Best 201 quotes in «rational quotes» category

I've always been interested in the intersection between our rational and our unconscious lives.

I would like to see our society mature, and become more rational and more knowledge-based, less emotion-based.

Painting quickly is a calculated act to block out rational thought.

Kant was a rational theologian. He did not pretend to be a biblical or revealed theologian.

Now I must give one smirk and then we may be rational again

Only the stupid and the wicked can fear rational criticism.

Lovers are rarely the most rational beings in creation.

More often than not, the only thing between you and your dream is a rational excuse.

Papa always makes it clear that he would like to know me as much more rational and lucid than the girls and women he gets to know during his analytic hours.

People in the voting booth are not purely rational creatures any more than they're purely rational creatures outside the voting booth.

Rational assessments too often led to rational surrenders.

Pluralism lets things really exist in the each-form or distributively. Monism thinks that the all-form or collective-unit form is the only form that is rational.

Rational thought is interpretation according to a scheme which we cannot escape.

The more rational an institution is the less it suffers by making concessions to others.

Refuse any image that could have a rational meaning or any memory or culture

Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility.

Skepticism is not a denial of belief, but rather a denial of rational grounds for belief.

Socialism is the renunciation of rational economy.

The first koan do not have rational answers. They are techniques devised over the millennia for triggering an actual experience.

The darkening of the world makes the irrationality of art rational: radically darkened art.

To be rational is so glorious a thing, that two-legged creatures generally content themselves with the title.

The rules of friendship are tacit, unconscious; they are not rational. In business, though, you have to think rationally.

The rational transparency and beauty of the universe are surely too remarkable to be treated as just happy accidents.

To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass.

To stand well in the estimation of one's country is a happiness that no rational creature can be insensible of.

To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable.

Well, it's possible to be mentally ill and rational.

When money is free, the rational lender will keep on lending until there is no one else to lend to.

You cannot be a rational subject without veto-control on the level of mental action.

You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.

All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.

Annie clouded up. For a second, he thought she was going to erupt, and flinched. She saw that...and got control of herself with an visible effort. She took three deep breaths, each longer than the last, and her features became serene. All at once it seemed totally clear to Mike that she was right and he was nuts - that his ingenius theory was nonsense, childish, fantasty bullshit. His conviction evaporated, and he was ashamed. He felt his cheeks grow hot, groped for words with which to backtrack - "I have to admit I have no better explanation for the the facts," Annie said slowly. Again, Mike did an emotional instant 180. "Holy shit -" She held up a hand. "I am going to think now. Very hard, for a long time. You will be as quiet as possible while I do." She got up from the computer, went to the bed, and lay down. "Think yourself, or read, or play games with the headphones on, or go Topside if you like." She clasped her hands on her belly, closed her eyes and appeared to go to sleep

A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False? - Right or Wrong?

Are you seeking to know what is wrong with the world? All the disasters that have wrecked your world, came from your leaders’ attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A.

As emotions may take apart bit by bit the rational blueprints in our imagination, dreams may expose what is veiled in the safe haven of our thoughts and disclose elements, which bring to light some baffling qualities that we might never have presumed ("Only silence remained")

As I see it the world is undoubtedly in need of a new religion, and that religion must be founded on humanist principles. When I say religion, I do not mean merely a theology involving belief in a supernatural god or gods; nor do I mean merely a system of ethics, however exalted; nor only scientific knowledge, however extensive; nor just a practical social morality, however admirable or efficient. I mean an organized system of ideas and emotions which relate man to his destiny, beyond and above the practical affairs of every day, transcending the present and the existing systems of law and social structure. The prerequisite today is that any such religion shall appeal potentially to all mankind; and that its intellectual and rational sides shall not be incompatible with scientific knowledge but on the contrary based on it.

Baptize yourself with the flow of rational thinking and the world is bound to become rational.

Beliefs are personal, but universal truths are above that. For example, the surface temperature of the sun is around 5,505 degrees Celsius – the speed of light is around 300,000 kilometers per second – the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old – modern day chimps are the closest cousins of us humans. These are irrefutable universal truth, regardless of what anyone believes.

