R

Reason
Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct.
BRADLEY, FRANCIS HERBERT
She just wore enough for modesty—no more.
BUCHANAN, ROBERT WILLIAMS
For every why he had a wherefore.
BUTLER, SAMUEL
He knew what’s what, and that’s as high As metaphysics wit can fly.
BUTLER, SAMUEL
All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they die.
CORY, WILLIAM JOHNSON
A reliable general is better than a dashing one.
EURIPIDES
Errors of opinion may be tolerated when reason is left free to combat it.
JEFFERSON, THOMAS
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL
Sir, I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers; one, that I have lost all the names, the other, that I have spent all the money.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL
This is my wish, thus I command. Let my will take the place of reason.
JUVENAL
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
PASCAL, BLAISE
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
POPE, ALEXANDER
Happy he who has been able to learn the causes of things.
VIRGIL
Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?
WARD, ARTEMUS
A crow always thinks with its sympathy, never with its reason.
William Alger
Ethics make one’s soul mannerly and wise, but logic is the armory of reason, furnished with all offensive and defensive weapons.
Thomas Fuller
A man always has two reasons for what he does—a good one, and the real one.
J. Pierpont Morgan
Reform
Always verify your references.
ROUTH, MARTIN JOSEPTH
The voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve.
Thomas Macaulay
The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves.
George Bernard Shaw
Regulation
No rule is so general, which admits not some exception.
Robert Burton
The general rule, at least, is that while property may be regulated to certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
It is hardly lack of due process for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizers.
Robert H. Jackson
Every system should allow loopholes and exceptions, for if it does not, it will in the end crush all that is best in man.
Bertrand Russell
Religion
Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but live for it.
COLTON, CHARLES CALEB
A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery; but depth in that study brings him about again to our religion.
FULLER, THOMAS
Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life.
MELBOURNE, WILLIAM LAMB
The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling and even more beautiful is knowing that you are the reason behind it. Be a reason for others to smile.
MOTHER TERESA
Republic
The gallery in which the reporters sit has become of fourth estate of the realm.
MACAULAY, THOMAS
The Republic needed to be passed through chastening, purifying fires of adversity and suffering: so these came and did their work and the verdure of a new national like springs greenly, luxuriantly, from their ashes.
Horace Greeley
Responsibility
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
Albert Einstein
There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
(The earth) belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.
John Ruskin
The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world
John Winthrop
Revenge
Revenge is a kind of wild justice.
BACON, FRANCIS
It costs more to revenge (Injuries) than to bear them.
WILSON, THOMAS
Remedy
The remedy is worse than the disease.
ACON, FRANCIS
Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what’s done is done.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Revolution
A crank is little thing that makes revolutions.
GEORGE V
Revolutions are not made with rose-water.
LYTTON, Lord
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy
….we live in an era of revolution—the revolution of rising expectations.
Adlai E. Stevenson
Rich
Rich and rare were the gems she wore,
And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore.
MOORE, THOMAS
Riches are for spending, and spending for honour and good actions therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occas.
Francis Bacon
This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.
John F. Kennedy
I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from gettiny rich; it would do more harm than good.
Abraham Lincoln
Right
No question is ever settled
Until it is settled right.
WILCOX, ELLA WHEELER
God alone can take life because He alone gives it.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
MARK TWAIN
To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage.
Confucius
You may burn my body to ashes, and scatter them to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the regions of darkness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will never get me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right.
Abraham Lincoln
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Abraham Lincoln
Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen.
Peter Marshall
Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong.
Daniel O’connell
Aggresive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.
Theodore Roosevelt
My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
Carl Schurz
The greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong.
Harry Weinberger