Reason
Reason, is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, for establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature. The concept of reason is sometimes referred to as rationality and sometimes as discursive reason, in opposition to intuitive reason.
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Famous quotes containing the word reason:
“We are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self- will, more than of reason or even of self-interest.... Even in the common transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident. The falling of a teacup puts us out of temper for the day; and a quarrel that commenced about the pattern of a gown may end only with our lives.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks after them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendour of those who eclipsed and preceded them.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“The hour when you say, “What does my reason matter? Does it crave knowledge as a lion craves its food? It is poverty and filth, and a wretched complacency!””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)