“There are a few societies that show signs of having been very rational about the physics of construction and the physics of real life. Some of the old middle-Eastern societies had downdraft systems over whole cities, and passive, rapid-evaporation ice-making systems. They were rational people using good physical principles to make themselves comfortable without additional sources of energy.” PeopleRealWholeShowsEnergyCitiesPrinciplesMiddleSourceComfortablePhysicsReal LifeRationalIceConstructionPassiveEasternRapidsEvaporation Author:Bill Mollison
“We have hopes that we can see rational American presidents; fair, obey the international law, deal with other countries according to mutual respect, parity, etc., but we all know that this is only wishful thinking and fantasy.” ThinkingKnowsCountryLawPresidentDealsFantasyFairsInternationalRationalEtcMutualOther CountriesWishful ThinkingHaving HopeInternational LawMutual RespectAmerican PresidentParity Author:Bashar al-Assad
“I'm skeptical about even educating voters as a chance for being successful. You know, when we look at what people retain from high school a year after they've graduated, they've forgotten most everything about history and civics and everything, and I think the main worry here is that because your individual vote counts for so little, you just don't have a strong incentive to invest in the knowledge, to retain the knowledge, to process information in a rational way.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWayYearsLooksLittlesSchoolIndividualStrongProcessChanceWorrySuccessfulInformationHigh SchoolVoteForgottenRationalBeing SuccessfulVotersIncentivesSkepticalCivics Author:Jason Brennan
“The good news is that, at least in economics, I've seen movement away from its overemphasis on mathematical models of purely rational behavior to a more eclectic and commonsense approach: research that is, among other things, more respectful of insights from psychology.” PsychologyMovementBehaviorApproachNewsModelsResearchEconomicsInsightRationalMathematicalGood NewsRespectfulEclecticMathematical Models Author:Robert J. Shiller
“Businesses will have to lead the charge - demanding uniform, national, predictable rules to govern this transition, so that there is a level and rational playing field on which they can compete to make the next fortunes.” NextLevelsFieldsFortuneRationalTransitionUniformsPredictablePlaying Fields Author:Van Jones
“Aristotle thought that humans are rational animals and Hobbes thought that we act on the basis of rational self-interest. If only! It's not that we never do these things, it's that they are hardly constituative of who and what we are.” IfsHumansSelfInterestAnimalBasesRationalSelf InterestHobbes Author:Dale Jamieson
“Climate change is not going to be prevented. It's not even going to be mitigated to the degree a rational person would want. As a result we're going to have to live with climate change and try to reduce the extent and rate of change as much as possible. This is not an inspiring or sexy project.” WantTryingPersonsResultsDegreesProjectsClimateRateClimate ChangeSexyRationalRate Of Change Author:Dale Jamieson
“We have consciousness and rational powers but unless you're willing to spend the time to gain control of yourself, gain control of your emotions, to think deeply about what you want in a year or two, or where you want your business to be, you're going to be swept away by every new event that occurs in the course of the day or the week and the small amount of time that you plan, that you address to conscious planning, is never enough to overcome the constant tide of emotions and new things happening.” ThinkingWantYearsTwoEnoughCoursesEmotionConsciousnessPlansWeekEventsWillingAmountHappeningsConsciousGainsOvercomingConstantWhat You WantPlanningThings HappenRationalAddressesBe YouTidesNew ThingsSwept AwaySmall Amounts Author:Robert Greene
“Destruction of the environment is not only rational; it's exactly what you're taught to do in college.” EnvironmentTaughtCollegeDestructionRational Author:Noam Chomsky
“If you take an economics or a political science course, you're taught that humans are supposed to be rational wealth accumulators, each acting as an individual to maximize his own wealth in the market.” IfsHumansPoliticalCoursesIndividualWealthActingTaughtEconomicsRationalSupposed To BePolitical Science Author:Noam Chomsky
“If there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren and they don't have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren's interests is being irrational. Because what you're supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy.” PeopleIfsMadeMatterReasonInterestWealthSpacePayAttentionEnvironmentPolicyRight NowVoteDollarsRationalPay AttentionZeroDestroyingIrrationalGrandchildrenFrameworkOuter SpaceLunacyDestroying The Environment Author:Noam Chomsky
“If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.” IfsAcceptingPolicyRationalLunacy Author:Noam Chomsky
