste." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"The reason why lovers are never weary of one another is this - they are always talking of themselves." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Truth is the foundation and the reason of the perfection of beauty, for of whatever stature a thing may be, it cannot be beautiful and perfect, unless it be truly what it should be, and possess truly all that it should have." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Vanity causes us to do more things against our inclination than reason does." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"We never desire earnestly what we desire in reason." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"We should often have reason to be ashamed of our most brilliant actions if the world could see the motives from which they spring (sprang)." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Instead of casting away our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree, and, more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages." - Edmund Burke

"Guilt is never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him in to confusion." - Edmund Burke

"Fools measure actions after they are done by the event; wise men beforehand, by the rules of reason and right. The former look to the end to judge of the act. Let me look to the act, and leave the end to God." - Edward Everett Hale

"In every step of the inquiry we are compelled to feel and acknowledge the immeasurable disproportion between the size of the object and the capacity of the human mind. We may strive to abstract the notions of time, of space, and of matter, which so closely adhere to all the perceptions of our experimental knowledge. But as soon as we presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual generation, as often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a negative idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity, and inevitable contradiction." - Edward Gibbon

"If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint." - Edward Hopper

"Religions are many and diverse, but reason and goodness are one." - Elbert Green Hubbard

"There is no reason to repeat bad history." - Eleanor Holmes Norton

"Custom without reason is but ancient error." - English Proverbs

"Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle." - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL

"When we have only a little we should be satisfied; for this reason, that those best enjoy abundance who are contented with the least." - Epicurus NULL

"The wise man is little inconvenienced by fortune: things that matter are under the control of his own judgment and reason." - Epicurus NULL

"It is Reason alone which makes life happy and pleasant, by expelling all false conceptions or opinions ..." - Epicurus NULL

"Reason can drive fear away." -

"The commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment over the will: for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself. For there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of estate in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning." - Francis Bacon

"Faith is a higher faculty than reason." - Francis Bacon

"Men suppose their reason has command over their words; still it happens that words in return exercise authority on reason." - Francis Bacon

"Some men think that the gratification of curiosity is the end of knowledge; some the love of fame; some the pleasure of dispute; some the necessity of supporting themselves by their knowledge; but the real use of all knowledge is this, that we should dedicate that reason which was given us by God to the use and advantage of man." - Francis Bacon

"The first creation of God in the works of the days was the light of the sense; the last was the light of the reason: and His Sabbath-work ever since is the illumination of the spirit." - Francis Bacon

"The justest division of human learning is that derived from the three different faculties of the soul, the seat of learning; history being relative to the memory, poetry to the imagination, and philosophy to the reason." - Francis Bacon

"You cannot organize civilization around the core of militarism and at the same time expect reason to control human destinies." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

"It is rashness to go about to make our shallow reason judge of the works of God, and to call vain and superfluous whatever thing in the Universe is not of use to us." - Galileo Galilei, known simply as Galileo

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei, known simply as Galileo