Nicolas Malebranche Quotes

I possess a strong sense of reason.

A third ideal that has made its way in the modern world is reliance on reason, especially reason disciplined and enriched by modern science. An eternal basis of human intercommunication is reason.

The only hope I can see for the future depends on a wiser and braver use of the reason, not a panic flight from it.

The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.

Neither table pounding nor dreamy euphoria can be permitted to substitute for plausible argument. If impatience is not to be allowed to short-circuit argument with unsupported assertions, reason must be honored above the crude and noisy enthusiasms and antipathies.

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 defense.

I like common sense, to try and be the voice of reason at work.

Reason must be the universal rule and guide; all things must be done according to reason without allowing oneself to be swayed by emotion.

Ignorance is in relationship to content; it is not just a spirit of ignorance. In verse 21 it speaks of "the truth in Jesus." Truth is content, truth has something to do with reason. Truth has something to do with the rational creature that God has made us. The dilemma here in the internal world is not just some sort of grey fog, it is in relationship to content.

Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.

The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental.

Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.

Reason is a faculty far larger than mere objective force. When either the political or the scientific discourse announces itself as the voice of reason, it is playing God, and should be spanked and stood in the corner.

Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.

To be rational is so glorious a thing, that two-legged creatures generally content themselves with the title.

Men prosper or fail, survive or perish in proportion to the degree of their rationality.

Man has a single basic choice: to think or not, and that is the gauge of his virtue. Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality-not the degree of your intelligence, but the full and relentless use of your mind, not the extent of your knowledge, but the acceptance of reason as an absolute.

Faith in reason as a prime motor is no longer the criterion of the sound mind, any more than faith in the Bible is the criterion of righteous intention.

You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.

He that cannot reason is a fool.

To accept reason is impossible if you don't already possess it.

Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.

All men are capable of reason. That is the fundamental principle of democracy Because everybody's mind is capable of true knowledge, you don't have to have a special authority, or a special revelation telling you that this is the way things should be.

Because reason...is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts, I would prefer to believe that it exists, in its entirety, in each of us.

And the law, that is the perfection of reason, cannot suffer anything that is inconvenient.