Best Rationality Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 11

“If we compare a severely defective human infant with a nonhuman animal, a dog or a pig, for example, we will often find the nonhuman to have superior capacities, both actual and potential, for rationality, self-consciousness, communication and anything else that can plausibly be considered morally significant.”

Ifs Humans Self Animal Consciousness Dog Example Communication Capacity Significant Superiors Compare Pigs Rationality Infant Self Consciousness Defective

Author:Peter Singer

“"We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" in a draft of the Declaration of Independence changes it instead into an assertion of rationality. The scientific mind of Franklin drew on the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of David Hume and Gottfried Leibniz. In what became known as "Hume's Fork" the latters' theory distinguished between synthetic truths that describe matters of fact, and analytic truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition.”

“I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.”

Purpose Order Successful Appreciate Stress Structure Clarity Agents Stability Rationality

Book:Set in motion: essays, interviews, and dialogues

Source: Set in motion: essays, interviews, and dialogues

“Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.”

Way Vision Seeing Structure Prison Definitions Blank Rationality

Book:Set in motion: essays, interviews, and dialogues

Source: Set in motion: essays, interviews, and dialogues

“Anger may bring extra energy, but it eclipses the best part of our brain: its rationality. The energy of anger is almost always unreliable.”

May Energy Brain Awakening Extras Rationality Eclipse Unreliable

Author:Dalai Lama

“Workers and their families may starve to death in the New World Order of economic rationality, but diamond necklaces are cheaper in elegant New York shops, thanks to the miracle of the market.”

World May Order Economic New York Miracle Workers Thanks Shops Anarchy New World Diamond Rationality Elegant Cheaper New World Order World Order Necklaces

Book:World Orders, Old and New

Source: World Orders, Old and New

“Logic, like whiskey, loses its beneficial effect when taken in too large quantities.”

Loses Taken Effects Logic Mathematics Math Mathematical Novelists Reasoning Statistics Excess Quantity Rationality Beneficial Playwright Whiskey Mathematical Logic Reason And Logic

Author:Lord Dunsany

“To know one's own desires, their meaning and their costs requires the highest human virtue: rationality.”

Knows Humans Desire Virtue Cost Highest Rationality

Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

Source: The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

“Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice... Man has to be a man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”

Men Has Beens Matter Values Choices Practice Virtue Morality Accepted Rational Code Rationality Be A Man

Book:Philosophy: Who Needs It

Source: Philosophy: Who Needs It

“In believing too much in rationality, our contemporaries have lost something.”

Believe Lost Too Much Rationality

Author:Krzysztof Kieslowski

“What should we think of someone who never admits error, never entertains doubt but adheres unflinchingly to the same ideas all his life, regardless of new evidence? Doubt and skepticism are signs of rationality. When we are too certain of our opinions, we run the risk of ignoring any evidence that conflicts with our views. It is doubt that shows we are still thinking, still willing to reexamine hardened beliefs when confronted with new facts and new evidence.”

Thinking Should Stills Ideas Facts Shows Running Certain Belief Views Opinion Doubt Risk Willing Conflict Evidence Errors Skepticism Rationality Hardened

Author:Diane Ravitch

“If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.”

Ifs Men Has Beens Purpose Chance Communication Morality Significance Meaningless Rationality Verbal Communication

Author:Francis Schaeffer

“The neural processes underlying that which we call creativity have nothing to do with rationality. That is to say, if we look at how the brain generates creativity, we will see that it is not a rational process at all; creativity is not born out of reasoning.”

Ifs Looks Process Born Brain Creativity Rational Reasoning Rationality

Author:Rodolfo Llinas

“Addressing the conclusions of The God Delusion point by point with the devastating insight of a molecular biologist turned theologian, Alister McGrath dismantles the argument that science should lead to atheism, and demonstrates instead that Dawkins has abandoned his much-cherished rationality to embrace an embittered manifesto of dogmatic atheist fundamentalism.”

Should Atheism Argument Embrace Atheist Insight Conclusion Delusion Abandoned Fundamentalism Rationality Theologian Biologist Dogmatic Manifestos God Delusion

Author:Francis Collins

“A man demonstrates his rationality, not by a commitment to fixed ideas, stereotyped procedures, or immutable concepts, but by the manner in which, and the occasions on which, he changes those ideas, procedures, and concepts.”

