"Reasoner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... every man's romance. He believed there was something more than a mere coincidence in his unexpectedly finding himself in such favorable conditions for making her acquaintance. For the rest—if there was any rest—he would simply trust to fate. And so, believing himself a cool, sagacious reasoner, but being actually, as far as Miss Dows was concerned, as blind, fatuous, and unreasoning as any of her previous admirers, he rode complacently forward until he reached the lane that led ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... does the lofty reasoner after the fashion of Moliere want still better reasons? Well, here they are. My dear Geronte, marriages are usually made in defiance of common-sense. Parents make inquiries about a young man. If the Leander—who is supplied by some friend, or caught in a ball-room—is not ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... reasoner looked on, as my father illustrated his systems of noses, and observed my uncle Toby's deportment—what great attention he gave to every word—and as oft as he took his pipe from his mouth, with what wonderful seriousness he contemplated the length of it—surveying ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... almost as a personal favour to himself, that the delegates would adopt the recommendation of the Hampden Club. Mr. Cobbett then rose, and, in a speech replete with every argument which this most clear and powerful reasoner could suggest, proposed the first resolution, that the meeting should adopt the recommendation of the Hampden Club, and agree to recommend the reformers to petition to the extent of householder suffrage only; urging, as Major Cartwright had done ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... well-known three, the enthusiast, the poet, and the formularist, the echoes of whose teachings had influenced him even in his obscure home. A start of aversion appeared in his fancy to move them at sight of those other sons of the place, the form in the full-bottomed wig, statesman, rake, reasoner, and sceptic; the smoothly shaven historian so ironically civil to Christianity; with others of the same incredulous temper, who knew each quad as well as the faithful, and took equal freedom in haunting ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... a very typical man of his age. He was personally of voluptuous habits, fearfully extravagant, endowed with very few scruples and a very weak sense of right and wrong. But he was clear-headed, energetic, a good orator, a clever reasoner, an astute handler of men, courageous, versatile, full of recourse, and on the whole above the commission of any really glaring moral infraction. He was now in his early prime, and he came before Fabia as a man tall, athletic, deep-chested, ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... who entering a house should maintain it was made by chance, and that art had not in the least contributed to render it commodious to men, because there are caves somewhat like that house, which yet were never dug by the art of man? One should show to such a reasoner all the parts of the house, and tell him for instance:—Do you see this great court-gate? It is larger than any door, that coaches may enter it. This court has sufficient space for coaches to turn in it. This staircase is made up of low steps, that one may ascend it with ease; and ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... the whole order of her system, by a compliance with our pride and folly, to conform to our artificial regulations. It is by a conformity to this method we owe the discovery of the few truths we know, and the little liberty and rational happiness we enjoy. We have something fairer play than a reasoner could have expected formerly; and we derive advantages from it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... they adore. The idolater falls upon his knees before a statue, in which he believes there resides some concealed virtue, some powerful quality, which he judges may be either useful or prejudicial to himself; but that subtle reasoner, called a metaphysician, who in consequence of his unintelligible science, believes he has a right to laugh at the savage, to deride the Laplander, to scoff at the negro, to ridicule the idolater, doth not perceive that he is himself prostrate before a being of his own imagination, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... certain moderate development of the logical faculties. In HIS generation, people didn't apply the logical faculties to the grounds of belief; they took those for granted; but within his own limits, my father is still an acute reasoner. And then he had always the ethical and social interests. Those two things—a love of logic, and a love of right—are the forces that tend to make us what we call religious. Worldly people don't care for fundamental ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... becomes less difficult of decision. I would prefer each in its season, or rather the two united, with a gradual change in their influence. Let the youth commence with the first in the ascendant, and close with the last. He who begins life too cold a reasoner may end it a calculating egotist; and he who is ruled solely by his imagination is in danger of having his mind so ripened as to bring forth the fruits of a visionary. Had it pleased heaven to have left me the dear son I possessed for so short ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... other," to work out something good: in short, there is nothing so convenient as this "some how or other" way of accommodating one's self to circumstances; it is the main-stay of a heedless actor, and tardy reasoner, like Dolph Heyliger; and he who can, in this loose, easy way, link foregone evil to anticipated good, possesses a secret of happiness almost equal ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... to us exceedingly childish, and an Account of the United Provinces, which we value as a masterpiece in its kind. Whoever compares these two treatises will probably agree with us in thinking that Temple was not a very deep or accurate reasoner, but was an excellent observer, that he had no call to philosophical speculation, but that he was qualified to excel as a writer of Memoirs ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... written strangely, as his manner was, from right to left, have imagined a rigid order in his inquiries. But this rigid order was little in accordance with the restlessness of his character; and if we think of him as the mere reasoner who subjects design to