Irrational Quotes - Page 21

• It's a funny thing, by the way, how people who love free markets are also quite sure that they know that investors are being irrational.

  Paul Krugman

  Funny Things, People, Way

  "Why Paul Krugman thinks inflation fears are baloney". Interview with Paul Solman, www.pbs.org. November 3, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A person who believes that Elvis is still alive is very unlikely to get promoted to a position of great power and responsibility in our society. Neither will a person who believes that the holocaust was a hoax. But people who believe equally irrational things about God and the bible are now running our country. This is genuinely terrifying.

  Sam Harris

  Running, Country, Believe

  10 Copy quote

• The problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to a religious philosophy - and it does not matter whether that philosophy is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and irrational

  Steve Allen

  Religious, Philosophy, Commitment

  Steve Allen (1996). “But Seriously--: Steve Allen Speaks His Mind”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The term [Americanization] invokes the transformation of the landscape into unnatural mechanical shapes, of night into day, of speed for its own sake, an irrational passion for novelty at the expense of quality, a worship of gimmickry.

  Robert Stone

  Passion, Night, Quality

  8 Copy quote

• Dilbert: Evolution must be true because it is a logical conclusion of the scientific method.
  Dogbert: But science is based on the irrational belief that because we cannot perceive reality all at once, things called time and cause and effect exist.
  Dilbert: That's what I was taught and that's what I believe.
  Dogbert: Sounds cultish.

  Scott Adams

  Believe, Science, Reality

  17 Copy quote

• The mystery lies in the irrationality by which you make appearance - if it is not irrational, you make illustration.

  Francis Bacon

  Lying, Illustration, Mystery

  4 Copy quote

• As for me, you wonder why I am a socialist. I'll tell you. It is because socialism is inevitable; because the present rotten and irrational system cannot endure; because the day is past for your man on horseback. The slaves won't stand for it. They are too many, and willy-nilly they'll drag down the would-be equestrian before he gets astride. You can't get away from them, and you'll have to swallow the whole slave-morality. It's not a nice mess, I'll allow. But it's been a-brewing and swallow it you must.

  Jack London

  Nice, Past, Men

  Jack London (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jack London (Illustrated)”, p.1507, Delphi Classics

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• As I'm writing, I start to see connections, and themes I didn't see, and that sparks other things. So then I go back and rewrite things or alter them. It's a combination of intuition and a lot of finessing. It becomes a combination of the rational and the irrational.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Writing, Intuition, Connections

  "'Synecdoche, New York' Director Charlie Kaufman'". Interview with Howard Feinstein, www.indiewire.com. October 24, 2008.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the '90s it was irrational exuberance. Now it may be irrational doom and gloom.

  Robert Reich

  Doom And Gloom, May, Exuberance

  7 Copy quote

• Hysteria is a chaotic and irrational emotional state caused by seeing how the world really operates.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Emotional, Hysteria, World

  Robert Anton Wilson (1982). “The Earth Will Shake: A Novel”, J P Tarcher

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• A lot of people with high IQs are terrible investors because they've got terrible temperaments. And that is why we say that having a certain kind of temperament is more important than brains. You need to keep raw irrational emotion under control. You need patience and discipline and an ability to take losses and adversity without going crazy. You need an ability to not be driven crazy by extreme success

  Charlie Munger

  Crazy, Adversity, Loss

  30 Copy quote

• The modern susceptibility to conformity and obedience to authority indicates that the truth endorsed by authority is likely to be accepted as such by a majority of people, who are innately obedient to authority. This obedience-truth will then become a consensus-truth accepted by many individuals unable to stand alone against the majority. In this way, the truth promulgated by the propaganda system - however irrational - stands a good chance of becoming the consensus, and may come to seem self-evident common sense.

  David Edward

  Self, Common Sense, People

  8 Copy quote

• If you simply announce that things are irrational, then that alone doesnt get you very far. You have to replace rational agents with some concrete notion of what it means to be irrational.

  Lars Peter Hansen

  Mean, Agents, Concrete

  7 Copy quote

• Science fiction has always had a dark side. There has been a touch of the irrational and absurd in the genre from the very beginning.

  Douglas Lain

  Dark, Sides, Fiction

  4 Copy quote

• Humans were eventually irrational creatures gifted with the power of rationality.

  L.E. Modesitt Jr.

  Gifted, Rationality, Humans

  4 Copy quote

• Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved-that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Silly, Men, Views

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  58 Copy quote

  Show source

• To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason. Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature, and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of evolution.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Law, Mind, Excellence

  "The Architecture of Theories". The Monist, Volume I, No. 2, p. 161, January 1891.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• I chose the name Pi because it's an irrational number (one with no discernable pattern). Yet scientists use this irrational number to come to a "rational" understanding of the universe. To me, religion is a bit like that, "irrational" yet with it we come together we come to a sound understanding of the universe.

  Yann Martel

  Irrational Numbers, Names, Understanding

  Interview, www.bookbrowse.com. October 2, 2002.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have huge admiration for people who think like the effective altruist, who try to rationally think about how they can change the world for the better, and who try not to be swayed by irrational considerations, such as skin color or whether or not someone lives in the same neighborhood.

  Paul Bloom

  Thinking, Skin Color, People

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You are allowed to draw lines even if your feelings are irrational. Part of the marvelous business of being an adult human is that you get to set your own boundaries for whatever reasons you like, without appending a sensible rationale to them.

  Mallory Ortberg

  Feelings, Adults, Lines

  "Backup Mommy". Live chat, www.slate.com. March 8, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've always had an irrational fear - it's really not an irrational fear, I think - whenever I've been standing at a urinal at a bar, or Giants Stadium or Yankee Stadium. You've got a bunch of drunks behind you, often in a hostile, adrenalized environment like a football game. What's to prevent the guy behind me from slamming my head into the porcelain wall in front of me?

  Steve Rushin

  Football, Wall, Thinking

  Source: www.gq.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Great performers require a measure of confidence that would strike many as absurd, unfounded, and downright irrational. They believe in themselves utterly, without question, even when everyone else is questioning how good (or sane) they are.

  John Eliot

  Faith, Believe, Achievement

  4 Copy quote

• Magic is a two-way process: you use it to change yourself and in return, it changes you. Letting yourself enter a magical reality is not about creating an enclave of magic beyond your everyday life, but of allowing magic in- allowing for the intrusion of the weird, the irrational, the things you can't explain, yet are undeniably real.

  Phil Hine

  Real, Two, Creating

  7 Copy quote

• I know that the dream mind is irrational, but I like to think that if I hear something in a dream that's really good, then it's irrational... but it's not crazy.

  Ted Leo

  Dream, Crazy, Thinking

  "Ted Leo and Ben Arthur Discuss Carly Simon, Joyce Carl Oates, and the Touring Grind". Interview with Ben Arthur, logger.believermag.com. June 26, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sometimes that irrational commitment to principle is what society needs to survive. Whenever you talk about radicalism, whenever you talk about activism, whenever you talk about progressive activity, that sort of moves the measure of liberty in human society forward, makes us all enjoy a better standard of liberty, it typically starts out criminal. It typically starts out a little bit shaky, and rather radical. And that's irrational to put yourself up to do that.

  Edward Snowden

  Moving, Commitment, Liberty

  Source: www.nesta.org.uk

  4 Copy quote

  Show source