Quotes & Sayings About Unreasonable Man

To me it seems not unreasonable to find a re-enforcement of optimism, a renewal of courage and hope, in the modern theory that man has mounted to what he is from the lowest step of potentiality, through toilsome grades of ever-expanding existence, even thought it have been by a spiral stairway, mainly dark or dusty, with loop-holes at long intervals only, and these granting but a narrow and one-sided view. — James Russell Lowell

The 4th Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion. — Potter Stewart

He is an honorable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man. — Charles Dickens

A man who would contract the mumps,' declared Cecilia, 'would do anything!' Lady Ombersley saw nothing unreasonable in this pronouncement, nor was she surprised that his lordship's unromantic behaviour had given Cecilia a distaste for him. She — Georgette Heyer

It is unreasonable ... to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life. — Baron De Montesquieu

It is not seldom the case that when a man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in his
own plainest faith.
He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that, wonderful
as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side.
Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns to them
for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind. — Herman Melville

The abusive man's high entitlement leads him to have unfair and unreasonable expectations, so that the relationship revolves around his demands. His attitude is: "You owe me." For each ounce he gives, he wants a pound in return. He wants his partner to devote herself fully to catering to him, even if it means that her own needs - or her children's - get neglected. You can pour all your energy into keeping your partner content, but if he has this mind-set, he'll never be satisfied for long. And he will keep feeling that you are controlling him, because he doesn't believe that you should set any limits on his conduct or insist that he meet his responsibilities. — Lundy Bancroft

Presumably the car at the gate was Matt, the man who would work over Priss, head to toes. Even from a distance, Matt looked flamboyant with bleached-blond hair, dark shades and a purple convertible.
It was unreasonable and it made little sense, but because he'd be working on Priss, Trace disliked him on sight. — Lori Foster

It is not sufficient to live, there must be a destiny that does not have to wait for death. It is therefore
justifiable to say that man has an idea of a better world than this. But better does not mean different, it
means unified. This passion which lifts the mind above the commonplaces of a dispersed world, from
which it nevertheless cannot free itself, is the passion for unity. It does not result in mediocre efforts to
escape, however, but in the most obstinate demands. Religion or crime, every human endeavor in fact,
finally obeys this unreasonable desire and claims to give life a form it does not have. The same impulse,
which can lead to the adoration of the heavens or the destruction of man, also leads to creative literature,
which derives its serious content from this source. — Albert Camus

Why? Why this unreasonable anger at the sight of others who are happy or content, this growing contempt for people and the desire to hurt them? All right, you think they're fools, you despise them because their morals, their happiness is the source of your frustration and resentment. But these are dreadful enemies you carry within yourself - in time destructive as bullets. Mercifully, a bullet kills its victim. This other bacteria, permitted to age, does not kill a man but leaves in its wake the hulk of a creature torn and twisted; there is still fire within his being but it is kept alive by casting upon it faggots of scorn and hate. He may successfully accumulate, but he does not accumulate success, for he is his own enemy and is kept from truly enjoying his achievements." Perry, — Truman Capote

Patience is a most necessary qualification for business; many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request. One must seem to hear the unreasonable demands of the petulant, unmoved, and the tedious details of the dull, untired. That is the least price that a man must pay for a high station. — Bill Vaughan

The fatal errors of life are not due to man's being unreasonable: an unreasonable moment may be one's finest moment. They are due to man's being logical. — Oscar Wilde

Man is a rational animal. But that does not mean that he is a reasonable animal. It means only that he has reason, and therefore can misuse it. If he had not reason, he could not be unreasonable. But he has, and is. — Frank Sheed

It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox,) virtually and substantially a monarchy. — Alexander Fraser Tytler

Euripides was wont to say, silence was an answer to a wise man; but we seem to have greater occasion for it in our dealing with fools and unreasonable persons; for men of breeding and sense will be satisfied with reason and fair words. — Plutarch

What is this spirit in man that urges him forever to depart from happiness and security, to toil, to place himself in danger, even to risk a reasonable certainty of death? It dawned upon me up there in the moon as a thing I ought always to have known, that man is not made simply to go about being safe and comfortable and well fed and amused. Against his interest, against his happiness he is constantly being driven to do unreasonable things. Some force not himself impels him and go he must. — H.G.Wells

Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health? — Petrarch

Why had we come to the moon? The thing presented itself to me as a perplexing problem. What is this spirit in man that urges him for ever to depart from happiness and security, to toil, to place himself in danger, to risk an even a reasonable certainty of death? It dawned upon me that there in the moon as a thing I ought always to have known, that man is not made to go about safe and comfortable and well fed and amused ... against his interest, against his happiness, he is constantly being driven to do unreasonable things. Some force not himself impels him, and he must go. — H.G.Wells

The feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear evidence of truth, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome doctrines, as to a health-giving medicine, until it obtained from God, by its faith and piety, the grace needed to heal it, they who have just ideas, and express them in suitable language, would need to use no long discourse to refute the errors of empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is now more prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to man, they hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies, either on account of their great blindness, which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which prevents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see. — Augustine Of Hippo

I like to think of myself as a reasonable man. But I have buried too many friends in the too-recent past, and I have seen too many lies go unquestioned, and too many questions go unasked. There is a time when even reasonable men must begin to take unreasonable actions. To do anything else is to be less than human. — Mira Grant

It would be stupid tameness, and unaccountable folly, for whole nations to suffer one unreasonable, ambitious and cruel man, to wanton and riot in their misery. — Jonathan Mayhew

A proof is that which convinces a reasonable man; a rigorous proof is that which convinces an unreasonable man. — Mark Kac

Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. — Albert Camus

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. — George Bernard Shaw

... man has an idea of a better world than this. But better does not mean different, it means unified ... Religion or crime, every human endeavor in fact, finally obeys this unreasonable desire and claims to give life a form it does not have. — Albert Camus

It is an impertinent and unreasonable fault in conversation for one man to take up all the discourse. — Richard Steele

They thought I was stubborn. In the strict sense of the word there is no such thing as a stubborn insane person...When one possessed of the power of recognizing his own errors continues to hold an unreasonable belief-that is stubbornness. But for a man bereft of reason to adhere to an idea which to him seems absolutely correct and true because he has been deprived of the means of detecting his error- that is not stubbornness. It is a symptom of his disease, and merits the indulgence of forbearance, if not genuine sympathy. — Clifford Whittingham Beers

You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years. — Bertrand Russell

There is simply no comparison between a man who is armed and one who is not. It is simply unreasonable to expect that an armed man should obey one who is unarmed, or that an unarmed man should remain safe and secure when his servants are armed. — Niccolo Machiavelli

If one listens one may be convinced; and a man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person — Oscar Wilde

When the Spaniards persecuted heretics they may have been crude, but they were not being unreasonable or unpractical. They were at least wiser than the people of to-day who pretend that it does not matter what a man believes, as who should say that the flavour and digestibility of a pudding will have nothing to do with its ingredients. — Rebecca West

The reasonable man will adjust to the demands of his environment. The unreasonable man expects his environment to adjust to his own needs. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man. — George Bernard Shaw

[On the ancient Venus figurines:] If the central religious figure was a woman giving birth and not, as in our time, a man dying on a cross, it would not be unreasonable to infer that life and the love of life - rather than death and the fear of death - were dominant in society as well as art. — Riane Eisler

If I were a blind man and were told by you that you possess a faculty called sight, I should be unreasonable if I railed at you as a conceited enthusiast. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Mr. Ellison is that unreasonable man that possesses the ostranenie effect-- he has a keen eye to see the simplest things and make them profound, and make simple minded people see deeply into mundane topics- bringing a philosophical charm to even politics.

No man, not even a semi-god lived an entire life without making a mistake and the fact that Mr. Ellison has lived a life so grandiose with such few errors, is a testament and a plaque to the big person he is. — Avra Amar Filion

A reasonable man adjusts himself to the world. An unreasonable man expects the world to adjust itself to him. Therefore all progress is made by unreasonable people. — Confucius

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. — William Lane Craig

It is easy to criticize and find fault with the conduct of kings, and write furious articles against them in newspapers, or make violent speeches about them on platforms. Any fool can rip and rend a costly garment, but not every man can cut out and make one. To expect perfection in kings, prime ministers, or rulers of any king, is senseless and unreasonable. We would exhibit more wisdom if we prayed for them more, and criticized less. — J.C. Ryle

It is unreasonable to expect all children to develop correctly in unnatural man-made electromagnetic radiation fields. — Steven Magee

Dada aimed to destroy the reasonable deceptions of man and recover the natural and unreasonable order. — Hans Arp

I call a man awake who knows in his conscious reason his innermost unreasonable forces, drives, and weaknesses and knows how to deal with them. — Hermann Hesse

Gilbert would never have dreamed of writing a sonnet to her eyebrows. But then, Gilbert could see a joke. She had once told Roy a funny story - and he had not seen the point of it. She recalled the chummy laugh she and Gilbert had had together over it, and wondered uneasily if life with a man who had no sense of humor might not be somewhat uninteresting in the long run. But who could expect a melancholy, inscrutable hero to see the humorous side of things? It would be flatly unreasonable. — L.M. Montgomery

You see, it is a very dangerous thing to listen. If one listens one may be convinced; and a man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person. lady basildon. — Oscar Wilde

I think when a man first discovers that two and two is four, there is 'beauty' in that; and we can see why. But if people stand and look at the moon and one says 'I think it's just beautiful tonight' and the other says 'The moon makes me feel awful' we are both 'clear'. A geometric shape - we know why we like it; and an unreasonable shape; it has a certain mystery that we recognize as real; but it is difficult to put these things in an objective way. — William Baziotes

No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong
only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again. — Plato

Christianity claims that the supernatural is as reasonable as the natural, that man himself is supernatural as truly as he is natural, and that the Bible is so clearly the word of God by proofs that are unanswerable, that it is unreasonable to disbelieve its divine truths. — Abbott Eliot Kittredge

Require nothing unreasonable of your officers and men, but see that whatever is required be punctually complied with. Reward and punish every man according to his merit, without partiality or prejudice; hear his complaints; if well founded, redress them; if otherwise, discourage them, in order to prevent frivolous ones. Discourage vice in every shape, and impress upon the mind of every man, from the first to the lowest, the importance of the cause, and what it is they are contending for. — George Washington

Look," he said, "I am superior to you only in one point: I'm awake, whereas you are only half awake, or completely asleep sometimes. I call a man awake who knows in his conscious reason his innermost unreasonable force, drives, and weaknesses and knows how to deal with them. For you to learn that about yourself is the potential reason for your having met me. — Hermann Hesse

Be selfish, be unreasonable, and don't worry about it. We're girls, so we are allowed. Being a girl is a privilege, and we should take full advantage of that fact. We have the right and the duty to act as we please. But a boy who makes a girl cry is worthless and he brings shame into the romance and makes it untrue. — CLAMP

If you are worried about the people outside, the most unreasonable thing you can do is remain outside yourself. Christians are Christ's body ... every addition to that body enables Him to do more. If you want to help those outside you must add your own little cell to the body of Christ who along can help them. Cutting off a man's fingers would be a odd way of getting him to do more work. — C.S. Lewis