anatomy, and composition to mathematical rules, we shall hardly have of him that impression which those about him received from him. Poring over his crucibles, making experiments with colour, trying, by a strange variation of the alchemist's dream, to discover the secret, ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... Eternal God, and that this thought had been working in him ever since. A copy of Mr. Judson's tract which fell in his way chimed in with this primary belief, and next came the question of the Scripture revelation, which he argued over with much metaphysical power and acuteness, being a very powerful reasoner, and well trained in the literature of his own country. Meantime three simpler minds—Moung Thaahlah, Moung Byaay, and Moung Ing—had been thoroughly convinced, and, though aware that they would expose themselves to considerable danger, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... nature,—indeed, is so welded with it, that insight and analysis serve each other, and cool reason gives solidity to ecstatic experience. Perhaps as a seer Dr. Bushnell may be more certain of recognition than as a reasoner. Whatever may be thought of the orthodoxy of the doctrines he has rationalized, there can be no doubt as to the reality of the spiritual states he has described. His intellectual method may be wrong or incomplete, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... of Dover and settled in Britain, but that, as certain portions both of Belgium and Britain bore the same names, a migration had taken place; such being the explanation of the coincidence. Or, if we suppose Caesar himself to have been too acute a reasoner to confound a conclusion with a fact (as, perhaps, he was), we may attribute the inference to his informants. Whoever is in the habit of sifting ethnological evidence, is well aware that a confusion of kind in question is one of the commonest of the ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... is vain to shrink from what cannot be avoided, and to hide that from ourselves which must some time be found, is a truth which we all know, but which all neglect, and, perhaps, none more than the speculative reasoner, whose thoughts are always from home, whose eye wanders over life, whose fancy dances after meteors of happiness kindled by itself, and who examines every thing ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... school. For thirty years, viz., from B. C. 480 to B. C. 450, during that eventful and stirring period intervening between the battle of Thermopylae and the commencement of the five years' truce with Sparta, followed by the death of Cimon (B. C. 449), this eminent and most accomplished reasoner resided in Athens [247]. His doctrines were those most cherished by Pericles, who ranked the philosopher among his intimate friends. After an absence of some years, he again returned to Athens; and we shall then find him subjected to a prosecution in which religious prejudice was stimulated ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... extenuated by malice or glossed over by elegance. He is neither refined nor pungent; is quite incapable, like the younger Crebillon, of depicting the scapegrace of ability. He is a new-comer, a parvenu in standard society; you see in him a commoner, a powerful reasoner, an indefatigable workman and great artist, introduced, through the customs of the day, at a supper of fashionable livers. He engrosses the conversation, directs the orgy, or in the contagion or on a wager, says more filthy things, more "gueulees," than all the guests put together[4129]. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the right Few ever appreciate great men in this hostile attitude, not of their passions, but of their minds; and those who do it the least are their furious partisans. Most people are contented with the argument that tells, and are apt to be bored with the argument which refutes; but a true reasoner despises even his success, if he feels that two persons, himself and his opponent, know that he is in the wrong. And the strain on the whole being in this contest of intellect with intellect, and the reluctance with which the most combative ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... a subtle reasoner, my friend," said Ferdinand, smiling gently. "Peace go with thee! our conference for the time is ended. What ho, ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... I who differ from him. I am only a monad—a thing of no moment. The whole tendency of the highest plane of modern thought differs from him. He defends the indefensible. He is an excellent observer, but a feeble reasoner. I should not recommend you to found ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... very keen and cogent reasoner. Like a powerful logician who is confident that he has the truth upon his side, and like a pureminded man who has no sinister ends to gain, he often takes his stand upon the same ground with his opponent, adopts his positions, and condemns him ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... central mystery of mysteries—the problem of sin and suffering, the one huge difficulty which the reasoner has to solve in order to vindicate the dealings of God with man. But take our own case as an example. I, for one, am very clear what I have got out of our experience. I say it with all humility, but I have a clearer view of my duties than ever I had ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... M'Donnell, of course, pleases me greatly. But I am very curious to know who wrote the Protozoa article: I shall hear, if it be not a secret, from Lubbock. It strikes me as very good, and, by Jove, how Owen is shown up—"this great and sound reasoner"! By the way, this reminds me of a passage which I have just observed in Owen's address at Leeds, which a clever reviewer might turn into good fun. He defines (page xc) and further on amplifies his definition that creation means "a process he knows ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... cause, and Stirling, with Charles, Lord Derby, &c., &c. You may imagine with what candour and fairness his arguments were received. I am, it is certain, a friend to him, and not to Charles, but all partiality or prejudice laid aside, I think my friend as good a reasoner as the other; but one employs his faculties in the search of truth, and the other in disguising it and substituting falsehood in its room, to serve the ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... mass man of the old civilization, he is in the broad way of the surface consciousness, and in his midst there dwells the specialized individuals