Without Any Reason Quotes & Sayings

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself. — Eleanor Roosevelt

But I can be alone without Yoko, but I just have no wish to be. There's no reason on earth why I should be alone without Yoko. There's nothing more important than our relationship, nothing. And we dig being together all the time. Both of us could survive apart but what for? I'm not going to sacrifice love, real love for any whore or any friend or any business, because in the end you're alone at night and neither of us want to be. And you can't fill a bed with groupies. It doesn't work. I don't want to be a swinger. I've been through it all and nothing works better than to have someone you love hold you. — John Lennon

But the fact is that the Bible itself is the grandest of grand stories, yet it prizes truth and reason without being modernist, and it prizes countless stories within its overall story without being postmodern either. In short, the Bible is both rational and experiential, propositional as well as relational, so that genuinely biblical arguments work in any age and with any person. — Os Guinness

[I] wish that the land-tax went a little more according to situation than it does. 'Tis really ridiculous, how one has to pay five times as much as another, without any reason that ever I heard tell. — Harriet Martineau

I go out of my way to make sure you don't have any reason to feel jealous, but when you do get possessive, I like it. I want you to fight for me. I want you to care that much. I want you crazy about me. But possessiveness without trust is hell. If you don't trust me, we've got nothing. — Sylvia Day

Metaphysics ... is nothing but the inventory of all we possess through pure reason, ordered systematically. Nothing here can escape us, because what reason brings forth entirely out of itself cannot be hidden, but is brought to light by reason itself as soon as reason's common principle has been discovered. The perfect unity of this kind of cognition, and the fact that it arises solely out of pure concepts without any influence that would extend or increase it from experience or even particular intuition, which would lead to a determinate experience, make this unconditioned completeness not only feasible but also necessary. Tecum habita, et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex. Dwell in your own house, and you will know how simple your possessions are. - Persius — Immanuel Kant

As to freedom, it is cherished, it is hard to come by, it is hard to hang on to. But freedom without responsibility is chaos, so to those who push the idea that freedom would allow an individual to do anything, anywhere, at any time, I reject, your freedom ends where my ability to raise my family safely begins. So I would urge every American to vaccinate their children and I would reject any effort to stop vaccinations until someone can show me a scientific reason to do so. — Lindsey Graham

Death gives a reason to our lives. More important then that, death creates a special value for time. If our time on earth was undetermined, life on its own wouldn't make any sense and probably we would still be living without clothes and with a spear on hand. Death is the most powerful agent in nature, it comes to take away the old and make space for the new. Our effort to avoid it and make our short stay here something slightly memorable is what motivates us. Life only exists because of death. — Marilena Chaui

We have to accept that any action we take might promote an equal and opposite reaction that we do not want. We have to realize that even the most noble actions or most obviously correct course can have its dark side that we cannot control or reason our way out of. The fighter of the "just war" must understand that her actions will result in the deaths of other humans; many of whom may be innocent. The pacifist who refuses all war must realize that his inaction might likewise result in the deaths of the innocent. There are no actions without contradiction
and yet we must act, for not to act is also a contradictory action with both positive and negative effects. — John Hunter

I also know that I won't go forth and have children just in case I might regret missing it later in life; I don't think this is a strong enough motivation to bring more babies onto the earth. Though I suppose people do reproduce sometimes for that reason - for insurance against later regret. I think people have children for all manner of reasons- sometimes out of pure desire to nurture and witness life, sometimes out of an absence of choice, sometimes without thinking about it in any particular way. Not all the reasons to have children are the same, and not all of them are necessarily unselfish. Not all the reasons not to have children are the same, either, though. Nor are all those reasons necessarily selfish. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Hobbes is not an absolutist precisely because he is an authoritarian. His scepticism about the power of reasoning, which applied no less to the 'artificial reason' of the Sovereign than to the reasoning of the natural man, together with the rest of his individualism, separate him from the rationalist dictators of his or any age. Indeed, Hobbes, without being himself a liberal, had in him more of the philosophy of liberalism than most of its professed defenders — Efraim Podoksik