But even when a man has offended against his own rational code, I doubt whether a sense of sin is the best method of arriving at a better way of life. There is in the sense of sin something abject, something lacking in self-respect. No good was ever done to any one by the loss of self-respect. The rational man will regard his own undesirable acts, as he regards those of others, as acts produced by certain circumstances, and to be avoided either by a fuller realization that they are undesirable, or, where this is possible, by avoidance of the circumstances that caused them.

Compassion without discipline is egregious self-sabotage.

Dare to exercise rational thinking.

Earthquake means destruction; dictator means destruction! In the case of earthquake, you need a strong building; in the case of dictator, you need an educated rational mind, because an irrational ignorant mind always serves the dictator!

Every single human being is neurologically predisposed to be biased in various walks of life. It is biologically impossible to be absolutely free from all biases, nevertheless, the more a person rigorously trains the self to be rational and conscientious, the more that self becomes strong enough to keep the biases in check, never to let them run rampant over the psyche.

Excessive praise arises from the same bigotry matrix as excessive criticism.

Fighting is found everywhere in the animal kingdom and nowhere so much as among human animals. Animals fight to get what they want--food, sex, territory, control, etc.--because there are other animals who want the same thing or who want to stop them from getting it. The same is true of human animals, except that we have developed more sophisticated techniques for getting our way. Being "rational animals," we have institutionalized our fighting in a number of ways, one of them being war. Even though we have over the ages institutionalized physical conflict and have employed many of our finest minds to develop more effective means of carrying it out, its basic structure remains essentially unchanged. In fights between brute animals, scientists have observed the practices of issuing challenges for the sake of intimidation, of establishing and defending territory, attacking, defending, counterattacking, retreating, and surrendering. Human fighting involves the same practices. Part of being a rational animal, however, involves getting what you want without subjecting yourself to the dangers of actual physical conflict. As a result, we humans have evolved the social institution of verbal argument. We have arguments all the time in order to try to get what we want, and sometimes these "degenerate" into physical violence.

For the most part, people strenuously resist any redefinition of morality, because it shakes them to the very core of their being to think that in pursuing virtue they may have been feeding vice, or in fighting vice they may have in fact been fighting virtue.

Four times during the first six days they were assembled and briefed and then sent back. Once, they took off and were flying in formation when the control tower summoned them down. The more it rained, the worse they suffered. The worse they suffered, the more they prayed that it would continue raining. All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars. All through the day, they looked at the bomb line on the big, wobbling easel map of Italy that blew over in the wind and was dragged in under the awning of the intelligence tent every time the rain began. The bomb line was a scarlet band of narrow satin ribbon that delineated the forward most position of the Allied ground forces in every sector of the Italian mainland. For hours they stared relentlessly at the scarlet ribbon on the map and hated it because it would not move up high enough to encompass the city. When night fell, they congregated in the darkness with flashlights, continuing their macabre vigil at the bomb line in brooding entreaty as though hoping to move the ribbon up by the collective weight of their sullen prayers. "I really can't believe it," Clevinger exclaimed to Yossarian in a voice rising and falling in protest and wonder. "It's a complete reversion to primitive superstition. They're confusing cause and effect. It makes as much sense as knocking on wood or crossing your fingers. They really believe that we wouldn't have to fly that mission tomorrow if someone would only tiptoe up to the map in the middle of the night and move the bomb line over Bologna. Can you imagine? You and I must be the only rational ones left." In the middle of the night Yossarian knocked on wood, crossed his fingers, and tiptoed out of his tent to move the bomb line up over Bologna.

Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness—to value the failure of your values—is an insolent negation of morality.

...he had acquired the conviction that one had to concern oneself with the rational, not the insane—that one had to seek that which was right, because the right answer always won—that the senseless, the wrong, the monstrously unjust could not work, could not succeed, could do nothing but defeat itself.

He repeated it carefully, pausing for effect. " 'Love is the only rational act.