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Rational Quotes

Browse 1559 quotes about Rational.

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Rational Quotes

“When art seems to be empty of meaning, as no doubt some of the abstract painting of our own day actually does seem, what the painting says, indeed what the artist is shrieking at the top of his voice, is that life has become empty of all rational content and coherence, and that, in times like these, is far from a meaningless statement.”

DoeArtSeemsArtistVoiceDoubtPaintingEmptyStatementsRationalAbstractNo DoubtMeaninglessCoherenceAbstract PaintingTimes Like These
Book:Art and Technics
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“A compassionate willingess is required - as is the courage to live before the fact, before the understanding, before any rational support or certainty, to live the moment to its natural peak and conclusion, and to accept with dignity whatever joy, grief, misfortune, or unexpectedness occurs.”

MomentsFactsJoyUnderstandingNaturalGriefAcceptingSupportDignityRationalConclusionCertaintyVulnerabilityMisfortunesCompassionateLive In The MomentUnexpectedness
Author:Clark Moustakas
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“To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”

PeopleWaySeemsDemocracyClearDefeatEdgesRationalConclusionYieldPessimismRealisticReportersHonorablePledgeUnreasonableStalemate
Author:Walter Cronkite
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“Americans are cultured from their earliest years to be either one-sided douloi or one-sided banausoi, i.e. either they cannot think abstractively/conceptually/orchestrally or else they can only think abstractively. Thinking in a truly rational dialectic between intuition and intellect is just beyond the reach of our nation of emotionalist helots. What prevails among us truly has to be called not thinking but "thinking," a pathetic surrogate for actual thinking for the benefit of existentially or modally crippled mentalities.”

ThinkingYearsNationsBenefitsIntuitionIntellectRationalMentalityPatheticCrippledOne SidedDialecticsSurrogates
Author:Kenny Smith
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“It is not intuitive ease I am after, but rather a point of view which is sufficiently definite to clear up some difficulties, and to be criticized in rational terms. (Bohr's complementarity cannot be so criticized, I fear; it can only be accepted or denounced - perhaps as being ad hoc, or as being irrational, or as being hopelessly vague.)”

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Book:Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics: From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery
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“Whenever I was confronted in the schoolyard, I found some way to avoid the fight. I ran for it. I backed down. Psychologically and emotionally, that isn't a low-cost course of action for most boys. You avoid a physical beating, but you pay a real social and psychological cost for it. Those moments of walking away from fights, even though I knew it was the rational and civilized thing to do, cost me tremendously.”

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Author:Jonathan Gottschall
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“It is commonly said that if rational argument is so seldom the cause of conviction, philosophical apologists must largely be wasting their shot. The premise is true, but the conclusion does not follow. For though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”

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Author:Austin Farrer
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“Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification-that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly.”

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Author:John Galt
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“Every being ought to do that which is according to its constitution; and all other things have been constituted for the sake of the superior, but the rational for the sake of one another.”

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Book:Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius The Golden Sayings Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion
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“The present mode of life on earth is madness, which is nontheless lethal for being legal. Rational existence is possible, but it calls for a world consciousness and a world design. People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.”

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Author:Norman Cousins
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“I have sometimes thought there could be no stronger testimony in favor of Religion or against temporal Enjoyments even the most rational and manly than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent Advocates in the cause of Christ, & I wish you may give in your Evidence in this way. Such instances have seldom occurred, therefore they would be more striking and would be instead of a "Cloud of Witnesses.”

MenWayGivingMaySometimesWould BeWishCausesChristWealthBecomingEvidenceStrongerCloudsFavorsRationalReputationInstanceWitnessEnjoymentRisingDepartmentHonorableTestimonyWish YouManlyFervent
Book:The Papers of James Madison
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“One does not learn anything except by believing something, and -- conversely -- if one doubts everything one learns nothing. On the other hand, believing everything uncritically is the road to disaster. The faculty of doubt is essential. But as I have argued, rational doubt always rests on faith and not vice versa. The relationship between the two cannot be reversed.”

IfsBelieveDoeTwoHandsDoubtEssentialsVicesDisasterRationalFacultyVice Versa
Author:Lesslie Newbigin
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“It is far more rational to suppose that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.”

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Book:The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
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“A license cannot be revoked because a man is red-headed or because he was divorced, except for a calling, if such there be, for which red-headedness or an unbroken marriage may have some rational bearing. If a State licensing agency lays bare its arbitrary action, or if the State law explicitly allows it to act arbitrarily, that is precisely the kind of State action which the Due Process Clause forbids.”

IfsMenKindMayStatesActionLawProcessCallingLaysDuesRationalAgencyLicenseArbitraryDivorcedUnbrokenClausesDue ProcessLicensing
Author:Felix Frankfurter
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“This is a time when it is frightening to be alive, when it is hard to think of human beings as rational creatures. Everywhere we look we see brutality, stupidity, until it seems that there is nothing else to be seen but that--a descent into barbarism, everywhere, which we are unable to check. But I think that while it is true there is a general worsening, it is precisely because things are so frightening we become hypnotized, and do not notice--or if we notice, belittle--equally strong forces on the other side, the forces, in short, of reason, sanity and civilization.”

IfsThinkingHumansLooksHardReasonSeemsStrongForceSidesHuman BeingsAliveCivilizationCreaturesStupidityChecksRationalSanityFrighteningBrutalityDescentBarbarismBelittle
Book:Prisons We Choose to Live Inside
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“The main purpose of advertising is to undermine markets. If you go to graduate school and you take a course in economics, you learn that markets are systems in which informed consumers make rational choices. That's what's so wonderful about it. But that's the last thing that the state corporate system wants. It is spending huge sums to prevent that.”

IfsWantStatesSchoolLastsPurposeChoicesCoursesWonderfulHugeEconomicsSpendingRationalAdvertisingConsumersCorporateGraduatesGraduate School
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“Marriage is a public declaration of a man and a woman that they have formed a secret alliance, with the intention to belong to, and share with each other, a mystical estate; mystical exactly in the sense that the real experience cannot be communicated to others, nor explained even to oneself on rational grounds.”

MenRealSecretShareIntentionOneselfRationalEstatesMysticalDeclarationAlliances
Book:Katherine Anne Porter: Collected Stories & Other Writings
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“No tin-hat brigade of goose-stepping vigilantes or bibble-babbling mob of blackguarding and corporation paid scoundrels will prevent the onward march of labor, or divert its purpose to play its natural and rational part in the development of the economic, political and social life of our nation.”

PlayPoliticalPurposeNationsSocialNaturalEconomicDevelopmentLaborPaidRationalCorporationsHatsMarchSocial LifeGeeseTinScoundrelsBabblingVigilante
Author:John L. Lewis
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“Bad news drives out good news. The irrational is more controversial than the rational. Concurrence can no longer compete with dissent. One minute of Eldridge Cleaver is worth ten minutes of Roy Wilkins. The labor crises settled at the negotiating table is nothing compared to the confrontation that results in a strike ... normality has become the nemesis of network news.”

ResultsMinutesTenNewsLaborCrisisTablesStrikesRationalIrrationalGood NewsDissentConfrontationControversialBad NewsOne MinuteNormalityNegotiatingNemesisConcurrenceCleaver
Book:The Impudent Snobs: Agnew Vs. the Intellectual Establishment
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“Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.”

LightGovernmentSufferingGroupsPolicyTheoryResponseVariousRationalConspiracyDilemmaExtremistCognitiveEpistemologyConspiracy TheoryCrippledInfiltrationExtremist Groups
Author:Cass Sunstein
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