QUOTES ABOUT REASON

I wish to propose for the reader’s favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.” Bertrand Russell

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.  ~Samuel Butler

Reason is the shepherd trying to corral life’s vast flock of wild irrationalities.  ~Paul Eldridge, Maxims for a Modern Man

He that cannot reason is a fool.

He that will not is a bigot.
He that dare not is a slave.
~Andrew Carnegie

Metaphysics may be, after all, only the art of being sure of something that is not so, and logic only the art of going wrong with confidence.  ~Joseph Wood Krutch,The Modern Temper, 1929 (Thanks, Jeff)

Logic is a large drawer, containing some useful instruments, and many more that are superfluous.  A wise man will look into it for two purposes, to avail himself of those instruments that are really useful, and to admire the ingenuity with which those that are not so, are assorted and arranged.  ~Charles Caleb Colton, LaconShake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787)

But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State. Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to S. Kercheval, 1810)