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It is useless for us to attempt to reason a man
by Jonathan Swift

It is useless for us to attempt to reason a man
out of a thing he has never been reasoned into.
- Jonathan Swift

Quotes by Jonathan Swift

May you live all the days of your life.
- Jonathan Swift

Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches
as to conceive how others can be in want.
- Jonathan Swift

Useless Quotes and Sayings

So long as we are loved by others,
I would almost say that we are indispensable;
and no man is useless while he has a friend.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

During his training, a baseball player strives
to make each swing better than the last.
The repetition of a faulty swing would be worse than useless.
It would ingrain bad habits.
The same is true of emotional responses.
If we allow ourselves to continue to have the same angry responses,
we just entrench our anger habit.
But if we strive - through consciousness, visualization, and coaching -
to moderate our anger response,
over time, we can train ourselves to respond
to events as we choose - without anger.
You can't magically be free from anger tomorrow,
but you can put yourself on your own training program
that will reduce the frequency and intensity
of your anger response day by day, year by year.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

In preparing for battle I have always found that
plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Ability without honor is useless.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

If I could tell the world just one thing
it would be we're all okay,
and not to worry cause worry is wasteful
and useless in times like these.
I won't be made useless.
I won't be idle with despair,
I will gather myself around my faith.
Light does the darkness most fear.
- Jewel

On His Blindness:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
- John Milton (1608-1674)

Attempt Quotes and Sayings

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
- Robert H. Schuller

I am still amazed at how big, how enormous
a love and mystery God is -
and how small are the minds
that attempt to corral
this life force into rules and taboos,
cults and sects.
- Bono

Do not attempt to conquer the world with force,
for force only causes resistance.
- Lao Tzu

Moral authority is never retained by
any attempt to hold on to it.
It comes without seeking and
is retained without effort.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

"Fair" is not a useful concept.
Life is not "fair."
You can't make life "fair."
You can get angry.
You can complain about life not being "fair."
You can attempt revenge - perhaps violently.
You can inflict great suffering upon yourself
in the name of life being "unfair."
And Life is still not "fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The attempt to combine wisdom and power
has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.
- Albert Einstein

Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal,
and not in reaching it.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation
of differences before resorting to combat.
- Jimmy Carter

If you get frustrated by some of your family,
focus on the good aspects of your relationship
and attempt to overlook the irritations.
Then give thanks for everyone who plays a part in your life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Know that life is most joyful when you
neither attempt to hurry the future nor to slow it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I honor you, Hero, for you do not play to the crowd.
You play to your own soul.
An audience of one fills the house with its appreciation and applause.
Others follow you, and may attempt to emulate you,
but that is not why you are a hero.
Fame may smile upon you, or it may not.
The world may cheer your name, or you may be the unknown warrior
who rescued comrades in battle,
or taught a young girl how to shed tears of joy.
Whatever you did, you did not do for fame.
If you had, you would not be a Hero.
You are a Hero for your bold courageous inspired action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Reason Quotes and Sayings

Every formula of every religion has, in this age of reason,
to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Passion rules reason.
- Terry Goodkind

Life was meant to be lived,
and curiosity must be kept alive.
One must never, for whatever reason,
turn his back on life.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

The very essence of instinct is that
it's followed independently of reason.
- Charles Darwin

The only reason you suffer is because you choose to suffer.
The only reason you are happy is because you choose to be happy.
Happiness is a choice, and so is suffering.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive.
One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Common looking people are the best in the world:
that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln

There are a hundred valid reasons why something can't be done,
but only one reason, Commitment, why it can.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You know what? Maybe there's a good reason
donkeys shouldn't talk.
- the movie Shrek (2001)

One good reason to only maintain a small circle of friends
is that three out of four murders
are committed by people who know the victim.
- George Carlin

Once you respect yourself, there is no longer
any reason to disrespect anyone else.
Once you are confident of your own worthiness,
the worthiness of others ceases to be an issue.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Humor is reason gone mad.
- Groucho Marx

There's no reason to become alarmed,
and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight.
By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?
- the movie Airplane!

