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Rational Quotes

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Rational Quotes

“[T]here seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously-after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important ... so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsYearsHas BeensImportantStatesReasonSeemsPoliticsUnitedLeaderOpinionMillionsUnited StatesMediaPolicyProveMouthsImportancePaidAffairAthleteIgnorantTreatedRationalDeclineMistakenEntertainersRational ThinkingProfessional AthleteForeign AffairsIdolizedDomestic Policy
Author:Robert A. Heinlein
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“To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great or rational whether in life or in science. Great achievement is assured, however, of subsequent recognition and grateful acceptance by public opinion, which in due course will make it one of its own prejudices”

FirstsCoursesOpinionAchieveConditionsAcceptanceAchievementPrejudiceIndependentGratefulDuesRationalRecognitionFormalAssuredPublic OpinionGreat Achievement
Book:Hegel's Philosophy of right
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“Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair. If one truly responds to man and his future, ie , concernedly and "responsibly." one can respond only by faith or by despair. Rational faith as well as rational despair are based on the most thorough, critical knowledge of all the factors that are relevant for the survival of man.”

IfsMenWellsFormDespairSurvivalOptimismCriticalRationalFactorsPessimismRelevantThorough
Book:The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
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“Rational behavior ... depends upon a ceaseless flow of data from the environment. It depends upon the power of the individual to predict, with at least a fair success, the outcome of his own actions. To do this, he must be able to predict how the environment will respond to his acts. Sanity, itself, thus hinges on man's ability to predict his immediate, personal future on the basis of information fed him by the environment.”

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Book:future shock
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“The whole point of religious faith, its strength and chief glory, is that it does not depend on rational justification. The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices. But ask a religious person to justify their faith and you infringe 'religious liberty'.”

PersonsDoeWholeFaithAsksReligiousLibertyDependsGloryPrejudiceExpectedRationalChiefsJustifyJustificationReligious FaithReligious LibertyReligious PersonGod Delusion
Book:The God Delusion
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“To stand well in the estimation of one's country is a happiness that no rational creature can be insensible of.”

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Book:Writings: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts
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“American literature has been, and is, singularly deficient in established critics who have anything like a rational conception of their jobs. The majority, initiate in a few of the patent rituals of Aristotle and Quintilian, don the forbidding robes of high priests to Sweetness and Light, and go about their business much as if the idea were to keep all they know to themselves.”

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Author:Burton Rascoe
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“No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong -- only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again.”

MenWayMayDoeReasonDonePastDesireEvilHe ManRegardNotionPunishmentRationalBeastFuryUndoneUnreasonableDoersEvil DoersPast Wrongs
Author:Plato
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“So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational. A free discipline controls the individual by appealing to his reason and conscience, and therefore to his self-respect; while an unfree control works upon some lower phase of the mind, and so tends to degrade him. It is freedom to be disciplined in as rational a manner as you are fit for.”

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Book:Human Nature and the Social Order
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“All doctrines relating to the creation of the world, the government of man by superior beings, and his destiny after death, are conjectures which have been given out as facts, handed down with many adornments by tradition, and accepted by posterity as "revealed religion". They are theories more or less rational which uncivilised men have devised in order to explain the facts of life, and which civilised men believe that they believe.”

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Book:The Martyrdom of Man
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“Where are these rational practices to be taught and acquired? Not within the four walls of a bare building, in which formality predominates... But in the nursery, play-ground, fields, gardens, workshops, manufactures, museums and class-rooms. ...The facts collected from all these sources will be concentrated, explained, discussed, made obvious to all, and shown in their direct application to practice in all the business of life.”

MadePlayFactsRoomsClassPracticeFourFieldsBuildingTaughtSourceWallGardenDirectObviousRationalMuseumsApplicationWorkshopsNurseryFormalityFour Walls
Author:Robert Owen
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“I refer to the misunderstanding of Soviet Russia as an aggressive power, militaristically and ideologically bent upon world domination 'seeing', to quote a recent speech of the British Prime Minister, 'the rest of the world as its rightful fiefdom.' How any rational person, viewing objectively the history of the last thirty-five years, could entertain this 'international misunderstanding' challenges, if it does not defeat, comprehension. The notion has no basis in fact... If Russia is bent on world conquest, she has been remarkably slothful and remarkably unsuccessful.”

IfsWorldYearsPersonsDoeHas BeensFactsLastsChallengesFiveSeeingSpeechBasesNotionDefeatInternationalBritishRussiaRationalMinistersThirtyFive YearsPrimeAggressiveSovietBentPrime MinisterConquestDominationMisunderstandingComprehensionUnsuccessfulSoviet RussiaWorld Domination
Author:Enoch Powell
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“Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate, or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.”

