reason Quotes

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

No sane man will dance.

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

Words will not fail when the matter is well considered.

What is now reason was formerly impulse or instinct.

Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.

When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.