Quotes about Reason

We do not lealve the shore of the known in search of adventure or suspense or because of the failure of reason to answer our questions, We sail because our mind is like a fantastic seashell, and when applying our ear to its lips we hear a perpetual murmur from the waves beyond the shore.

This is the secret of the spirit, not disclosed to reason: the adaptation of the mind to what is sacred, intellectual humility in the presence of the supreme. The mind surrenders to the mystery of spirit, not in resignation but in love.

Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)

Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.

The Politics of Fear Fear is the most powerful enemy of reason. Both fear and reason are essential to human survival, but the relationship between them is unbalanced. Reason may sometimes dissipate fear, but fear frequently shuts down reason. As Edmund Burke wrote in England twenty years before the American Revolution, "No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

No one should be surprised at the difficulty of faith, if there is some part of his life where he is consciously resisting or disobeying the commandment of Jesus. Is there some part of your life which you are refusing to surrender at his behest, some sinful passion, maybe, or some animosity, some hope, perhaps your ambition or your reason? ... How can you hope to enter into communion with him when at some point in your life you are running away from him?

The Incarnation is the ultimate reason why the service of God cannot be divorced from the service of man.

Slowly it gets to be a waiting whose outward sense I cannot comprehend; the inward reason must be found daily. Both of us have lost infinitely much during the past months; time today is a costly commodity, for who knows how much more time is given to us.7 Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Maria von Wedemeyer, 20 September 1943

We shall never again try to convince a fool by reason, for it is both useless and dangerous.

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 is 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. Where are these responsible people?

I would argue that the issue of God and the issue of science have the same roots.

Satan is a liar. He wants to steal our joy and replace it with hopelessness. When we're up against a struggle and we think we can't keep going, we can change that by praising God. Our chains will fall from us. Meese encouraged me by reminding me of the real reason we have for fully living this life. It's to give everything we have to God--even the heartbreaks and pain. God is our reason to live.