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
- Albert Einstein

I don't advise a haircut, man.
All hairdressers are in the employment of the government.
Hairs are your aerials.
They pick up signals from the cosmos,
and transmit them directly into the brain.
This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight.
- the movie Withnail & I

Do not seek the because -
in love there is no because,
no reason, no explanation, no solutions.
- Anais Nin

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it,
or who said it, no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense.
- The Buddha

If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry,
that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware
of having no good reason for thinking as you do.
- Bertrand Russell

Faith... must be enforced by reason...
when faith becomes blind it dies.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

I read that you should never go out with someone
if you can think of three reasons why you shouldn't.
- the movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)

The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.
- Terry Goodkind

An error does not become truth
by reason of multiplied propagation,
nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

All perception of truth
is the detection of an analogy;
we reason from our hands to our head.
- Henry David Thoreau

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes,
but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
- Alfred North Whitehead

Fear cannot be banished, but it can be calm and without panic;
it can be mitigated by reason and evaluation.
- Vannevar Bush

Fear of the unknown is
the greatest fear of humankind,
and death the greatest unknown.
Acknowledging these doubts and the fears
is a powerful beginning.
It is liberating to say,
"Yes, I don't know, and yes, I am afraid."
Beyond that, the path to happiness
lies in living in the moment -
enjoying what you are doing today.
You don't need a reason to be happy,
just a choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

I truly believe that happiness is possible...
even when you're thirty-three
and have a bottom the size of two bowling balls.
- the movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

I would rather trust a woman's instinct than a man's reason.
- Stanley Baldwin

The strongest reason for the people
to retain the right to keep and bear arms is,
as a last resort, to protect themselves
against tyranny in government.
- Thomas Jefferson

Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning
when first I considered going.
Once faced and settled there really wasn't
any good reason to refer to it.
- Amelia Earhart

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
- Thomas Jefferson

The reason why the world lacks unity,
and lies broken and in heaps,
is, because man is disunited with himself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The essence of all religions is One.
Surrender is the main duty of everyone.
Surrender means the feeling of oneness,
I and God are One. Why?
The reason is that the One
who is present in you is present in me.
- Sri Sathya Sai Baba

I am an excitable person who only
understands life lyrically, musically,
in whom feelings are much stronger as reason.
- Anais Nin

Errors of opinion may be tolerated
where reason is left free to combat it.
- Thomas Jefferson

One should always be in love.
That is the reason one should never marry.
- Oscar Wilde

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well.
They must have worked for it.
I only feel angry when I see waste.
When I see people throwing away things that we could use.
- Mother Teresa

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge,
never fearing to follow truth and reason
to whatever results they led,
and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
- Thomas Jefferson

Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance
and hypocritical humility.
I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Question with boldness even the existence of a God;
because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason,
than that of blind-folded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson

As our enemies have found, we can reason like men,
so now let us show them we can fight like men also.
- Thomas Jefferson

The reason I talk to myself is because
I'm the only one whose answers I accept.
- George Carlin

Politicians and diapers need to be changed regularly,
usually for the same reason.
- Anonymous

The word "belief" is a difficult thing for me.
I don't believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis.
Either I know a thing, and then I know it -
I don't need to believe it.
- Carl Jung

The world is indebted for all triumphs
which have been gained by reason and humanity
over error and oppression.
- Thomas Jefferson

Fix reason firmly in her seat,
and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.
Question with boldness even the existence of a God;
because, if there be one,
he must more approve of the homage of reason,
than that of blindfolded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson

People will, in a great degree,
and not without reason,
form their opinion of you upon
that which they have of your friends;
and there is a Spanish proverb
which says very justly,
"Tell me whom you live with,
and I will tell you who you are.
- Lord Chesterfield

Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic,
for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.
- Robert Lindner

You don't need a reason to be happy,
just a choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
- Benjamin Franklin [attributed]

Faith consists in believing when it is
beyond the power of reason to believe.
- Voltaire

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Today is Your Day to Dance Lightly with Life.  It Really Is.
      - Jonathan Lockwood Huie