Goddess of Reason

During the French Revolution, on 10 November 1793, a Goddess of Reason (most likely representing Sophia (wisdom)) was proclaimed by the French Convention at the suggestion of Chaumette. As personification for the goddess, Sophie Momoro, wife of the printer Antoine-François Momoro, was chosen. The goddess was celebrated in Notre Dame de Paris (she was put on the high altar in the Cathedral).

Famous quotes containing the words goddess of, goddess and/or reason:

    Teenage girls are extremists who see the world in black-and- white terms, missing shades of gray. Life is either marvelous or not worth living. School is either pure torment or is going fantastically. Other people are either great or horrible, and they themselves are wonderful or pathetic failures. One day a girl will refer to herself as “the goddess of social life” and the next day she’ll regret that she’s the “ultimate in nerdosity.”
    Mary Pipher (20th century)

    The Moon! Artemis! the great goddess of the splendid past of men! Are you going to tell me she is a dead lump?
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    Virtues are not emotions. Emotions are movements of appetite, virtues dispositions of appetite towards movement. Moreover emotions can be good or bad, reasonable or unreasonable; whereas virtues dispose us only to good. Emotions arise in the appetite and are brought into conformity with reason; virtues are effects of reason achieving themselves in reasonable movements of the appetites. Balanced emotions are virtue’s effect, not its substance.
    Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274)