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Rational Quotes

Browse 1559 quotes about Rational.

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Rational Quotes

“Fashion rests upon folly. Art rests upon law. Fashion is ephemeral. Art is eternal. Indeed what is a fashion really? A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months! It is quite clear that were it beautiful and rational we would not alter anything that combined those two rare qualities. And wherever dress has been so, it has remained unchanged in law and principle for many hundred years.”

YearsHas BeensArtTwoBeautifulFormLawQualityPrinciplesClearFashionMonthsSixEternalArt IsHundredDressesRationalFollySix MonthsUglinessUnbearableIn-lawsEphemeral
Author:Oscar Wilde
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“Who would you trust right now? Which bank would you trust? Which investment would you trust? Do you really want to put your money; do you want to suffer more of these losses that we just had? You know, these volatility that we see is just unexplainable by any rational standards. Nobody has any clue about how to explain this, and nobody wants to experience that. So, we hold more money back, we don't necessarily want to invest in the market and by default, people are saving more.”

PeopleKnowsWantSufferingLossRight NowStandardsInvestmentRationalSavingMore MoneyClueDefaultVolatilityUnexplainable
Author:Dan Ariely
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“Environmentalism needs to be absolutely based in objective and verifiable science, it needs to be rational, and it needs to be flexible. And it needs to be apolitical. To mix environmental concerns with the frantic fantasies that people have about one political party or another is to miss the cold truth - that there is very little difference between the parties, except a difference in pandering rhetoric.”

PeopleNeedsLittlesPoliticalDifferencesPartyFantasyMissingColdConcernEnvironmentalObjectivesRationalRhetoricPolitical PartiesFlexibleEnvironmentalismFranticApolitical
Author:Michael Crichton
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“It is possible that the meaning of wisdom in Hebrew indicates aptitude for stratagems and the application of thought in such a way that the stratagems and ruses may be used in achieving either rational or moral virtues, or in achieving skill in a practical art, or in working evil and wickedness.”

WayMayArtUsedEvilMoralVirtueAchieveSkillsPracticalsRationalApplicationWickednessHebrewAptitudeStratagemMoral Virtues
Book:A Maimonides Reader
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“The power of understanding symbols, i.e. of regarding everything about a sense-datum as irrelevant except a certain form that it embodies, is the most characteristic mental trait of mankind. It issues in an unconscious, spontaneous process of abstraction, which goes on all the time in the human mind: a process of recognizing the concept in any configuration given to experience, and forming a conception accordingly. That is the real sense of Aristotle's definition of Man as "the rational animal".”

MenMindHumansRealFormCertainGivenProcessUnderstandingAnimalIssuesMankindGoes OnConceptsDefinitionsRationalSymbolsDataCharacteristicsUnconsciousHuman MindConceptionTraitsSpontaneousIrrelevantAbstractionRecognizingConfiguration
Author:Susanne Katherina Langer
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“What reason is there for believing that a high death rate, in itself, is undesirable? To my knowledge none whatever. The plain fact is that, if it be suitably selective, it is extremely salubrious. Suppose it could be so arranged that it ran to 100% a year among politicians, executive secretaries, drive chairmen, and the homicidally insane? What rational man would object?”

IfsMenYearsBelieveReasonFactsObjectsPoliticianRateRationalInsaneRanExecutivesSecretaryChairmanSelectiveUndesirable
Book:Mencken Chrestomathy
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“Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living.”

PeopleArtRealityDrinkingRationalOccupationPortionsGreat ArtArt Of Living
Book:Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales
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“It's no understatement that the church has done a poor job in teaching our young people that reason and faith are not opposites, and that atheists are far from being on the side of reason. You can find on our website a chart which I use to demonstrate the various worldviews work out, and which one, Christianity, is rational. Many kids, however, who grow up huddled in a Christian environment find themselves in the university setting completely unequipped to defend the rationality of the Christian faith against the secular humanist worldview so prevalent on college campuses.”

PeopleReasonDoneUseKidsChristianJobsYoungGrowsSidesChurchPoorChristianityGrowing UpEnvironmentTeachingCollegeOppositesUniversityAtheistVariousWork OutSettingRationalSettingsHumanistSecularRationalityWebsiteWorldviewCampusChristian FaithUnderstatementCollege Campus
Author:Charles Colson
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“Over the span of man's history, although a phenomenal amount of education, persuasion, indoctrination and incantation have been devoted to the effort, ordinary people have never been quite persuaded that toil is as agreeable as its alternatives. Thus to take increased well-being partly in the form of more goods and partly in the form of more leisure is unquestionably rational.”