WellsKindActionLawNationsBoundsSuperiorsRationalAll KindsInferiorsIrrationalMechanicLaws Of NatureComprehensiveGravitationOpticsLaws Of Motion
Book:Commentaries on the Laws of England
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“Any play that makes an audience think out of the box, that makes connections to life and names our pain and by doing so makes our pain subject to thinking and the process of understanding, is doing something inherently political. By promoting understanding, by putting experience in context, by making connections between the normal and the rational, theatre is an act of anti-terrorism. It stimulates courage and a survival spirit. In that sense of political, there are a lot of serious plays doing their work in the world.”

ThinkingWorldPlayPainPoliticalSpiritNamesProcessUnderstandingAudienceSubjectsSeriousNormalSurvivalConnectionsBoxesTerrorismTheatreRationalPromotingAnti Terrorism
Author:John Lahr
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“It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.”

MenWorldWantSufferingHumanityJusticeCompassionVisionFitConceptsDareRationalCivilizedRuthless
Book:Freedom from Fear: And Other Writings
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“Divine Providence is connected with Divine intellectual influence, and the same beings which are benefited by the latter so as to become intellectual, and to comprehend things comprehensible to rational beings, are also under the control of Divine Providence, which examines all their deeds with a view of rewarding or punishing them. ...the method of which our mind is incapable of understanding.”

MindUnderstandingViewsInfluenceDivineIntellectualMethodDeedsConnectedRationalLatterProvidenceIncapableDivine Providence
Author:Maimonides
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“Man can have strength of character only as he is capable of controlling his faculties; of choosing a rational end; and, in its pursuit, of holding fast to his integrity against al! the might of external nature.”

MenEndsCharacterMightIntegrityCapablePursuitRationalFacultyAlsStrength Of CharacterHaving Strength
Book:Strength and beauty: A baccalaureate sermon, delivered at Williamstown, Ms. August 17, 1851
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“Reason ... contradicts the established order of men and things on behalf of existing societal forces that reveal the irrational character of this order for "rational" is a mode of thought and action which is geared to reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality, and oppression.”

MenReasonCharacterActionOrderForceIgnoranceDestructionRationalOppressionIrrationalBehalfBrutalityThoughts And Actions
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“The danger of Iran is if you listen to what the Ayatollah is saying, to what the Mullahs are saying, rational self-preservation is not their objective. If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon the odds are unacceptably high that that weapon will not be simply stockpiled, but it will be detonated over Tel Aviv, or New York, or Los Angeles.”

IfsSelfDangerNew YorkWeaponsNuclearObjectivesRationalAcquireIranLos AngelesNuclear WeaponsOddsPreservationSelf PreservationMullahs
Author:Ted Cruz
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“The horn of dilemma of energy politics is what really drives concern about this energy in this country, at the gut level for most people, is high gas prices. And if you really want to fight global warming and try to reduce our carbon emissions, the cleanest, easiest, most rational way to do it would to make the price of gas even higher through very stiff gas prices.”

PeopleIfsWayWantTryingCountryFightingEnergyLevelsHigherConcernRationalGlobal WarmingGutsGasCarbonHornsDilemmaEmissionsGas PricesCarbon Emissions
Author:Rich Lowry
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“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.”

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Author:Jurgen Habermas
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“Until the Great Depression, most economists clung to a vision of capitalism as a perfect or nearly perfect system. That vision wasn’t sustainable in the face of mass unemployment, but as memories of the Depression faded, economists fell back in love with the old, idealized vision of an economy in which rational individuals interact in perfect markets.”

FacesIndividualMemoriesPerfectVisionEconomyMassCapitalismRationalUnemploymentEconomistFadedGreat Depression
Author:Paul Krugman
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“To stand on the firing parapet and expose yourself to danger; to stand and fight a thousand miles from home when you're all alone and outnumbered and probably beaten; to spit on your hands and lower the pike; to stand fast over the body of Leonidas the King; to be rear guard at Kunu-Ri; to stand and be still to the Birkenhead Drill; these are not rational acts. They are often merely necessary.”

StillsHomeBodyHandsFightingDangerKingsThousandMilesRationalBeatenSpitAll AloneDrillsFiringThousand Miles
Author:Jerry Pournelle
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“Raymond Aron ascribes to Weber the view that 'each man's conscience is irrefutable.' ... while [Weber] holds that an agent may be more or less rational in acting consistently with his values, the choice of any one particular evaluative stance or commitment can be no more rational than any other. All faiths and all evaluations are equally non-rational.”

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Author:Alasdair MacIntyre
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