Now I should rather suppose there is no reason for it: it is the fashion to be unhappy. To have a reason for being so would be exceedingly commonplace: to be so without any is the province of genius. — Thomas Love Peacock

Laugh every day for five minutes, without any reason, then repeat it for 21 days straight and it will become your habit to do. — Catherine B. Roy

Most people blindly accept the fact that gaining money is essential for survival, without questioning its nature. The truth is, our current monetary system is the reason that humanity is in such a devastating state, the reason that the world is so full of corruption. Our monetary system has been limiting the potential of human beings for centuries.
Inventions that benefit humanity are hidden or destroyed because they are not profitable, or because they interfere with the business of corporations. The supreme goal of modern man is to obtain wealth, because he believes that material things will bring him happiness. He invests the majority of his time and energy into gaining money at any cost. The accumulation of wealth has contributed to man's greed and selfishness. Earning money is more important to him than being a good person, benefiting humanity, and even life itself. — Joseph P. Kauffman

Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. — Richard Dawkins

The only real reason for self-referencing is the fun factor. It's fun for the writer, getting little peeks at what old characters might be up to. And it's fun for readers to spot a familiar face, or pick up on a made-up book title or something from an earlier story. I don't know that it does
or even should
contribute to the story in hand being any better than it would have been without it. — Charles De Lint

And what of my extended family-birds, beasts, and reptiles? They too have drowned. Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed. And I am allowed no explanation? I am to suffer hell without any account from heaven? In that case, what is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities-the getting of food, clothing and shelter? Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch? (pg. 98) — Yann Martel

The German Luftwaffe always fought without any reserves. This is also the reason why we have pilots with extremely high numbers of victories. — Adolf Galland

The king and queen were usually present, and the king or the dauphin would light a pyre. The cats were then tumbled into the flames from an overhead basket, and the crowd reveled in their cries. "Certainly this is not really a worse spectacle than the burning of heretics, or the torturings and public executions of every kind," Elias writes. "It only appears worse because the joy in torturing living creatures shows itself so nakedly and purposelessly, without any excuse before reason. The revulsion aroused in us by the mere report of the institution, a reaction which must be taken as 'normal' for the present-day standard of affect control, demonstrates once again the long term change of personality structure." 15 Elias argued that — Nicholas Wade

The most common reason new mothers return to work sooner than they'd like to is because they can't afford to go without their salaries any longer. — Alexa Von Tobel

You would probably think that rock music is an urban phenomena, but the main reason for doing it in '68 was so that we could play music very loud any time of the day or night without getting complaints from the neighbours. — Steve Winwood

You're more than Dauntless," he says in a low voice. "But if you want to be just like them, hurling yourself into ridiculous situations for no reason and retaliating against your enemies without any regard for what's ethical, go right ahead. I thought you were better than that, but maybe I was wrong. — Veronica Roth

Anything can happen for some weird reason; yet also, without any reason, nothing at all can happen. — Reza Negarestani

Fear had absorbed her completely and remained there, fixed, tenacious, almost corporeal, as if it were some invisible person who had made up his mind not to leave the room. And the most upsetting part was that the fear had no justification at all, that it was a unique fear, without any reason, a fear just because. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Though reason must guide us in laying down standards and laws regarding animals, and in examining the arguments of those who reject such standards, it is usually best in any moral inquiry to start with the original motivation, which in the case of animals we may without embarrassment call love. Human beings love animals as only the higher love the lower, the knowing love the innocent, and the strong love the vulnerable. When we wince at the suffering of animals, that feeling speaks well of us even when we ignore it, and those who dismiss love for our fellow creatures as mere sentimentality overlook a good and important part of our humanity. — Matthew Scully

Without any reason or expectation, love someone today and feel the joy of life. — Debasish Mridha

Happiness is not something we can find. Happiness is a state of being. It is a choice we make at any particular moment. It is a feeling we can choose without any reason. — Raphael Zernoff

