Best 201 quotes in «rational quotes» category

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

Only the stupid and the wicked can fear rational criticism.

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

Rational assessments too often led to rational surrenders.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Socialism is the renunciation of rational economy.

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

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

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 me, poetry is a rational act. I never write a poem if I'm not sure what I am going to say or what I want to communicate.

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

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

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

We must be both rational and intellectual, both analytic and imaginative, utilizing both statistics and insight.

What did it matter to me? Did I think that by making you rational about one thing, I could make you rational about everything? Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to save you from your fears

Why are we so addicted to factual knowledge? Why are we so uncomfortable with the unknown? Is it something about the anxiety of our time? Because of course that wasn't always the way. Even now the whole idea of the rational individual has been subject to question and yet we still cling to this idea of factual, rational knowledge being more valuable than whatever its opposite might be.

What if I am wrong? Any rational investment plan has to start with that question.

When incredulity becomes a faith, it is less rational than a religion.

When the rational mind is shut off, we have the possibility of intuition.

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

You cannot expect any rational thought from a religious man. He is like a rocking log in water.

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.

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")

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

An atheist is essentially a person who believes in a rational world that works on the basis of certain natural laws without any interference from any `Supreme Being` or God.

A rational process is a moral process. You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the evidence and evade the effort of the quest - but if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.

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 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.

Connection isn't elegant, or precise, or rational. But it's our fate to be bound up with one another, isn't it. We are all born insufficient, and must look to others to supplement our strength. That is no weakness, it is the first condition of human life.

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

By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man—every man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.

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.

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