Quotes about Rationality

It is absurd to hold that a man should be ashamed of an inability to defend himself with his limbs, but not ashamed of an inability to defend himself with speech and reason; for the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.

The law is reason unaffected by desire.

The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning.

Reason is the enemy of faith.

Francis Schaeffer's Escape from Reason.

Reason will by degrees submit to absurdity, as the eye is in time accommodated to darkness.

To talk of rational beings apart from man is as if we attempted to talk of heavy beings apart from bodies.

Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.

A rational man never distorts or corrupts his own standards and judgment in order to appeal to the irrationality, stupidity, or dishonesty of others.

Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice — and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man — by choice; he has to hold his life as a value — by choice; he has to learn to sustain it — by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues — by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

There is only one power that determines the course of history, just as it determines the course of every individual life: the power of man's rational faculty—the power of ideas.

This dictate of common sense.