Source identified1
Image design Midnight
Read & copy
“Reason always means what someone else has got to say.”
Meaning & context
Martha jokingly dismisses “reason” when it threatens her determination to stay loyal to Miss Matty, revealing how people can rename disagreement as irrationality when affection fixes their decision.
Source details
Cranford, Project Gutenberg #394. Martha says the line during a comic but affectionate refusal to leave Miss Matty after financial trouble; it is character dialogue, not Gaskell’s definition of reason.