A Quote by Johannes Scotus Eriugena
Authority that is not confirmed by true reason seems weak. Whereas true reason does not need to be confirmed by any authority.
Related Quotes
For authority proceeds from true reason, but reason certainly does not proceed from authority. For every authority which is not upheld by true reason is seen to be weak, whereas true reason is kept firm and immutable by her own powers and does not require to be confirmed by the assent of any authority.
The Soviet State does not need either illusions or camouflage. It can claim only that world authority which is confirmed by the facts.
...[sacred] doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made. Nor does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest.
There are those, of course, who deny that they need any form of authority. They are the popular atheists and agnostics. Such men say that they must be shown by 'reason' whatever they are to accept as true. But the great thinkers among non-Christian men have taken no such position. They know that they cannot cover the whole area of reality with their knowledge.
In earlier religions the spirit of the time was expressed through the individual and confirmed by miracles. In modern religions the spirit is expressed through the many and confirmed by reason.
Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.
Do not banish reason for inequality; but let your reason serve to make the truth appear where it seems hid, and hide the false seems true.
In my opinion, it helps enormously to know why something is true, rather than being told it is true, for why should you believe me? Never believe anything on the authority of a single person but seek confirmation - and reason is the best confirmation.
My reason, it's true, controls my feelings, but whatever its authority, it doesn't rule them so much as tyrannize them.
Part of the reason images of women in positions of authority are marked by their gender is that the very notion of authority is associated with maleness.
Some people think that in order to lead a morally decent life one may sometimes have to forego the possibility of having a good life oneself. Even if that is true, it does not render morality incredible, but it does raise a question about morality's authority: about what one has most reason to do when one is faced with a conflict of this kind.
Authority is by nothing so much strengthened and confirmed as by custom; for no man easily distrusts the things which he and all men have been always bred up to.
There's a slippery slope in regard to authority. If you say that the history in Genesis is not true, then you can just take man's ideas as true. When you go outside of Scripture, why shouldn't you just reinterpret what marriage means? So our emphasis is on the slippery slope regarding authority.
How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.
I have a strong antipathy to everything connected with gardens, gardening and gardeners. . . . Gardening seems to me a kind of admission of defeat. . . . Man was made for better things than pruning his rose trees. The state of mind of the confirmed gardener seems to me as reprehensible as that of the confirmed alcoholic. Both have capitulated to the world. Both have become lotus eaters and drifters.
A press that has validity is a press that has authority. And as soon as there's any authority to what the press says, you question the authority of the government - it's like the existence of another authority.
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