I have spent a lifetime looking for remedies to all manner of life's problems
personal, social, political, global. I am deeply suspicious of those who offer simple solutions and statements of absolute certainty or who claim full possession of the truth. Yet I have grown equally skeptical of those who suggest that all is too nuanced and complex for us to learn any lessons, that there are so many sides to every thing that we can pursue knowledge every day of our lives and still know nothing for sure. I believe we can recognize truth when we see it, just not a first and not without ever relenting in our efforts to learn more. This is because the goal we seek, and the good we hope for, comes not as some final reward but as the hidden companion to our quest. It is not what we find, but the reason we cannot stop looking and striving, that tells us why we are here. — Madeleine K. Albright

Don't think I don't worry about what I'm missing out on. Don't think I'm not haunted knowing that I might be missing out on things that I'd much prefer not to be missing out on. I am haunted, Betsy. You think I alienate myself from society? Of course I alienate myself from society. It's the only way I know of not being constantly reminded of all the ways I'm alienated from society. That doesn't mean I have anything against other people. Envy them? Of course. Marvel at them? Constantly. Secretly study them? Every day. I just don't get any closer to understanding them. And liking something you don't understand, estranged from it without reason, longing to commune with it - who'd ask for it? — Joshua Ferris

You've got to understand one of the tricks of the modern mind, a tendency that most people obey without noticing it. In the village or suburb outside there's an inn with the sign of St. George and the Dragon. Now suppose I went about telling everybody that this was only a corruption of King George and the Dragoon. Scores of people would believe it, without any inquiry, from a vague feeling that it's probable because it's prosaic. It turns something romantic and legendary into something recent and ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority. That's exactly what has happened here. — G.K. Chesterton

Intelligent men do not decide any subject until they have carefully examined both or all sides of it. Fools, cowards, and those too lazy to think, accept blindly, without examination, dogmas and doctrines imposed upon them in childhood by their parents, priests, and teachers, when their minds were immature and they could not reason. — James Hervey Johnson

Look, all I'm asking you to consider is that you have the power to change things. What if the reason you were given that power is to defend those without any? Both from external and internal harm. Like a shieldmaiden for your people. — Mary Weber

the most certain sciences are like things lit up by the sun so that they may be seen. But it is God who gives the light. Reason is in our minds as sight in our eyes, and the eyes of the mind are the senses of the soul. Now, however pure it be, bodily sense cannot see any visible thing without the light of the sun. Hence, however perfect be the human mind, it cannot by reasoning know any truth without the light of God, which belongs to the aid of grace. — Keith A. Mathison

But for some reason I feel icky inside, like I should write a letter of explanation and maybe print out a boyfriend permission slip for Levi to sign.
I, Levi Andrews, give my explicit permission for one Pixie Marshall to date whomever she wishes without any feelings that might resemble guilt or betrayal or awkward confusion. Signed, Levi Andrews, platonic third party in all Pixie Marshall-related endeavors and keeper of the east wing hot water. — Chelsea Fine

And those who were seen smiling without any reason were thought to be insane by those who could not feel the love that existed in the air! — Anamika Mishra

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common. — John Locke

I think for me in terms of this kind of dichotomy you have to hold the sense of negative capability in your mind - which is Keats line about being able to hold two different ideas 'without any irritable reach after fact or reason.' — Anne Waldman

Back then, living hadn't had any meaning. Every so often, without any warning or any real reason, he'd even caught himself thinking, 'Maybe I'll try dying.' He'd had one foot in the world of the dead, and yet the other foot had been chained to the world of the living, and he couldn't pull it out; he'd just looed on disinterestedly, sort of like it was all happening on the other side of some window, as the dull, vague world passed him by. Never making any more to walk out into it himself. Somewhere along the way, though, he'd stopped thinking about trying to die. He wondered when that had happened. — Yukako Kabei

I believe that it is possible for one to praise, without concern, any man after he is dead since every reason and supervision for adulation is lacking. — Niccolo Machiavelli

I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did. It has always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this reason, I retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise I got, the more I tried to deserve. — Charles Dickens

Reason is just as cunning as she is powerful. Her cunning consists principally in her mediating activity, which, by causing objects to act and re-act on each other in accordance with their own nature, in this way, without any direct interference in the process, carries out reason's intentions. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

