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Rational Quotes

Browse 1559 quotes about Rational.

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Rational Quotes

“I have always been a friend to hero-worship; it is the only rational one, and has always been in use amongst civilized people - the worship of spirits is synonymous with barbarism - it is mere fetish. ... There is something philosophic in the worship of the heroes of the human race.”

PeopleHumansUseSpiritRaceHeroWorshipMereRationalHuman RaceCivilizedBarbarismFetishPhilosophicHero Worship
Book:Roving Adventures, Or Lavengro: The Scholar - the Gipsy - the Priest
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“Outside of the marriage context, can you think of any other rational basis, reason, for a state using sexual orientation as a factor in denying homosexuals benefits or imposing burdens on them? Is there any other rational decision-making that the government could make? Denying them a job, not granting them benefits of some sort, any other decision?”

ThinkingStatesReasonGovernmentJobsDecisionGayBenefitsBasesBurdenRationalFactorsDecision MakingHomosexualOrientationImposingRational Decisions
Author:Sonia Sotomayor
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“As we enter the 21st Century it is clear that we have entered an unprecedented global age in which our diverse cultures, religions, philosophies, worldviews and perspectives encounter one another in the marketplace of our global village. It is now clear that our future sustainability on this planet calls for radical advances in our rational and human capacities to negotiate the powerful forces between worlds as the human family moves towards a sustainable global civilization.”

WorldHumansPhilosophyAgeMovingHumanityCultureForcePowerfulClearCenturyPlanetsPerspectiveCivilizationCapacityRationalRadicalEncountersVillageOur FutureSustainabilityDiverse21st CenturyMarketplaceWorldviewUnprecedentedPhilosophy Of ReligionHuman FamilyHuman CapacityGlobal VillageCulture ReligionDiverse Cultures
Author:Ashok Gangadean
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“The being we call god is merely a pawn working for a powerful and rational force in some far-off galaxy. This force is trying to weed out people who are irrational by seeing who would be stupid enough to believe in his god illusion so easily. Those that believe in this illusion, he will send to eternal damnation and he will deliver the rational beings, those who stoically refused to believe in a god, to heaven.”

PeopleTryingBelieveEnoughGodWould BeReligionForceHeavenPowerfulSeeingAtheismStupidEternalIllusionAtheistRationalWeedIrrationalGalaxyDamnationPawnsAnti Religious
Author:Nick Yee
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“... immediately call on Congress to pass far-reaching industry regulation like the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act ... [which] would give the Treasury Department health and safety authority over the gun industry, and any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns.”

GivingIndustryAuthorityGunSafetyCongressProtectionRationalConsumersDepartmentReachingRegulationGun ControlBansFirearmsTreasuryBannedHandgunsRegulatorsAnti GunHealth And SafetyGun SafetyHandgun BanGun BanConsumer Protection
Author:Josh Sugarmann
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“He had by now divested himself of schoolboy attitudes. He was unburdened by the desire to be a martyr or a hero. Any thoughts in that direction, Belgica effectively had quashed. Heroism in the corrupt sense of the age almost by definition, meant wanton self-sacrifice and bungling. For neither had he any taste. He wanted rational attainment; victory, but not at any price. No point upon the globe was worth the cost of a single life.”

LifeSelfAgeWantedDesireAttitudeSacrificeHeroVictoryTasteCostDefinitionsRationalHeroismGlobesMartyrNo PointAttainmentSelf SacrificeSingle LifeWanton
Author:Roland Huntford
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“It is science that brings us an understanding of the true complexity of natural systems. The insights from the science of ecology are teaching us how to work with the checks and balances of nature, and encouraging a new, rational, limited-input, environmentally sound means of vineyard management that offers a third way between the ideologically driven approach of Biodynamics and conventional chemical-based agricultural systems.”

WayMeanUnderstandingSoundNaturalTeachingBalanceOffersApproachThirdsManagementWineInsightDrivenChecksRationalComplexityChemicalsConventionalEcologyInputVineyards
Book:The Science of Wine: From Vine to Glass
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“I am once more seated under my own vine and fig tree ... and hope to spend the remainder of my days in peaceful retirement, making political pursuits yield to the more rational amusement of cultivating the earth.”

EarthPoliticalHopePeaceMy OwnTreePursuitRationalPeacefulYieldRetirementLeisureAmusementVinesCultivatingFigs
Book:The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799
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“A religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt about the significance of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation”

PersonsGoalReligiousDoubtObjectsPerceptionCapableFoundationRationalNo DoubtSignificanceScience And ReligionScience ReligionReligious Person
Book:Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words
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“In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses-How to Value a Business, and How to Think about Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business who's earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now.”

ThinkingNeedsShouldYearsWellsTwoCertainValuesCoursesGoalInterestViewsFiveStudentsTaughtHigherTenTwentiesInvestmentInvestingRationalInsightfulInvestorsEarning
Book:Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha
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“Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you.”

IfsMindWellsLongArtIdeasHelpingBigsStuffProcessLinesWalksBusinessHalfInformationConsciousHotDrinkingRationalAdvertisingUnconsciousWithin YouIrrelevantTelephonesBathsOne LineThought ProcessBig IdeasConscious MindPintsLong WalksRational ThoughtClaretHot Baths
Author:David Ogilvy
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“Many people keep deploring the low level of formal education in the United states (as defined by, say, math grades). Yet these fail to realize that the new comes from here and gets imitated elsewhere. And it is not thanks to universities, which obviously claim a lot more credit than their accomplishments warrant. Like Britain in the Industrial Revolution, America's asset is, simply, risk taking and the use of optionality, this remarkable ability to engage in rational forms fo trial and error, with no comparative shame in failing again, starting again, and repeating failure.”

