Literary notes about Reasonable (AI summary)
Literature employs the word "reasonable" in a multifaceted manner, applying it both to characterize personal virtue and to signify sound judgment. Authors often describe a character as orderly and measured—a "reasonable soul" embodying calm authority [1] or someone whose steady composure establishes trust and empathy [2]. In dialogue and narrative, the term functions as a gentle rebuke urging moderation or fairness, as when a speaker insists another "be reasonable" to avoid recklessness [3, 4]. Beyond personal traits, "reasonable" is deployed to denote conclusions or actions that follow logically from given conditions, ensuring that what is asserted or done rests on a solid, even if sometimes contested, foundation [5, 6, 7]. In this way, the term bridges both the ethical and the rational, confirming its enduring appeal as a marker of balanced human conduct [8, 9, 10].
- I see faces, keen and bright; others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,—none that have the calm authority of a reasonable soul.
— from The island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells - For the hour—and in the presence of one who was so thoroughly feeling the nothingness of earth—he was reasonable and self-controlled.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell - Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
— from Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States. Office of Strategic Services - “Let us be reasonable,” said the spy, “and let us be fair.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens - The most reasonable conclusion is, that he wept himself to death.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - On two points no reasonable doubt can, I think, be felt.
— from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley - This appears to me by no means reasonable.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne - It means that reason operates within experience, not beyond it, to give it an intelligent or reasonable quality.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey - "The lot," he goes on, "is a way of making choice that is unfair to nobody; it leaves each citizen a reasonable hope of serving his country."
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Undoubtedly for reasonable beings; these are the Gods and men, who are certainly the most perfect of all beings, as nothing is equal to reason.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations by Marcus Tullius Cicero
