Irrational Quotes - Page 18

• The reason that truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction has to have a rational thread running through it in order to be believable, whereas reality may be totally irrational.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Running, Truth, Honesty

  Sydney J. Harris (1986). “Clearing the ground”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• At my years, and with my disposition, or rather, constitution, one gets to care less and less for everything except downright goodfeeling. Life is so short, and so ridiculous and irrational (from a certain point of view) that one knows not what to make of it, unless--well, finish the sentence for yourself.

  Herman Melville

  Life, Views, Years

  Herman Melville, Lynn Horth (1993). “Correspondence”, p.454, Northwestern University Press

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The wind shifts like this:
  Like a human without illusions,
  Who still feels irrational things within her.

  Wallace Stevens

  Wind, Illusion, Feels

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”, p.83, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of acompletely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.

  Albert Camus

  Character, Men, History

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.221, Vintage

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The insane have achieved political respectability while the sane act too good for it all. The irrational celebrate while the rational act bored and above-it-all.

  Maureen Dowd

  Bored, Political, Insane

  6 Copy quote

• Since the Greeks, Western man has believed that Being, all Being, is intelligible, that there is a reason for everythingand that the cosmos is, finally, intelligible. The Oriental, on the other hand, has accepted his existence within a universe that would appear to be meaningless, to the rational Western mind, and has lived with this meaninglessness. Hence the artistic form that seems natural to the Oriental is one that is just as formless or formal, as irrational, as life itself.

  William Barrett

  Men, Hands, Greek

  7 Copy quote

• Superstition is the irrational belief that an object or behavior has the power to influence an outcome, when there's no logical connection between them. Most of us aren't superstitious - but most of us are a 'littlestitious.'

  Gretchen Rubin

  Connections, Outcomes, Superstitions

  5 Copy quote

• What good your beautiful proof on the transcendence of Pi: Why investigate such problems, given that irrational numbers do not even exist?

  Leopold Kronecker

  Beautiful, Science, Irrational Numbers

  12 Copy quote

• Parenting is not logical. If it were, we would never have to read a book, never need a family therapist, and never feel the urge to call a close friend late at night for support after a particularly trying bedtime scene. . . . We have moments of logic, but life is run by a much larger force. Life is filled with disagreement, opposition, illusion, irrational thinking, miracle, meaning, surprise, and wonder.

  Jeanne Elium

  Running, Book, Night

  Jeanne Elium, Don Elium (2011). “Raising a Daughter: Parents and the Awakening of a Healthy Woman”, p.223, Celestial Arts

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life, from beginning to end, is fear. Yes, it is pain, yes, it is desire, but more than anything it is fear; a certain amount rational, an enormous amount irrational. All political cruelties stem from that overwhelming fear. To push back the threatening forces, to offer primitive sacrifices, to give up some in the hope that others will be savedthat is the power struggle. That is the outsidedness of the poor, the feeble, the infantile. That is the outsidedness of Jews. That is the outsidedness of blacks. That is the outsidedness of women.

  Vivian Gornick

  Giving Up, Pain, Fear

  6 Copy quote

• Nothing goes on forever. I think that's one of the illusions of life. When I talk about my life being an extension of my dreams and fantasies, there's a tendency to think of them as immature. I live in a mature world. The majority of the people in this society live with delusions and illusions much more irrational and hurtful than mine. They deal with mortality, with fantasies relating to heaven and hell, and they don't really deal with their problems at all.

  Hugh Hefner

  Dream, Thinking, People

  "Media: Rabbit is Rich". Interview with Jonathan Roberts, www.interviewmagazine.com. December, 1985.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• North Koreans are irrational to some extent, but I don't think they're totally irrational. I think they watch American cable channels. I think they watch the European cable channels. I think they, their decision makers keep up more than we know. And I think they want us to think they're a little crazy.

  William J. Clinton

  Crazy, Thinking, Decision

  Source: www.foxnews.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are irrational fears. If you see a woman wearing a hijab and fear is your first thought, something's really wrong.