There are things a person does without any reason, without any second thought, maybe they do not hold grudges for long, maybe they just forgive, and there is something strange about that type of person. I admire them. — Shaikh Ashraf

Oh, you don't know what this means to me," he said brokenly at last. "I hadn't any picture of him. And I'm not like other folks . . . I can't recall a face . . . I can't see faces as most folks can in their mind. It's been awful since the Little Fellow died. . . . I couldn't even remember what he looked like. And now you've brought me this . . . after I was so rude to you. Sit down . . . sit down. I wish I could express my thanks in some way. I guess you've saved my reason . . . maybe my life. Oh, miss, isn't it like him? You'd think he was going to speak. My dear Little Fellow! How am I going to live without him? I've nothing to live for now. First his mother . . . now him. — L.M. Montgomery

So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: and whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience. — David Hume

I don't have kids or even that many friends, but if I did, I'd want my lasting impression on them to be this: Every life matters, but never one more than another. Sometimes silence holds more meaning than words. And love ... it's infinitely impossible to define, but unequivocally, without any doubt, the reason we are here. — Jewel E. Ann

Conscious In psychodynamics, the adjective "conscious" takes the form of a noun and becomes "the conscious." Animals and even plants may be said to have a type of conscious. In fact, all matter has an internal and external manifestation. The internal manifestation is a rudimentary conscious. It is not really internal because this term is a spatial reference similar to in and out. In contrast, consciousness itself (consciousness without content) transcends space and time. For this reason, the conscious is not an object that can be detected and dissected in the same way that the brain can be detected and dissected. It is a manifestation of reality that is unrelated to physical matter and energy. Any system that has some kind of rudimentary, connected, and organized processing is conscious on some level. We may even say that subatomic systems, such as ones making up an atom, are rudimentarily conscious. — John G. Shobris

The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs ... In fact, the Athanasian paradox that one is three, and three but one, is so incomprehensible to the human mind, that no candid man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea? He who thinks he does, only deceives himself. He proves, also, that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.
[Letter to James Smith discussing Jefferson's hate of the doctrine of the Christian trinity, December 8 1822] — Thomas Jefferson

Negative Capacity, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason. — Hyder Edward Rollins

If we can live and prosper without killing, why would we not do so? I do not see veganism as 'extreme' in any way. I see killing for no reason as extreme in every way. — Gary L. Francione

It's nice to be able to be whoever you want to be. I moved to New York for that reason. I think I am a very good example of how you really can do whatever you want to do without having any kind of prerequisite experience of any of kind of connection. None of my family members came from this world. — Jason Wu

God is lovingly guiding our lives, and we can be confident of His authority over any situation we may face. He never allows anything to happen without a reason. — Teresa Santoski

I don't want to be an alarmist, but I think that the Younger Generation is up to something ... I base my apprehension on nothing more definite than the fact that they are always coming in and going out of the house, without any apparent reason. — Robert Benchley

One reason why people are unable to understand great Christian classics is that they are trying to understand without any intention of obeying them. — J. Oswald Sanders

If only one country, for whatever reason, tolerates a Jewish family in it, that family will become the germ center for fresh sedition. If one little Jewish boy survives without any Jewish education, with no synagogue and no Hebrew school, it [Judaism] is in his soul. Even if there had never been a synagogue or a Jewish school or an Old Testament, the Jewish spirit would still exist and exert its influence. It has been there from the beginning and there is no Jew, not a single one, who does not personify it. — Adolf Hitler

A young professor I watched in action at one of our large eastern colleges used to stand with his back to the class and mumble explanations of blackboard problems. He was "let out" at the end of two years because students refused to attend his classes. He was given an evasive reason for his dismissal and he left with justifiable bitterness toward the administration. If someone had told him the truth he could have avoided this denouement. Sometimes professors go on for years without any conception of remediable faults which irritate their listeners. — Mary Barnett Gilson

In a cute relationship you will always have cutest fights without any reason — Pawan Mehra

The reason why I take my life is because I want to go to my wife and boy. My usefulness in this world is at an end. I can not be satisfied in any business and can not be without their companionship. — Alex Campbell

