Irrational Quotes

• We are all far less rational in our decision-making than standard economic theory assumes. Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless: they are systematic and predictable. We all make the same types of mistakes over and over, because of the basic wiring of our brains.

  Dan Ariely

  Mistake, Decision, Brain

  "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions". Book by Dan Ariely, February 19, 2008.

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• We expect others to act rationally even though we are irrational.

  Scott Adams

  Wise

  Scott Adams (1996). “The Dilbert principle: a cubicle's-eye view of bosses, meetings, management fads & other workplace afflictions”

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sense of Islam as a threatening Other - with Muslims depicted as fanatical, violent, lustful, irrational - develops during the colonial period in what I called Orientalism. The study of the Other has a lot to do with the control and dominance of Europe and the West generally in the Islamic world. And it has persisted because it's based very, very deeply in religious roots, where Islam is seen as a kind of competitor of Christianity.

  Edward Said

  Religious, Islamic, Europe

  Source: progressive.org

  192 Copy quote

  Show source

• In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.

  Ayn Rand

  Freedom, Stupid People, Society

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.53, Penguin

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Once we perceive that it is Judaism which is the root cause of antisemitism, otherwise irrational or inexplicable aspects of antisemitism become rationally explicable...Only something representing a threat to the core values, allegiances and beliefs of others could cause such universal, deep and lasting hatred. This Judaism has done.

  Dennis Prager

  Roots, Hatred, Done

  5 Copy quote

• It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Dream, Future, Mean

  Edgar Allan Poe (1980). “The Unknown Poe: An Anthology of Fugitive Writings”, p.50, City Lights Books

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Fear, Men, Religion

  "Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 376". Concurring opinion, 1927.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Courage, Selfish, Science

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.140, Basic Books

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion.

  Scott Adams

  Dating, Religion, Principles

  Scott Adams (1996). “The Dilbert principle: a cubicle's-eye view of bosses, meetings, management fads & other workplace afflictions”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Investing, World, Investment

  13 Copy quote

• It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Men, Freedom Of Speech, Censorship In Books

  Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law (2006). “Brandeis at 150: the Louisville perspective : a sesquicentennial commemoration”

  84 Copy quote

  Show source

• For the first time in history, the rational and the good are fully armed in the battle against evil. Here we finally find the answer to our paradox; now we can understand the nature of the social power held by evil. Ultimately, the evil, the irrational, truly has no power. The evil men’s control of morality is transient; it lives on borrowed time made possible only by the errors of the good. In time, as more honest men grasp the truth, evil’s stranglehold will be easily broken.

  Andrew Bernstein

  Men, Errors, Evil

  4 Copy quote

• When fear displaces reason, the result is often irrational hatred and division.

  Al Gore

  Life, Hatred, Division

  Al Gore (2012). “The Assault on Reason: How the Politics of Blind Faith Subvert Wise Decision-Making”, p.23, A&C Black

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are also people that still choose to support racist rhetoric because they feel white dominance in America is slipping through their fingers. To them, "diversity" is a codeword for white genocide. They claim that their "homelands" are being overrun by minorities and are desperate for solutions that ensure their "white survival." This fear, of course, is irrational and solely based on a loss of white power and control.

  Christian Picciolini

  Loss, People, Diversity

  Source: chicagoist.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape.

  George Santayana

  Apes, Terrible, Humans

  George Santayana, Marianne S. Wokeck, Martin A. Coleman, James Gouinlock (2013). “The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Society, Volume VII, Book Two”, p.44, MIT Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.

  Hugh Mackay

  Relationship, Perfect, Dating

  70 Copy quote

• Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Money, Investing, Investment

  Forbes v. 151, iss. 4, (p. 236), 1993.

  72 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of others and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us.

  Thomas Merton

  Forgiveness, Hate, Compassion

  52 Copy quote

• But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?

  Alan Greenspan

  Past, Japan, Unexpected

  Alan Greenspan (2008). “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World”, p.177, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness.

  George Jean Nathan

  Music, Art, Mad

  George Jean Nathan, Arnold Leslie Lazarus (1990). “A George Jean Nathan Reader”, p.79, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space-each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

  Randall Munroe

  Space, Decision, Culture

  19 Copy quote

• It seems like topsy-turvyland to make reason serve the irrational. Yet that is just what it has always done, and ought always to do.

  Walter Lippmann

  Done, Reason, Ought

  Walter Lippmann (1914). “A Preface to Politics”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Irrational passions would seem to be as much a part of human nature as is reason.

  Aristotle

  Passion, Human Nature, Reason

  Aristotle (1869). “The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle”, p.65

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every song has a composer, every book has an author, every car has a maker, every painting has a painter, and every building has a builder. So it isn't irrational to take this simple logic a little further and say that nature must have had a Maker. It would be irrational to believe that it made itself.

  Ray Comfort

  Song, Nature, Believe

  449 Copy quote

• Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built.

  Erich Fromm

  Sides, Authority, Built

  Erich Fromm (2013). “Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics”, p.18, Open Road Media

  10 Copy quote

  Show source