  Hamza Yusuf

  Firsts, Hijab, Irrational Fear

  Source: www.pbs.org

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• Who is more irrational, the guy who believes in a God he can't see, or a guy who's offended by a God he doesn't believe in?

  Brad Stine

  Believe, Guy, Offended

  Brad Stine (2006). “Live from Middle America: Rants from a Red-State Comedian”, Hudson st Press

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• The irrational may be attractive in the abstract, but not in cab drives, dinner guests, or elderly relatives.

  Mason Cooley

  Elderly, Dinner Guests, May

  6 Copy quote

• God created the first pair equal in rights, possessions, and authority. He bequeathed the earth to them as a joint inheritance; gave them joint dominion over the irrational creation; but none over each other.

  Antoinette Brown Blackwell

  Equality, Rights, Inheritance

  18 Copy quote

• Excessive or irrational schedules are probably the single most destructive influence in all of software

  Capers Jones

  Schedules, Influence, Software

  Capers Jones (2008). “Applied Software Measurement: Global Analysis of Productivity and Quality”, p.403, McGraw Hill Professional

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• While the apostles of the new so-called "behavioral" theory present ample evidence of how often human beings make irrational financial decisions, it remains to be seen whether these decisions lead to predictable errors that create systematic mispricings upon which rational investors can readily and economically capitalize.

  John C. Bogle

  Errors, Decision, Investing

  7 Copy quote

• [D]rawing up 'secret war plans' for a possible attack on Iraq wasn't irrational. The low-level war against Saddam was 12 years old, with no end in sight. American and British pilots were getting shot at, sanctions weren't working, and Bush was getting warnings that Saddam had all those terrible weapons and would use them against America. Bush would have been a fool not to draw up plans. Gee, wait till the critics find out that FDR, without ever informing the media, was plotting to fight Japan and Germany before Pearl Harbor.

  John Leo

  War, Fighting, Japan

  5 Copy quote

• Souls are punished when they have gone forth from the body, some wandering among us, some going to hot or cold places of the earth, some harassed by spirits. Under all circumstances they suffer with the irrational part of their nature, with which they also sinned. For its sake there subsists that shadowy body which is seen about graves, especially the graves of evil livers.

  Sallust

  Evil, Soul, Suffering

  4 Copy quote

• If the transmigration of a soul takes place into a rational being, it simply becomes the soul of that body. But if the soul migrates into a brute beast, it follows the body outside, as a guardian spirit follows a man. For there could never be a rational soul in an irrational being.

  Sallust

  Men, Soul, Body

  5 Copy quote

• When you find yourself reluctant to sit on a chair because it had unexpectedly collapsed in the past you might shake your head and think "there, I'm so irrational!". But your reluctance to sit on a probably rickety chair is not irrational - you think it's irrational because you have a false view of what irrationality is.

  Nomy Arpaly

  Past, Thinking, Finding Yourself

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't think we are all irrational every time we fail to see through an argument in a book, but suppose it's true about you. You are still more rational than you think you are. You are irrational in a minor way - believing a misguided theory of the nature of rationality - but rational in a major way - you respond well to probabilistic evidence as you go through the day.

  Nomy Arpaly

  Believe, Book, Thinking

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fear of death is understandable, being that we are all going to die, but fear of life and suffering is more of an irrational fear because it's something that can be avoided. The torturous part is that suffering can be avoided if you have good luck. That's somewhat out of our hands, but is it? I don't know. "Is bad luck self-harm by another name?"

  Steve Toltz

  Good Luck, Suffering, Bad Luck

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the greatest challenges facing civilization in the twenty-first century is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest personal concerns-about ethics, spiritual experience, and the inevitability of human suffering-in ways that are not flagrantly irrational. We desperately need a public discourse that encourages critical thinking and intellectual honesty. Nothing stands in the way of this project more that the respect we accord religious faith.

  Sam Harris

  Spiritual, Religious, Honesty

  Sam Harris (2006). “Letter to a Christian Nation”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

  7 Copy quote

  Show source