Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not only the justest thinkers.

Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.

People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.

The very essence of rationalism is that it assumes that the reason is the highest faculty in man and the lord of all the rest.

When blithe to argument I come, Though armed with facts, and merry, May Providence protect me from The fool as adversary, Whose mind to him a kingdom is Where reason lacks dominion, Who calls conviction prejudice And prejudice opinion.

I possess a strong sense of reason.

That which the Fascists hate above all else, is intelligence.

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.

When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths or to reject absurdities and palpable contradictions.

Ideas are 10 a penny. It's the execution that's the hard thing to do. House is standing up against a tide of sentiment and emotionalism over reason that threatens to engulf this world. When you think about it, a rationalist, a man of science and reason, is in a pretty lonely position.

Intellectuals are too sentimental for me.

Our duty is to believe that for which we have sufficient evidence, and to suspend our judgment when we have not.

The most important function of the university in an age of reason is to protect reason from itself.

... common sense is very rare.

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

We've lost common sense.

The beauty of science hugely outranks the charms of superstition.

Hast thou reason? I have. Why then dost not thou use it? For if this does its own work, what else dost thou wish?

It is for this reason that rationality is of supreme importance to the well-being of the human species...even more, in those less fortunate times in which it is despised and rejected as the vain dream of men who lack the virility to kill where they cannot agree.

It's against reason," said Filby. "What reason?" said the Time Traveller.

There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.

Reason alone cannot give you a whole steak, but it sure helps with identifying bologna.

Reasoning is the pastime of my whole household, and all this reasoning has driven out Reason.

The indispensability of reason does not imply that individual people are always rational or are unswayed by passion and illusion. It only means that people are capable of reason, and that a community of people who choose to perfect this faculty and to exercise it openly and fairly can collectively reason their way to sounder conclusions in the long run. As Lincoln observed, you can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

I can only insist that understanding, not blind belief, should be the goal.