PeopleStatesUseAmericaFormRealizingAbilityLevelsUnitedUnited StatesFailingRiskRevolutionLowsClaimsShameErrorsUniversityStartingCreditMathTrialsRationalThanksDefinedAccomplishmentBritainGradesRemarkableAssetsElsewhereFormalRisk-takingWarrantsIndustrial RevolutionTrial And ErrorFormal EducationLow Level
Book:Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
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“The indispensability of reason does not imply that individual people are always rational or are unswayed by passion and illusion. It only means that people are capable of reason, and that a community of people who choose to perfect this faculty and to exercise it openly and fairly can collectively reason their way to sounder conclusions in the long run. As Lincoln observed, you can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.”

PeopleWayMeanLongDoeReasonRunningPassionIndividualCommunityPerfectFoolExerciseCapableIllusionRationalConclusionFacultyLong RunsSounder
Book:The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
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“The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong. Above all, he values the intellectual independence of others too highly to want to convince them in important matters. He would much rather invite contradiction, preferably in the form of rational and disciplined criticism. He seeks not to convince but to arouse - to challenge others to form free opinions.”

WantMayDoeImportantMatterFormValuesChallengesOpinionIntellectualEnlightenmentCriticismIndependenceRationalContradictionConvinceThinkerInvitesEnlightenment ThinkersFree Opinion
Author:Karl Popper
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“All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal, but with a near infinite capacity for folly. . . . He draws blueprints for Utopia, but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand--his own part comic, part tragic, part cussed, but part glorious nature.”

MenEndsHandsAnimalBuildingMaterialsDrawsEvidenceBuiltCapacityInfiniteRationalComicGloriousFollyTragicNever QuitUtopiaBlueprintsPlugsBuilding Materials
Author:Robert McNamara
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“I still do not know what impels anyone sound of mind to leave dry land and spend a lifetime describing people who do not exist. If it is child's play, an extension of make believe - something one is frequently assured by people who write about writing - how to account for the overriding wish to do that, just that, only that, and consider it as rational an occupation as riding a bicycle over the Alps?”

PeopleIfsKnowsWritingMindBelieveChildrenStillsPlayWishSoundLandAccountsLifetimeRationalDryOccupationRidingExtensionsAssuredBicycleDescribingMake BelieveRiding A BicycleAlpsDry Land
Book:Paris Stories
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“I am speaking to those among you who have retained some sovereign shred of their soul, unsold and unstamped: '- to the order of others'. If, in the chaos of the motives that have made you listen to the radio tonight, there was an honest, rational desire to learn what is wrong with the world, you are the man whom I wished to address. By the rules and terms of my code, one owes a rational statement to those whom it does concern and who are making an effort to know. Those who are making an effort to fail to understand me, are not a concern of mine.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldDoeMadeSoulDesireOrderTermEffortFailingHonestMinesHe ManListeningConcernChaosRadioStatementsRationalCodeMotiveAddressesTonightSovereignUnderstand MeDesire To Learn
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“Without calculation, economic activity is impossible. Since under Socialism economic calculation is impossible, under Socialism there can be no economic activity in our sense of the word All economic change, therefore, would involve operations the value of which could neither be predicted beforehand nor ascertained after they had taken place. Everything would be a leap in the dark. Socialism is the renunciation of rational economy.”

Would BeValuesDarkEconomyTakenImpossibleEconomicActivitySocialismRationalOperationsLeapCalculationsRenunciationEconomic Change
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“But our ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective scientific method, with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots, is self-serving mythology.”

ThinkingWorldWaySelfProblemIndividualSocialScientistMethodMythologyObjectivesRationalLogicalServingStereotypeRobotsBiasedScientific MethodPreconceptionsSelf Serving
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“The perspective of eternity is not a perspective from a certain place beyond the world, nor the point of view of a transcendent being; rather it is a certain form of thought and feeling that rational persons can adopt within the world ... Purity of heart, if one could attain it, would be to see clearly and to act with grace and self-command from this point of view.”

IfsWorldHeartPersonsSelfFeelingsWould BeFormCertainViewsGracePerspectiveEternityPoint Of ViewRationalCommandPurityTranscendentThoughts And Feelings
Author:John Rawls
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“Our reverence for the nobility of manhood will not be lessened by the knowledge that man is in substance and in structure, one with the brutes; for he alone possesses the marvellous endowment of intelligible and rational speech whereby he has slowly accumulated and organized the experience which is almost wholly lost with the cessation of individual life in other animals; so that he now stands raised above it as on a mountain-top, far above the level of his humble fellows, and transfigured from his grosser nature by reflecting, here and there, a ray from the infinite source of truth.”

MenIndividualLostAnimalLevelsSourceMountainSpeechExperienceInfiniteFellowsStructureRaisedHumbleRationalSubstanceOrganizedRaysReverenceManhoodNobilityReflectingHere And ThereBrutesMarvellousEndowmentIndividual LifeMountain Top
Author:Thomas Huxley
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“TV is the only medium that I've ever been successful with in delivering really emotional messaging and I think as people are trying to work their way through what this changing environment is going to mean, playing to the emotional side as well as the pragmatic and the rational side is going to be something that a number of brands will want to fully explore.”

PeopleThinkingWayWantTryingWellsMeanSidesNumbersEmotionSuccessfulEnvironmentEmotionalTvsRationalMediumsAdvertisingBrandsDeliveringPragmaticChanging Environment
Author:Jill McDonald
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“The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, and to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.”

GovernmentLawProtectFunctionArmyPoliceCourtPropertyCriminalsObjectivesRationalSettlingContractsFraudDisputesProtect YouBreachInvaders
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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