For human reason, without any instigations imputable to the mere vanity of great knowledge, unceasingly progresses, urged on by its own feeling of need, towards such questions as cannot be answered by any empirical application of reason, or principles derived therefrom; and so there has ever really existed in every man some system of metaphysics. — Immanuel Kant

Love doesn't occur it just happens, We start loving without any reason,It gives a pain when we love someone but you love loves else,My love is enough for both but will remain incomplete without you, Love you baby will love till my last breath. — Debolina Bhawal

He sat there among them, listened to the buzz of their conversation. He was captivated by them. In that racket every voice touched a key in his soul. He didn't understand life. He had no conception of why he had been born into the world. As he saw it, anyone to whose lot fell this adventure, the purpose of which was unknown but the end of which was annihilation, that person was absolved from all responsibility and had the right to do as he pleased - for example, to lie full length in the street and begin to moan without any reason - without deserving the slightest censure. But precisely because he considered his life as a whole an incomprehensible thing, he understood its little details individually - every person without exception, every elevated and lowly point of view, every concept - and those he assimilated at once. — Dezso Kosztolanyi

For those few like me who live without knowing how to have life, what's left but renunciation as our way and contemplation as our destiny? Not knowing nor able to know what religious life is, since faith isn't acquired through reason, and unable to have faith in or even react to the abstract notion of man, we're left with the aesthetic contemplation of life as our reason for having a soul. Impassive to the solemnity of any and all worlds, indifferent to the divine, and disdainers of what is human, we uselessly surrender ourselves to pointless sensation, cultivated in a refined Epicureanism, as befits our cerebral nerves. — Fernando Pessoa

Even the best of men in authority are liable to be corrupted by passion. We may conclude then that the law is reason without passion, and it is therefore preferable to any individual. — Aristotle.

The snow has not yet left the earth, but spring is already asking to enter your heart. If you have ever recovered from a serious illness, you will be familiar with the blessed state when you are in a delicious state of anticipation, and are liable to smile without any obvious reason. Evidently that is what nature is experiencing just now. The ground is cold, mud and snow squelches under foot, but how cheerful, gentle and inviting everything is! The air is so clear and transparent that if you were to climb to the top of the pigeon loft or the bell tower, you feel you might actually see the whole universe from end to end. The sun is shining brightly, and its playful, beaming rays are bathing in the puddles along with the sparrows. The river is swelling and darkening; it has already woken up and very soon will begin to roar. The trees are bare, but they are already living and breathing. — Anton Chekhov

Human nature has nevertheless been changed by the ever new appearance of these teachers of the purpose of existence: It now has one additional need - the need for the ever new appearance of such teachers and teachings of a "purpose." Gradually, man has become a fantastic animal that has to fulfill one more condition of existence than any other animal: man has to believe, to know, from time to time why he exists; his race cannot flourish without a periodic trust in life - without faith in reason in life. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Today he felt life, youth, people slipping away from him, without being able to hold on to any of them, left with the blind hope that this obscure force that for so many years had raised him above the daily routine, nourished him unstintingly, and been equal to the most difficult circumstances
that, as it had with endless generosity given him reason to live, it would also give him reason to grow old and die without rebellion. — Albert Camus

Mma Ramotswe found it difficult to imagine what it would be like to have no people. There were, she knew, those who had no others in this life, who had no uncles, or aunts, or distant cousins of any degree; people who were just themselves. Many white people were like that, for some unfathomable reason; they did not seem to want to have people and were happy to be just themselves. How lonely they must be
like spacemen deep in space, floating in darkness, but without even that silver, unfurling cord that linked the astronauts to their little metal womb of oxygen and warmth. For a moment, she indulged the metaphor, and imagined the tiny white van in space, slowly spinning against a background of stars and she, Mma Ramotswe, of the No. 1 Ladies' Space Agency, floating weightless, head over heels, tied to the tiny white van with a thin washing line. — Alexander McCall Smith

