A Quote by Philip Rieff
Reason cannot save us, nothing can; but reason can mitigate the cruelty of living.
Related Quotes
Fragile as reason is and limited as law is as the institutionalised medium of reason, that's all we have between us and the tyranny of mere will and the cruelty of unbridled, undisciplined feelings.
Nothing shocks our moral feelings so deeply as cruelty does. We can forgive every other crime, but not cruelty. The reason for this is that it is the very opposite of compassion.
I do believe I begin to grasp the nature of miracles! For would it be a miracle, if there was any reason for it? Miracles have nothing to do with reason. Miracles contradict reason, they strike clean across mere human deserts, and deliver and save where they will. If they made sense, they would not be miracles.
There are two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason. The supreme achievement of reason is to realise that there is a limit to reason. Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realise that.
Why, the only reason for religion is that it can make you, keep you safe. If religion weren't true, then there would be no salvation, no comfort for being alive and alone, there would be nothing but living and dying - no, that cannot be so ... of course religion is true and will save me.
There is no reason not to love. There is no reason not to be joyous. There is no reason not to celebrate because all of this means nothing, absolutely nothing. So why not be happy?
The reason that so many of us cannot save money is because of our friends. They're always buying something we can't afford.
I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.
If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.
There are subjects where reason cannot take us far and we have to accept things on faith. Faith then does not contradict reason but transcends it. Faith is a kind of sixth sense which works in cases which are without the purview of reason.
Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.
He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; and he that dares not reason is a slave.
The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.
If it's stress of things that we cannot control, what you have to do is you mitigate that stress as much as possible. You've planned, you've trained, you've done everything you can in your power to mitigate the stress that's facing you. And then after that, there's nothing you can do. So, you have to let that one go.
Your distress about life might mean you have been living for the wrong reason, not that you have no reason for living.
God gave us reason. He gave us the ability to reason and also have faith and I think that reason and faith go together. I don't think that they're opposed. I think we've reached the point where we need to look at modern superstitions and hold them up to the light of reason and accountability.
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