Men Ideas Change He Man Concepts Commitment Transformation Occasions Fixed Stereotype Rationality Procedures Demonstrating

Author:Stephen Toulmin

“Even intellectuals should have learned by now that objective rationality is not the default position of the human mind, much less the bedrock of human affairs.”

Should Mind Humans Position Should Have Affair Objectives Human Mind Rationality Default Bedrock

Book:Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South

Source: Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South

“The hope for the twentieth century rests on recognition that war and depression are man-made, and needless. They can be avoided in the future by turning from the nineteenth-century characteristics just mentioned (materialism, selfishness, false values, hypocrisy, and secret vices) and going back to other characteristics that our Western Society has always regarded as virtues: generosity, compassion, cooperation, rationality, and foresight, and finding a increased role in human life for love, spirituality, charity, and self discipline.”

“I think looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's something for research.”

Thinking Facts Stories My Own Childhood Possibility Research Not Sure Looking Back Rationality Frogs Insidious

Author:Richard Dawkins

“Buffett’s genius was largely a genius of character—of patience, discipline, and rationality.”

Character Genius Discipline Rationality Buffett

Book:Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

Source: Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

“In general, we’re least aware of what our minds do best.”

Mind Rationality

Book:Society Of Mind

Source: Society Of Mind

“Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.”

Rich Intuition Fascinating Rationality Juicy

Book:Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“If one devalues rationality, the world tends to fall apart.”

Ifs World Fall Rationality Falling Apart Devalue

Author:Lars von Trier

“The term "rational" and its variants (rationality, rationalism) are used in a lot of contexts in economic debate, both positively and negatively, but nearly always sloppily or dishonestly. A specimen I've seen on more occasions than I can count is the line (usually presented with a sense of witty originality) "if you are opposed to economic rationalism, you must be in favor of economic irrationalism"... I've come to the conclusion that the word "rational" has no meaning that cannot better be conveyed by some alternative term and that the best advice is probably to avoid it altogether.”

Ifs I Can Used Term Lines Economic Advice Witty Libertarian Favors Debate Rational Conclusion Occasions Alternatives Originality Rationality Positively Best Advice Rationalism Of Context

Author:John Quiggin

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”

“So few of us really think. What we do is rearrange our prejudges.”

Thinking Rationality

Author:George Vincent

“Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. [They are the two sides of a coin, so learning how to manage fear through learning, understanding, rationality, controlled imagination, preparation, mental focus (including distraction) and a gratitude attitude is very helpful.]”

Two Understanding Sides Imagination Attitude Focus Gratitude Including Manage Preparation Helpful Controlled Distraction Anticipation Rationality Coins Two Sides Without Hope

Author:Baruch Spinoza

“People who have cut their teeth on philosophical problems of rationality, knowledge, perception, free will and other minds are well placed to think better about problems of evidence, decision making, responsibility and ethics that life throws up.”

People Thinking Mind Wells Problem Decision Responsibility Cutting Perception Ethics Evidence Philosophical Teeth Decision Making Free Will Rationality

Author:Simon Blackburn

“In a society where rationality has ruled so long, the church frequently fails to see that in forsaking the weekly pursuit of the transcendent, we have given up the only ground that was uniquely ours in this world. In attempting to make the church something that can attract and add value to secular mind-sets, we have turned our backs on our one true proposition - transcendence.”

World Mind Long Values Given Church Failing This World Add Pursuit Secular Rationality Propositions Attempting Transcendence Given Up Transcendent Mind Set

Book:Vertical Church: What Every Heart Longs for. What Every Church Can Be.

Source: Vertical Church: What Every Heart Longs for. What Every Church Can Be.

“A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone's orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone's opinions, threats, wishes, plans.”

Mind May Doe Reason Reality Truth Order Wish Views Opinion Knowledge Plans Sacrifice Gun Argument Threat Rational Destroyed Welfare Novelists Rationality Compulsion Subordinates Hamper

Author:Ayn Rand

“By the way, the point between rationality and what we would call the irrational is a very difficult point to establish. There’s no specific line, as you know.”

Knows Way Difficult Lines Irrational Rationality

Author:Leo Ornstein

“In healthy individuals, emotions don't distort rationality, they enhance it!”

Individual Leadership Emotion Learning Healthy Rationality

Author:Andy Hargreaves

“There is light in the world, and it is us!”

World Light Rationality

Author:Eliezer Yudkowsky

“I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it?”

