Irrational Quotes - Page 4

• O, mighty, divinely delimited wisdom of walls, boundaries! I is perhaps the most magnificent of all inventions. Man ceased to be a wild animal only when he build the first wall. Men ceased to be a wild man only when we built the Green Wall, only when, by means of that wall, we isolated our perfect machine world from the irrational, ugly world of trees, birds, and animals.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Wall, Mean, Men

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• Once a restless or frayed mood has turned to anger, or violence, or psychosis, Richard, like most, finds it very difficult to see it as illness, rather than being willful, angry, irrational or simply tiresome.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Psychosis, Violence, Illness

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.106, Pan Macmillan

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• As a German philosopher writing in the aftermath of the Nazi regime, Marcuse understood the sleep inducing force of indoctrination, its power to make people forget and forfeit their own real interests. "The fact that the vast majority of the population accepts, and is made to accept, this society does not render it less irrational and less reprehensible," he wrote. "The distinction between true and false consciousness, real and immediate interest still is meaningful."

  Daniel Pinchbeck

  Meaningful, Freedom, Real

  Daniel Pinchbeck (2007). “2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl”, p.67, Penguin

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• 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.

  James Surowiecki

  Independent, Long, People

  James Surowiecki (2005). “The Wisdom of Crowds”, p.41, Anchor

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• I did not agree..to having my article censored. ...The published report of the conference gives my name as a participant, but you will not find in it the paper I read. ...Scientists as a group are no more, and no less, influenced by emotional and irrational reactions than other people are.

  John Yudkin

  Dark, Emotional, Names

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• Man is in need if a symbolical life- badly in need. We only live banal, ordinary, rational or irrational things- but we have no symbolic life. Where do we live symbolically? Nowhere except where we participate in the ritual of life

  Carl Jung

  Men, Ordinary, Needs

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• Faeries are not fantasy, but a connection to reality. Faeries are irrational, poetic, absurd, and very, very wise. Faeries say there is nonsense in dogma, and sense in nonsense. Faeries express themselves with high seriousness and low humour. Faeries are resistant to all definitions.

  Brian Froud

  Wise, Reality, Connections

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• I'm irrational about all things creative and I'm always late!

  Iggy Azalea

  Creative, Late, All Things

  "I'm irrational about all things". Interview with Yale Breslin, www.elle.com. December 18, 2012.

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• Arithmetic starts with the integers and proceeds by successively enlarging the number system by rational and negative numbers, irrational numbers, etc... But the next quite logical step after the reals, namely the introduction of infinitesimals, has simply been omitted. I think, in coming centuries it will be considered a great oddity in the history of mathematics that the first exact theory of infinitesimals was developed 300 years after the invention of the differential calculus.

  Abraham Robinson

  Thinking, Oddities, Discovery

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• Those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.

  James Lovelock

  Two Sides, Growth, Ignorant

  "Stop blaming the poor. It's the wally yachters who are burning the planet" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. September 28, 2009.

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• It is sometimes rational to do what is wrong, and sometimes irrational to do what is right

  Dennis Prager

  Sometimes, Rational

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• I'm not sure most of the people that get caught up in the middle of a bubble can be described as irrational. It seems pretty rational to buy a house and flip it in the next few weeks at a profit when that's been happening for along time.

  Paul Samuelson

  People, House, Next

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• The truth is that no one who hasn't actually experienced the senseless chaos and violence of combat can possibly understand it, but those who have and who try to explain it to the rest of us are offering us a precious gift: a part of their soul that's been scorched in the flames of Hell. It's a little like trying to describe music to the deaf or color to the blind ... to make the irrational somewhat sensible, which is always confusing and frustrating, and ultimately futile.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Offering, Flames, Color

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• I have no prejudices: all my irrational hatreds are based on solid evidence.

  Ashleigh Brilliant

  Hatred, Prejudice, Evidence

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• There are real threats but there's a difference between recognizing real threats and an irrational kind of apocalyptic threat.

  Peter Beinart

  Real, Differences, Kind

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The market can move for irrational reasons, and you have to be prepared for that, ... you need to make big bets when the odds are in your favor -- not big enough to ruin you, but big enough to make a difference.

  Bill Gross

  Moving, Odds, Differences

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• To me, all human behavior is unpredictable and, considering man's frailty... and... the ramshackle universe he functions in, it's... all irrational.

  William Faulkner

  Art, Men, Hollywood

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• A passion is a contranatural movement of the soul or an irrational love, or an blindfold hatred toward any material thing, or because of it: for example, for food, or for women, or for riches, or for worldly glory, or any other sensible thing; or for the sake of such things, as in a senseless hatred for someone on account of the things mentioned above.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Inspirational, Christian, Religious

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• The knowledge of God, the belief in God, is what I call an a-rational process. It's not rational - it doesn't proceed by scientific investigation - but it's not irrational because it doesn't contradict my reasoning process. It goes beyond it.

  George Coyne

  Knowledge Of God, Belief, Process

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Did it ever occur to you, that there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires - if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and destruction from their view of the practical?

  Ayn Rand

  Business, Men, Views

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.1928, Penguin

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• Secrets are inherently selfish. The longer you keep them, the harder it is to put yourself in other people's shoes about them and the more irrational your thinking surrounding it becomes.

  James Scott

  Selfish, Thinking, Shoes

  "James Scott’s Violent Landscape". Interview with Royal Young, www.interviewmagazine.com. January 7, 2014.

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• One can discern a few very general myths that facilitate the birth of further myths: that everything is possible; that whatever we have failed to explain in normal and earthly terms must have paranormal or supernatural explanations; and that science, being rational, cannot explain the irrational, such as taste and love.

  Mario Bunge

  And Love, Taste, Normal

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

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• One should believe only what can be chosen to be true or just. Irrational (or unjustified) beliefs should be avoided because they can have disastrous practical consequences.

  Mario Bunge

  Believe, Belief, Should

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

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• To hope for a true change of human life without a change of human nature is an irrational and unspiritual proposition.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Human Nature, Human Life, Humans

  Sri Aurobindo (2016). “The Life Divine: Art of living”, p.774, editionNEXT.com

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• If, as I believe, the ends of men are many, and not all of them are in principle compatible with each other, then the possibility of conflict - and of tragedy - can never wholly be eliminated from human life, either personal or social. The necessity of choosing between absolute claims is then an inescapable characteristic of the human condition. This gives its value to freedom as Acton conceived of it - as an end in itself, and not as a temporary need, arising out of our confused notions and irrational and disordered lives, a predicament which a panacea could one day put right.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Confused, Believe, Men

  "Liberty" by Isaiah Berlin, edited by Henry Hardy, ("Two Concepts of Liberty"), 2002.

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