It was not guilt that froze me. I had taught myself never to feel guilt
It was not a ghastly sense of loss that froze me. I had taught myself to covet nothing.
It was not a loathing of death that froze me. I had taught myself to think of death as a friend.
It was not heartbroken rage against injustice that froze me. I had taught myself that a human being might as well took for diamond tiaras in the gutter as for rewards and punishments that were fair.
It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love.
It was not the thought that God was cruel that froze me. I had taught myself never to expect anything from Him.
What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. — Kurt Vonnegut

Every television program must be a complete package in itself. No previous knowledge is to be required. There must not be even a hint that learning is hierarchical, that it is an edifice constructed on a foundation. The learner must be allowed to enter at any point without prejudice. This is why you shall never hear or see a television program begin with the caution that if the viewer has not seen the previous programs, this one will be meaningless. Television is a nongraded curriculum and excludes no viewer for any reason, at any time. In other words, in doing away with the idea of sequence and continuity in education, television undermines the idea that sequence and continuity have anything to do with thought itself. — Neil Postman

I don't want my world to be subset A such that it doesn't intersect with any others (B, C or D), a watertight shape drawn on a slate, whole but empty. I'd rather be elsewhere, following a line that leads to places where worlds communicate with each other, overlap, where the edges are permeable, where life follows a path without breaks, where things don't come to an end brutally for no reason, where important events come with instructions (level of risk, mains or batteries, expected duration) and the necessary equipment (airbags, GPS, ABS). — Delphine De Vigan

Youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms. — Thomas Gray

A beautiful smile without any reason is the smile of the existence! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

When a young person, even a gifted one, grows up without proximate living examples of what she may aspire to become
whether lawyer, scientist, artist, or leader in any realm
her goal remains abstract. Such models as appear in books or on the news, however inspiring or revered, are ultimately too remote to be real, let alone influential. But a role model in the flesh provides more than inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt, saying, 'Yes, someone like me can do this. — Sonia Sotomayor

In this world, only those people who have fallen to the lowest degree of humiliation, far below beggary, who are not just without any social consideration but are regarded by all as being deprived of that foremost human dignity, reason itself - only those people, in fact, are capable of telling the truth. All the others lie. — Simone Weil

Haven't you realized that pleasure, which is indeed certainly the one and only reason for the two sexes to come together, is nevertheless not enough to establish a relationship between them? And that though this pleasure is preceded by desire which draws people together, it is however followed by aversion which pushes them apart? It's a law of nature which only love can change. Can we feel love whenever we want? Yet love is always needed, which would be a dreadfully tiresome thing if it hadn't fortunately been realized that it's enough for just one of the partners to feel it, thereby halving the problem, and without even incurring any great loss; in fact, one party is happy to love, the other to please, which is actually a bit less exciting but which can be combined with the pleasure of deceiving and that evens things out, so everyone's happy. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

The spring is wound up tight. It will uncoil of itself. That is what is so convenient in tragedy. The least little turn of the wrist will do the job . . . The rest is automatic. You don't need to lift a finger. The machine is in perfect order; it has been oiled ever since time began, and it runs without friction . . . Tragedy is clean, it is restful, it is flawless . . . In a tragedy, nothing is in doubt and everyone's destiny is known. That makes for tranquility . . . Tragedy is restful; and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it. There isn't any hope. You're trapped. — Jean Anouilh

Growth hackers resist this temptation (or, more appropriate, this delusion). They opt, deliberately, to attract only the early adopters who make or break new tech services and seek to do it as cheaply as possible. In fact, part of the reason the scrappy start-ups, services, and apps in this book might not always be well-known or topics of daily conversation is because their founders have focused their energies on product development with an eye toward growth - they're now millions of members strong without any superfluous "buzz." They got to mass market by ignoring the urge to appeal to the mass market, at least to start with. — Ryan Holiday

The Turk and the devils break through without any trouble and lay everything waste, because God does not want His people to trust in anything else but Himself. This is the reason why men have acknowledged this confidence in the Creator through the Son, through whom He has received us into favor and made a covenant with us, and this covenant is to have the confidence that our life depends on God alone, against all the snares and might of Satan and the world. If He wants me destroyed, He has no need to send soldiers, but if not, defiance to all the Turks, death, and the devil in hell! Therefore — Martin Luther

if somthing accurs outside wht we call the natural order,its very smallness may be more immediately unnerving than,for istance,the eclipse of the sun to a tribe without astronomy,where holy awe must override any other feeling. very small cracks in our outer sell of reason let in very cold air.