PeopleMenWellsHas BeensFormEffortAmountOrdinaryRationalAlternativesWell BeingGoodsLeisureDevotedToilPersuasionOrdinary PeoplePhenomenalIndoctrination
Book:The affluent society
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“One may rationally stick to a degenerating research programme until it is overtaken by a rival and even after. What one must not do is to deny its poor public record... It is perfectly rational to play a risky game: what is irrational is to deceive oneself about the risk.”

MayPlayGamesPoorRecordsRiskResearchSticksOneselfDenyRationalDeceivingIrrationalRivalsProgrammes
Book:The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Volume 1: Philosophical Papers
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“In work we act under the predominant motive of external, rational necessities; in pleasure, under the predominant motive of other, equally general necessities of human nature. Rest or recreation is the element in which the personality seeks to renew its strength from these stimuli that exhaust the reserve of human resources. It's an element introduced into life by the person himself.”

HumansPersonsPleasureHuman NaturePersonalityElementsResourcesRationalMotiveReservesStimulusRecreationHuman Resources
Book:What Is to Be Done?
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“In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.”

InspirationalWould BeEducationTeachTeacherSocietyTeachingTaughtEducationalMathRationalMathematicalSettlingRetirementThank YouBest TeacherTeaching And LearningEducation And TeachersSchool TeachersTeaching And EducationTeachers And TeachingTeaching EducationTeaching LearningInspirational TeacherBeing A TeacherBest EducationMath EducationSchools And TeachersEducating OthersMath Teacher
Author:Lee Iacocca
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“I suppose that every age has its own particular fantasy: ours is science. A seventeenth-century man like Blaise Pascal, who thought himself a mathematician and scientist of genius, found it quite ridiculous that anyone should suppose that rational processes could lead to any ultimate conclusions about life, but easily accepted the authority of the Scriptures. With us, it is the other way `round”

MenWayShouldAgeFoundProcessFantasyCenturyParticularGeniusAuthorityUltimateScientistRoundsAcceptedRidiculousScriptureRationalConclusionMathematicianPascal
Author:Malcolm Muggeridge
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“People who reject transcendent authority can no longer persuade one another through rational arguments; everything is reduced to personal opinion. Debates about ideas thus degenerate into power struggles; we're left with no moral standard by which to measure the common good. For that matter, how can there be a 'common good' without an objective standard of truth?”

PeopleIdeasMatterLeftCommonMoralOpinionStruggleAuthorityStandardsArgumentDebateObjectivesRationalRejectsTranscendentCommon GoodDegeneratesPower StrugglePersonal Opinions
Book:The Sky Is Not Falling: Living Feaerlessly in These Turbulent Times
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“A philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of conquest.”

HumansMayDesireRaceEternalPhilosopherRationalVanityHuman RaceConquestSpoilDiscordProvocation
Book:The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812
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“Socialism's failure in the former Soviet Union and in the other socialist countries stands as a clean and unquestionable warning as to which path any rational and sane people should never follow again. Government planning brought poverty and ruin...Unfortunately, America is not absorbing the lessons that should be learned from the socialist experience and, instead, is following the same path of destruction.”

PeopleShouldCountryGovernmentAmericaPovertyPathLessonsDestructionUnionsCleanFollowingPlanningSocialismRationalRuinsFormerWarningSovietSaneSocialistSoviet UnionAbsorbingSocialist Countries
Author:Richard Ebeling
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“The possibility that stock value in aggregate can become irrationally high is contrary to the hard-form "efficient market" theory that many of you once learned as gospel from your mistaken professors of yore. Your mistaken professors were too much influenced by "rational man" models of human behavior from economics and too little by "foolish man" models from psychology and real-world experience.”

MenWorldHumansLittlesRealHardFormValuesPsychologyToo MuchPossibilityTheoryBehaviorModelsEconomicsContraryFoolishRationalProfessorsReal WorldEfficientMistakenHuman BehaviorFoolish ManEfficient Markets
Author:Charlie Munger
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“Another of the qualities of science is that it teaches the value of rational thought, as well as the importance of freedom of thought; the positive results that come from doubting that all the lessons are true... Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”

WayWellsI CanMatterFactsValuesBeliefResultsQualityTeachDoubtIgnoranceLessonsImportanceRationalExpertsAnother WayFreedom Of ThoughtMatter Of FactRational ThoughtPositive Results
Author:Richard P. Feynman
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