Thinking Knows Believe Asks Fundamentals Rationality You Think You Know

Author:Eliezer Yudkowsky

“"The people" is that massive portion of a society that lives by its pathetic subjection to sheer immediacy or self-obviousness, and that therefore uncritically seizes upon the most simplistic and abstract ways of filling its vacuous self-consciousness. Not philosophy but dogma and rhetoric, not rationality but indoctrination and conditioning, provide the cultural junkfood by which the Many perfunctorily slake their thirst and hunger.”

“Busy as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.”

Men Busy Ass Rationality Contests Kicking Fluency Busier Ladybugs

Author:Stephen King

“The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality.”

Thinking Ends Limits Rationality

Author:Blaise Pascal

“Why do we not exhaust the heritage of the ages, spiritual and material for our immediate pleasure, and let posterity go hang? So far as simple rationality is concerned, self-interest can advance no argument against the appetite of present possessors. Yet within some of us, a voice that is not the demand of self-interest or pure rationality says that we have no right to give ourselves enjoyment at the expense of our ancestors' memory and our descendants' prospects. We hold our present advantages only in trust.”

“The Noah rule: Predicting rain doesn't count; building arks does.”

Doe Building Rain Rationality Predicting Ark

Author:Warren Buffett

“The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.”

Men Speak Liberty Sacrifice He Man Masters Slave Libertarian Rationality Freedom And Liberty Freedom Liberty Fountainhead Objectivism

Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)

Source: For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)

“Business is essentially applied rationality: a systematic process of thinking that produces a real-world result. Instead of mortgaging your life to go to business school, it's possible to dramatically increase your knowledge of business on your own time and with little cost - without setting foot inside a classroom.”

Thinking World Littles Real School Process Results Feet Produce Cost Increase Setting Settings Real World Classroom Rationality Systematic Business School

Author:Josh Kaufman

“There is always some madness in love.”

Source: The Portable Nietzsche

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

“One of the essential differences between the liberal and conservative worldview is that the liberals believe in rationality, whereas conservative believe that human events are ordered by forces that are beyond the ability of our rational mind to understand or control.”

Mind Believe Humans Religion Force Differences Ability Events Essentials Conservative Rational Rationality Worldview

Author:Thom Hartmann

“The smartest groups, then, are made up of people with diverse perspectives who are able to stay independent of each other. Independence doesn't imply rationality or impartiality, though. You can be biased and irrational, but as long as you're independent, you won't make the group any dumber.”

People Long Made Able Groups Perspective Independent Independence Diverse Irrational Rationality Biased Impartiality

Book:The Wisdom of Crowds

Source: The Wisdom of Crowds

“No vital Christianity is possible unless at least three aspects of it are developed. These are the inner life of devotion, the outer life of service, and the intellectual life of rationality.”

Christian Three Christianity Intellectual Aspect Devotion Rationality Inner Life Intellectual Life

Author:D. Elton Trueblood

“How much rationality and higher protection there is in such self-deception, and how much falseness I still require in order to allow myself again and again the luxury of my sincerity.”

Stills Self Order Higher Protection Luxury Deception Sincerity Again And Again Rationality Self Deception Falseness

Book:Human, All-Too-Human: Parts One and Two

Source: Human, All-Too-Human: Parts One and Two

“The absurd, with its rupture of rationality-of conventional ways of seeing the world-is in fact an accurate and a productive way of understanding the world.”

World Way Facts Understanding Seeing Absurd Productive Accurate Conventional Rationality Seeing The World Rupture Understanding The World Conventional Ways

Author:William Kentridge

“For those who do not make the transition to a matured, more spiritual self-will reason will indeed be no more than rationalization. Here is a prodigious parallel: just as in antiquity the dysdaimonic personality could not appreciate how his mentality was bound in by his characterological (banausic, doulic) biases, so in modernity the facile or abstractivist rationalist cannot comprehend how his "rationality" merely slavishly subserves his appetites, delusions, preconceptions, ideologies, etc.”

“Rationality will not save us.”

Thinking Rationality

Book:Official Teacher's Guide for The Fog of War: An Errol Morris Film

Source: Official Teacher's Guide for The Fog of War: An Errol Morris Film

“The willingness to change one’s mind in the light of new evidence is a sign of rationality not weakness.”

Mind Light Weakness Evidence Willingness Rationality Willingness To Change

Author:Stuart Sutherland

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Rationality Quotes