memory in a house,1973 — L.M. Boston

Without seeing any reason to believe that women are, on the average, so strong physically, intellectually, or morally, as men, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that many women are much better endowed in all these respects than many men, and I am at a loss to understand on what grounds of justice or public policy a career which is open to the weakest and most foolish of the male sex should be forcibly closed to women of vigor and capacity. — Thomas Huxley

I think the reason this was so important to Jesus was that He wanted people to know that God is relational - truly relational without any impure or selfish motives. He wanted His Father to be trusted, and therefore He needed men and women who represented this. The psychology of agendas is that they make relationships transactional, which means that people are used for a purpose. People become a means to someone else's end, and this erodes a person's belief that he or she is valued regardless of any production. — Hugh Halter

I've met a man and fallen in love with him. I allowed myself to fall in love for one simple reason: I'm not expecting anything to come of it. I know that, in three months' time, I'll be far away and he'll be just a memory, but I couldn't stand living without love any longer; I had reached my limit ...
Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meeting are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes directions. — Paulo Coelho

He could almost hear the wail of pain that went up from his heart. It was a sharp terrible personal pain the kind of pain that comes only when someone to whom you have never done any harm turns on you and says goodbye goodbye forever without any reason for doing it. Without any reason at all. — Dalton Trumbo

Appetite knows what it craves, without cerebral embellishment. It tends not to waste any time laying hold of its tools. That was the thing I had recognised here: appetite. I recognised it precisely because, in a context like this, it was so unfamiliar. It had forced me to rule out everything else. And there was a second reason for my recognition, which because unprecedented was not recognition at all, but astounding discovery: Martha's face told me. I saw appetite there ... — Susan Choi

She felt faintly embarrassed by the sheer profusion of things she had for putting in baths, but she was for some reason incapable of passing any chemist's or herb shop without going in to be seduced by some glass-stoppered bottle of something blue or green or orange or oily that was supposed to restore the natural balance of some vague substance she didn't even know she was supposed to have in her pores. — Douglas Adams

The principle that every people, insofar as it is possible, must be allowed to live as they want is not based on any notions of cultural relativism, in which all ways of doing things are viewed as being of equal value for all peoples, everywhere.
It is, instead, strictly pragmatic: war and revolutions are without exception worse than the alternative, which is simply to leave the development of each society to the people who are actually living there.
For this reason we should not wage wars or foment revolutions and otherwise subvert the established orders in others' lands.
In return for this direct opposition to intervention and violence against cultures and peoples, we demand the same for ourselves. Mass immigration to Europe must cease. — Daniel Friberg

Yet time and again, from different approaches, I kept coming to the same conclusion, that I could not have come into the world without any cause, reason, or meaning; that I could not be the fledgeling fallen from the nest that I felt myself to be. If I lie on my back crying in the tall grass, like a fledgeling, it is because I know that my mother brought me into the world, kept me warm, fed me and loved me. But where is she, that mother? If I am abandoned, then who has abandoned me? I cannot hide myself from the fact that someone who loved me gave birth to me. Who is this someone? Again, God. — Leo Tolstoy

Hate is the darkness, that's no good. And yet we've got to hate Fascists, and that's considered perfectly all right. How is that possible? It's because we hate them in the name of the light, I guess, whereas they hate only in the name of darkness. We hate hate itself, and for this reason our hate is better than theirs.
But that's why it's more difficult for us. For them everything is very simple, but for us it's more complicated. We've got to become a little bit like them in order to fight them so we become a little bit unlike ourselves. But they don't have that problem; they can do away with us without any qualms. We first have to do away with something inside ourselves before we can do away with them. Not them; they can simply remain themselves, that's why they're so strong. But they'll lose in the end, because they have no light in them. The only thing is, we mustn't become too much like them, mustn't destroy ourselves altogether, otherwise they'll have won in the end ... — Harry Mulisch