“In the States, the movement's actually gotten much much much stronger. There really was no climate movement so to speak before that - I think because everybody assumed that reasonable heads would prevail and do the right thing - and why would you need to have a huge movement in order to cause our leaders to deal with the most serious problem that they face. In a rational world you wouldn't. They would deal with it.” ThinkingWorldNeedsStatesProblemFacesOrderSpeakCausesDealsLeaderMovementSeriousHugeStrongerClimateRationalRight ThingReasonable Author:Bill McKibben
“Man has a tendency to try to give clear reasons to be rational, but often you can see how all those reasons are not convincing and turn out to be a big nonsense.” MenGivingTryingReasonBigsTurnsClearRationalTendenciesNonsenseConvincing Author:Ai Weiwei
“I've always been interested in the intersection between our rational and our unconscious lives.” RationalUnconsciousIntersections Author:Kathryn Harrison
“The attack on Social Security is similarly motivated. Social Security is based on the conception is that we should have sympathy for others, not function merely as isolated "rational wealth maximizers."” ShouldSocialWealthSecurityShould HaveFunctionRationalConceptionMotivatedIsolatedSocial Security Author:Noam Chomsky
“Democracy, in any rational form, also imposes conditions on majority rule. That's what the Bill of Rights is about, for example.” FormDemocracyRightsConditionsExampleBillsMajorityRationalBill Of RightsMajority Rule Author:Noam Chomsky
“It is possible for leaders or regimes to be cruel, bigoted, twisted in their world views and still make rational calculations with respect to their limits and their self-preservation.” WorldStillsSelfViewsLeaderLimitsRationalRegimesPreservationTwistedCalculationsSelf PreservationWorld View Author:Barack Obama
“When you think about the abolition of slavery for example, for the ruling class with the rich white people owning plantations and states, and things like that, slavery was to their benefit. To oppose it didn't make any sense at all on a rational basis. But on a rights basis, on a principle basis, it made obvious, overwhelming sense.” PeopleThinkingMadeStatesWhiteClassPrinciplesRichRightsExampleBenefitsBasesSlaveryObviousRationalOverwhelmingRulingAbolitionPlantationsAbolition Of Slavery Author:Edward Snowden
“The word translated, koan, it means a problem. But it's a very special problem. And to strip it down to the way it works, you are given a problem which has no rational solution. There is a contradiction built into it. One standard - one is this is the sound of two hands clapping. What is the sound of one hand clapping? And so on. All right, so the first thing is that it brings your rational mind to an impasse.” WayMindFirstsMeanTwoProblemHandsGivenSoundSpecialSolutionsStandardsBuiltRationalContradictionTwo HandsClappingImpasse Author:Huston Smith
“The first koan do not have rational answers. They are techniques devised over the millennia for triggering an actual experience.” FirstsAnswersTechniqueRational Author:Huston Smith
“I believe in equality. But I don't like the word feminist, because it's such a rational belief to think that women are equal to men, and I'm a rational person. You shouldn't be labeled for being reasonable. You should be labeled if you're f-cking crazy.” IfsThinkingMenShouldBelievePersonsBeliefI BelieveCrazyEqualFeministI Believe InRationalReasonable Author:Michael Che
“Capitalism has created a situation called scarcity. And that scarcity is not natural, it's socially induced. Along with that sense of scarcity, or feeling of scarcity, is a feeling of economic insecurity. Along with that is a feeling of deprivation... And unless we can demonstrate that that feeling is not justified technologically, we will not be able to speak intelligently to the great majority of people and reorganize our economy so that we really know what needs are rational and human and what have been created, almost fetishisticaly, by the capitalist economy.” PeopleKnowsNeedsHumansHas BeensFeelingsAbleSpeakNaturalSituationEconomyEconomicCapitalismMajorityRationalInsecurityCapitalistJustifiedScarcityDeprivationCapitalist Economy Author:Murray Bookchin
“People in the voting booth are not purely rational creatures any more than they're purely rational creatures outside the voting booth.” PeopleCreaturesRationalVoting Author:Michael Lewis
“It seems to me that at least as far as the financial markets are concerned, there is increasing evidence against rational expectations, even at the macro level.” SeemsLevelsExpectationsEvidenceConcernedFinancialRationalFinancial MarketsMacro Author:Kenneth Arrow
“When you look at any experimental work not directly related to economics, but trying to test rational behavior in other ways, experiments have conspicuously failed to show rational behavior. Macro evidence certainly suggests deviations from rationality, but I don't want to say the rationality hypothesis is completely wrong. If you have any introspective idea or experimental idea about people's behavior, it seems to be incompatible with the really full scale rational expectations.” PeopleIfsWayWantTryingLooksIdeasShowsSeemsBehaviorExpectationsEvidenceEconomicsTestsScalesExperimentsRationalRelatedRationalityHypothesisIntrospectiveDeviationMacro Author:Kenneth Arrow
