John Eoin MacNeill Quotes

Knowledge is not a guarantee of good political behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior.

Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.

I've always made my decisions based on two factors: intellectual analysis and my gut. And when they meet, that's a go from me. That's when I see the goal.

Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.

The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed.

In the last analysis sound judgment will prevail.

Everyone complains of his memory, but no one complains of his judgment.

Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.

Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent respect to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense.

Opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.

Well, pray if you like, only you'd do better to use your judgment.

In life everyone has a choice. The key is: make a right choice.

It is very questionable, in my mind, how far we have the right to judge one of another, since there is born within every man the germs of both virtue and vice. The development of one or the other is contingent upon circumstances.

The most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life; in which they govern themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience, quickness of memory, and inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good or evil fortune, and the errors of one another.

I think people have common sense and can tell what's real, what's right or what's wrong and work it out.

Stafford Cripps has a brilliant mind, until he makes it up.

All our reasoning boils down to yielding to sentiment.

Opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth. Everyone has a flock of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influenced by "opinions" when you reach DECISIONS, you will not succeed in any undertaking.

Usually, I'm pretty good about sorting through the options and then making decisions that I'm confident are the best decisions in that moment, given the information we have. But there are times where I think I wish I could have imagined a different level of insight.

The calmer thought is not always the right thought, just as the distant view is not always the truest view

Many people have the reasoning facility, but no one uses it in religious matters.

Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.

We always do what's natural, only sometimes we shouldn't do it.

REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.

In the end ... success or failure will come down to an ethical decision, one on which those now living will be judged for generations to come.