“To me the question of inspiration is an exercise in hindsight. The truth is inspiration is mysterious at the time. I don't think it's ever a rational process.” ThinkingInspirationProcessExerciseTruth IsRationalMysteriousHindsight Author:Julia Leigh
“I would think that you are more fluent with the rational. It has its appeal. But the irrational permits a greater exercise of ... shall we say, power.” ThinkingGreaterExerciseRationalAppealsPermitIrrationalFluent Book:Mr g: A Novel About the Creation Source: Mr g: A Novel About the Creation
“Although objectively greater demands are placed on this authority, it operates less as a public opinion giving a rational foundation to the exercise of political and social authority, the more it is generated for the purpose of an abstract vote that amounts to no more than an act of acclamation within a public sphere temporarily manufactured for show or manipulation.” GivingShowsPoliticalPurposeSocialOpinionGreaterAmountExerciseDemandAuthorityVoteFoundationRationalAbstractManipulationSpheresPublic Opinion Author:Jurgen Habermas
“Words can enhance experience, but they can also take so much away. We see an insect and at once we abstract certain characteristics and classify it - a fly. And in that very cognitive exercise, part of the wonder is gone. Once we have labeled the things around us we do not bother to look at them so carefully. Words are part of our rational selves, and to abandon them for a while is to give freer reign to our intuitive selves.” GivingLooksSelfCertainWonderGoneExerciseIntuitionRationalBotherAbstractCharacteristicsAbandonReignInsectsIntuitiveCognitive Author:Jane Goodall
“It's got to be the best intellectual exercise out there. You're seeing through new situations every ten minutes. In the stock market you don't base your decisions on what the market is doing, but on what you think is rational. Bridge is about weighing gain/loss ratios. You're doing calculations all the time.” ThinkingLossDecisionSituationSeeingMinutesExerciseTenIntellectualGainsRationalBridgesBeing The BestCalculationsRatiosWeighingNew Situations Author:Warren Buffett
“There is the enormous corpus of Islamic law that is very rich. However, law is one rational exercise of reason. Philosophy is very different. Philosophy wants to try to understand everything. It is a better dialogue partner with faith than law.” WantTryingDifferentReasonPhilosophyLawRichExercisePartnersEnormousDialogueRationalIslamicCorpusIslamic Law Author:Francis George
“The writing of an assay-type poem or a poem investigating perspective isn't an exercise of rational or strategic mind. Poems for me are acts of small or large desperation. They grapple with surfaces too steep to walk in any other way, yet which have to be traveled.” WayWritingMindWalksPerspectiveTypeExerciseSurfaceRationalTraveledDesperationStrategicSteepInvestigating Author:Jane Hirshfield
“An aphorism is a mental exercise, psychical, logical, linguistic, spiritual, ritual, emotional and rational, it is a major conceptual and literary activity, a mixture of prose and poetry that conveys, in addition to ideology, sympathy or antipathy.” SpiritualEmotionalExerciseActivityMajorsRationalIdeologyProseLogicalRitualAphorismMixturesAntipathyProse And Poetry Author:William C. Brown
“Moral questions may not have objective answers-whether revealed by God or by science-but they do have rational ones, answers rooted in a rationality that emerges out of social need. That rationality can only be discovered through exercising the human potential for rational dialogue, the potential for thinking about the world, and for discussing, debating and persuading others. Values can never be entirely wrenched apart from facts; but neither can they be collapsed into facts. It is the existence of humans as moral agents that allows us to act as the bridge between facts and values.” ThinkingWorldNeedsHumansMayFactsValuesSocialAnswersExistenceMoralExerciseObjectivesDialogueRationalAgentsBridgesRootedRationalityDiscussingHuman PotentialPersuading Author:Kenan Malik
“Autonomy is the capacity to act on principles that are one's own and one will exercise this capacity by means of a process of rational reflection on these principles. Autonomy is thought to be necessary for attributing political responsibility.” MeanPoliticalProcessResponsibilityPrinciplesExerciseReflectionCapacityRationalAutonomyPolitical Responsibility Author:Alison Assiter