“The link between rational individual behavior and collectively desirable outcomes is extremely tenuous.” IndividualBehaviorRationalOutcomesLinksDesirable Author:Robert H. Frank
“Have you ever known an alcoholic, a cigarette smoker, or a heroin user to be rational when it came to alcohol, cigarettes, or heroin? Of course not. And there is NO such thing as a rational - or ethical - meat, dairy, egg and honey-eater when it comes to animal issues and whether humans should be enslaving, murdering and eating animals, or using them as test subjects, clothing and entertainment.” ShouldHumansCoursesAnimalKnownIssuesSubjectsEatingTestsEntertainmentAlcoholRationalMeatEggsEthicalHoneyClothingsUsersCigaretteAlcoholicsHeroinDairySmokersEating Animals Author:Gary Yourofsky
“It is hard to stay patient about policy matters where everybody agrees about what needs to be done and then it just doesn't happen, like reforming the immigration system and getting rid of family immigration jails and closing Guantanamo and criminal-justice reform. All these issues, there is basically consensus. There's no rational objections whatsoever, but it can't happen because of other stupid steps we have to take in politics.” NeedsMatterHardDoneHappensJusticeStepsIssuesStupidPolicyAgreePatientCriminalsImmigrationRationalReformJailConsensusClosingObjectionsCriminal JusticeGuantanamo Author:Rachel Maddow
“I don't think you would have any trouble at all in deciding that you are thinking of some event and then visualizing it happening with its consequences, and constructing a rational analysis of it without being able to verbalize it adequately in anything like its full complexity.” ThinkingAbleTroubleEventsHappeningsConsequenceRationalAnalysisComplexityVisualizing Author:Noam Chomsky
“I don't think all thinking is a kind of rational structure. But I don't think it is correct to identify the rational-nonrational dichotomy with the linguistic-nonlinguistic dichotomy.” ThinkingKindStructureRationalDichotomy Author:Noam Chomsky
“Each powerful player, or coalition of players, will make concessions in areas where it has relatively less at stake in exchange for other such players making reciprocal concessions in other areas where it has relatively more at stake. Such trades are collectively rational insofar as they get each of the powerful players more of what it wants. But such trades are also dangerous because the whole international rule-system will become incoherent and therefore vulnerable to crises that will continue to become increasingly severe.” WantWholePowerfulPlayerDangerousAreasCrisisTradeInternationalRationalVulnerableStakesSevereCoalitionsConcessionsReciprocal Author:Thomas Pogge
“Economists operate with this image of the homo economicus, the rational economic agent, and while such agents are rare in the wider world, they are common in economics departments. Exemplifying the homo economicus paradigm, economists typically choose their research projects and hypotheses so as to promote their own careers, to maximize their lifetime income. This explains the astonishing pressures toward conformity in academic economics: how deviant views (except those by a few who have already achieved stardom) get crushed by an army of conformists.” WorldViewsCommonCareersEconomicProjectsResearchEconomicsArmyPressureLifetimeIncomeRationalAgentsDepartmentConformityAcademicEconomistHypothesisAstonishingCrushedParadigmStardomConformistDeviants Author:Thomas Pogge
“My rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) was one of the very few therapies that was originated partly or largely because I wanted to be brief and efficient. And therefore right from the start I was active and directive. I tried to show people some central masturbatory core to their philosophy and to get them to work at changing it cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally.” PeoplePhilosophyShowsWantedBehaviorActiveCoreRationalTherapyEfficient Author:Albert Ellis
“I started to call myself a "rational therapist" in January 1955; later I used the term "rational emotive." Now I call myself a "rational emotive behavior therapist." But from the start, I always included philosophic techniques as well as experiential, emotional and behavioral techniques.” WellsUsedTermEmotionalBehaviorTechniqueRationalTherapistsJanuaryPhilosophic Author:Albert Ellis
“There's no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women or that men are more willing to surrender their irrational beliefs. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational.” MenSeemsBeliefSexWillingEvidenceSurrenderRationalIrrationalIrrational Beliefs Author:Albert Ellis
