The more necessary the object, the more ruinous its abuse. Most of people’s misfortunes come from abusing the most precious tool of life—reason.
God gave us his spirit—reason—so that we could understand and fulfill his will; but we are using this spirit to fulfill our own wills.
By becoming a servant of vice, an instrument of the passions and a defender of falsehood, reason is not merely corrupted, it is crippled as well, losing its ability to differentiate between what is true and false, good and evil, righteous and unrighteous.
— Channing
When a human being uses his reason to try to solve the question of why the world exists and why he himself lives in this world, he experiences something akin to nausea or dizziness. The human mind cannot come up with answers to these questions. What does this mean? It means that reason was not given to a human being to solve these questions, that the very posing of such questions indicates an intellectual delusion. Reason solves only one question: “how should I live?” And the answer is clear: I should live such that it would be good for me and for all other people. This is what all living things and I need. And the possibility of this is given to all living things and me. And this solution excludes the questions of why and what for.
The people who employ their reason on useless objects are like night birds who can see in the dark but are blinded by sunlight. Their mind is very perceptive when they use it on scientific trifles, but it ceases to see when it is struck by true light.
— Pittacus
Long is the night for the one who is sleepless; long is the mile for the one who is tired; long is the cycle of suffering for the fool who does not know the true law.
— The Dhammapada
The purpose of reason is to discover the truth, and therefore it is a great and fatal error to use reason to conceal or pervert the truth.
