Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Quotes

Not only the entire ability to think rests on language... but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

He that cannot reason is a fool.

A sane mind should not be guilty of a logical fallacy, yet there are very fine minds incapable of following mathematical demonstrations.

The belief of our Reason is an Exercise of Faith, and Faith is an Act of Reason.

That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason

Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation or the continuance of his species.

Suppose, gentleman, that man is not stupid.

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

Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.

Reason is the most active human faculty.

Reason and intellect are opening wedges in an understanding of reality.

If one devalues rationality, the world tends to fall apart.

Reason is God's crowning gift to man.

I possess a strong sense of reason.

One of the prerogatives by which man is eminently distinguished from all other living beings inhabiting this globe of earth, consists in the gift of reason.

Though man a thinking being is defined, Few use the grand prerogative of mind. How few think justly of the thinking few! How many never think, who think they do!

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

First, he must hold rational values, and to do this he must be a thinker.

Emotion is a rotten base for politics.

Logical activity is not the whole of intelligence. One can be intelligent without being particularly logical.

Italians think with their heads.

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, and the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well.