“I think that part of the growing popularity of the New Urbanism is not simply because it is so rational, and not simply because people care so much about community or even understand it, or the relation of sprawl to the ruination of the natural world. But they just don't like what is around. And they will be ruthless with it.” PeopleThinkingWorldCareCommunityNaturalGrowingRelationRationalPopularityNatural WorldRuthless Author:Jane Jacobs
“I think young people really do care. They want to build their life on something that's solid and makes sense, that's rational, that's not built on mythology, make-believe and wishful thinking.” PeopleThinkingWantBelieveCareYoungBuiltMythologyRationalMake SenseWishful ThinkingMake Believe Author:Lee Strobel
“Baroque civilization believed in two truths, which for a post-18th-century mindset are exclusive truths - we have to eliminate one to believe the other. They believed in the rational exploration of the universe, and they also believed that there was a hidden spiritual truth. Baroque thinkers were able to live the two at the same time. In any case, for me, it's necessary to live that way also.” WayBelieveTwoAbleSpiritualUniverseCasesCenturyCivilizationMindsetRationalPostsExplorationThinkerExclusive18th CenturyBaroqueSpiritual Truth Author:Eugene Green
“For the last several decades, there was a prevailing belief among traditional economists that the markets were rational and self-correcting. Alan Greenspan advocated this view. But the 2008 financial crisis showed that this view is incorrect, and Greenspan eventually admitted as much.” SelfLastsBeliefViewsCrisisFinancialDecadesRationalTraditionalEconomistPrevailingCorrectingFinancial Crisis Author:Kabir Sehgal
“We have to fundamentally rethink our trade policy and make it work not for the CEOs of large corporations, but for working people. So, if Trump wants to develop a rational trade policy which demands corporations start investing in this country, rather than China, that's something that we can work on.” PeopleCountryPolicyTradeRationalCeo Author:Bernie Sanders
“If I make a stupid decision but don't execute it because I'm, say, lazy, then I'm lucky, not rational. However, at other times a person acts for good reasons just as she does what she thinks she shouldn't do, not knowing that they are good reasons. Just like sometimes we are a lot less rational than we think we are, it is also true that sometimes we are a lot more rational than we think we are.” ThinkingSometimesReasonDecisionStupidLuckyRationalLazy Author:Nomy Arpaly
“If you are a Christian, you can still practice Stoicism and think of the Logos as the Word of God. If you are a secular person, an agnostic or an atheist, you may treat the Logos as "Einstein's god," that is the factual recognition that the cosmos is ordered according to rational principles, without which science itself wouldn't be possible.” ThinkingChristianAtheistRationalRecognitionWord Of GodSecularAgnosticStoicismFactual Author:Massimo Pigliucci
“I don't think we are all irrational every time we fail to see through an argument in a book, but suppose it's true about you. You are still more rational than you think you are. You are irrational in a minor way - believing a misguided theory of the nature of rationality - but rational in a major way - you respond well to probabilistic evidence as you go through the day.” ThinkingBelieveBookFailingEvidenceArgumentRationalIrrationalRationality Author:Nomy Arpaly
“When I see two owls and then two more owls and conclude that I see four owls, I am responding to reasons, and it better not be my choice to believe that two plus two always equals four. If I am a rational person, I will have that belief by necessity, whether I wanted to or not. So it's not that strange to discuss responding to reasons out of necessity.” BelieveReasonChoicesBeliefStrangeRationalOwl Author:Nomy Arpaly
“There are a zillion possibilities that you can do on a piece of paper; there is no rational way to choose. So you have let something else speak... so I can't really remember which comes first, the dialogue or the pictures. It comes from that place where it sort of all comes together on its own.” TogetherRememberSpeakPossibilityDialogueRational Author:Gabrielle Bell
“Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.” WorldCountryChristianCommonEmotionIslamRationalSecularismEgyptianDemagogueryArabian Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
“Effective altruism is the form of altruism in which we bring our rational capacities to bear in order to do the most good that we can.” RationalAltruism Author:Peter Singer
“If there ever was a time for a cool, rational and unemotional series of responses on the part of people in Europe, it is now. One reason is that Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Trump are very similar: They are macho types, they are bullies - and they want the same thing: to weaken the EU, albeit for different reasons. Trump, for his part, is a protectionist of the first order, and he wants to make his vision work. He shows no interest in competition with others, but aims to go back to the 1930s.” PeopleDifferentReasonPresidentInterestVisionAimCompetitionResponseRationalBully1930sMacho Author:Anthony Glees