The aim of the sinless One consists in acting without causing sorrow to others, although he could attain to great power by ignoring their feelings. The aim of the sinless One lies in not doing evil unto those who have done evil unto him. If a man causes suffering even to those who hate him without any reason, he will ultimately have grief not to be overcome. The punishment of evil doers consists in making them feel ashamed of themselves by doing them a great kindness. Of what use is superior knowledge in the one, if he does not endeavour to relieve his neighbour's want as much as his own? If, in the morning, a man wishes to do evil unto another, in the evening the evil will return to him. — Leo Tolstoy

Colonel Bulder, in full military uniform, on horseback, galloping first to one place and then to another, and backing his horse among the people, and prancing, and curvetting, and shouting in a most alarming manner, and making himself very hoarse in the voice, and very red in the face, without any assignable cause or reason whatever. — Charles Dickens

To undertake nothing: i. at random or without a purpose; ii. for any reason but the common good. — Marcus Aurelius

I am not saying to accept yourself in order to be transformed - otherwise you have not accepted yourself at all, because deep down the desire is for transformation. You say, "Okay, if this brings transformation then I will accept myself." But this is not acceptance; you have missed the whole point. You are still desiring transformation. If I guarantee it to you, and you accept yourself because of the guarantee, where is the acceptance? You are using acceptance as a means; the goal is to be transformed, to be free, to attain to self-realization, to nirvana. Where is the acceptance? Acceptance has to be unconditional, for no reason at all, without any motivation. — Osho

Meditation is enjoying oneself, just sitting silently doing nothing: happy, joyous without any reason, because all reasons come from outside. You meet a beautiful woman and you are happy, or you meet a beautiful man and you are happy - but the meditator is simply happy. His happiness has no reason from the outside world; his happiness wells up within himself. — Rajneesh

Ruth once wrote, "Dear Journal, Never let a single day pass without saying an encouraging word to each child . . .'More people fail for lack of encouragement,' someone wrote, 'than for any other reason. — Billy Graham

I know no speck so troublesome as self. And who, if Mr. Casaubon had chosen to expound his discontents - his suspicions that he was not any longer adored without criticism - could have denied that they were founded on good reasons? On the contrary, there was a strong reason to be added, which he had not taken explicitly into account - namely that he was not unmixedly adorable. He suspected this, however, as he suspected other things, without confessing it, and like the rest of us, felt how soothing it would have been to have a companion who would never find out. — George Eliot

Why do you like Hugh better? Because he is a Viscount?'
'Well, that's one reason,' I admitted, without any false shame. Respect for degree was in my blood and I didn't think of it as snobbery. — L.P. Hartley

Without any reason or basis, untouchability has been created as a result of caste. It is foolish to think of abolishing untouchability, in the face of the continuance of caste. — Periyar E.V. Ramasamy

As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. — Ambrose Bierce

So that I do not see how those who make revelation alone the sole object of faith can say, That it is a matter of faith, and not of reason, to believe that such or such a proposition, to be found in such or such a book, is of divine inspiration; unless it be revealed that that proposition, or all in that book, was communicated by divine inspiration. Without such a revelation, the believing, or not believing, that proposition, or book, to be of divine authority, can never be matter of faith, but matter of reason; and such as I must come to an assent to only by the use of my reason, which can never require or enable me to believe that which is contrary to itself: it being impossible for reason ever to procure any assent to that which to itself appears unreasonable. — John Locke

Would a just God sentence a morally good individual to hell for never having heard of him? And for that matter, would a just God expel a morally good individual to hell who has heard of Jesus, but simply finds no evidentiary reason to believe? According to any reasonable interpretation of Christianity's key doctrines, the answer is a simple and firm 'Yes.' This is because, according to Christian dogma, it is impossible to be 'moral' without Jesus Christ; I disagree with this on a fundamental level. — David G. McAfee

It is easy to see that, even in the freedom of early youth, an American girl never quite loses control of herself; she enjoys all permitted pleasures without losing her head about any of them, and her reason never lets the reins go, though it may often seem to let them flap. — Alexis De Tocqueville