who are approaching the central zones of mind; they are called the scientist, the physicist, the materialist, the agnostic, the mentalist, the reasoner, and the atheist, all true and perfect for their type but all more or less unconscious of the latent states of mind within themselves and the universe to which they ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... occurred at this time which displays Mr Campbell's character for discernment and candor. Aaron Pardee, a gentleman residing in the vicinity, an unbeliever in the gospel, attracted by Campbell's abilities as a reasoner, and won by his fairness in argument, resolved to obtain an interview and propose freely his difficulties. Mr. Campbell received him with such frankness that he opened his case at once, saying, 'I discover, Mr. Campbell, you are well prepared ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... entirely depend. Not to mention, that, to a young beginner, the general observations and maxims occur not always on the proper occasions, nor can be immediately applied with due calmness and distinction. The truth is, an unexperienced reasoner could be no reasoner at all, were he absolutely unexperienced; and when we assign that character to any one, we mean it only in a comparative sense, and suppose him possessed of experience, in a smaller and ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... itself, becomes important, when it serves to bring to light the intentions and characters of men. The foreigner, who believed that Othello, on the stage, was enraged for the loss of his handkerchief, was not more mistaken, than the reasoner who imputes any of the more vehement passions of men to the impressions of mere profit ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... Lincoln understood the relations of things, and hence his deductions were rarely wrong from any given state of facts. So he applied the principles of law to the transactions of men with great clearness and precision. He was a close reasoner. He reasoned by analogy, and enforced his views by apt illustration. His mode of speaking was generally of a plain and unimpassioned character, and yet he was the author of some of the most beautiful and eloquent ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... that revolved themselves in the mind of the reasoner. Gladly would he do anything that would further the interest of his young friend, yet there might be a likelihood of stretching this prerogative if it in anywise interfered with the direct affairs of another. Whichever view of the matter was taken ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... frequently ungrammatical, always vulgar; his cadences false, his voice unharmonious, and his action ungraceful. Nobody heard him with patience; and the young fellows used to joke upon him, and repeat his inaccuracies. The late Duke of Argyle, though the weakest reasoner, was the most pleasing speaker I ever knew in my life. He charmed, he warmed, he forcibly ravished the audience; not by his matter certainly, but by his manner of delivering it. A most genteel figure, a graceful, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the mark of a feeble understanding. It reveals a pusillanimous reasoner, who suffers himself to be alarmed by consequences; a superstitious creature, who thinks he is honouring God by the fetters which he imposes on his reason; a kind of unbeliever who is afraid of unmasking himself to himself. ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... by the subject. Speeches more replete with talent and energy, on both sides, never were heard in the Irish Senate; it was a vital subject. The sublime, the eloquent, the figurative orator, the plain, the connected, the metaphysical reasoner, the classical, the learned, and the solemn declaimer, in a succession of speeches so full of energy and enthusiasm, so interesting in their nature, so important in their consequence, created a variety of sensations even in the bosom of a stranger, and could scarcely fail of exciting some sympathy ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... this heresiarch attempted to overturn the creed of the Church. He was neither a profound thinker nor a logical reasoner; and he certainly had not maturely studied the science of theology. But he possessed an ardent temperament, and he seems to have mistaken the suggestions of his own fanaticism for the dictates of inspiration. The doctrine of the personal reign of Christ during the millennium appears to have ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... You jump on the last car, at A, in a prodigious hurry to reach Abscissa, who is at B. If you stay on the last car it will be twenty long minutes before you see her. But the engine reaches B and the fair lady in ten. You will be a stupid reasoner, and an indifferent lover, if you don't put for the engine over those platform cars, as fast as your legs will carry you. You can run a mile, the length of the train, in ten minutes. Therefore, you reach Abscissa ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... This able reasoner and aeronaut pointed out that the contrivance about to be tested aimed at obviating two principal drawbacks which the parachute had up to that time presented, namely (1) the length of time which elapses before it becomes sufficiently ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... exhibited in the Zoological Park, two stand out with special prominence, by reason of their unusual mental qualities. They differed widely from each other. One was a born actor and imitator, who loved human partnership in his daily affairs. The other was an original thinker and reasoner, with a genius for invention, and at all times impatient of training and restraint. The first was named Rajah, the latter ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... once from the reverential way in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since the days when they had first worked together. I could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite in ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... scholarship and criticism of the highest order. 'The author,' writes one, 'is a scientifically trained critic. He has learned to argue and to weigh evidence.' 'The book,' adds a second, 'proceeds from a man of ability, a scholar and a reasoner.' 'His scholarship,' says this same reviewer again, 'is apparent throughout.' 'Along with a wide and minute scholarship,' he writes in yet another place, 'the unknown writer shows great acuteness.' Again a third reviewer, of whose ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot |
