Rational Quotes - Page 14

• I decided that life rationally considered seemed pointless and futile, but it is still interesting in a variety of ways, including the study of science. So why not carry on, following the path of scientific hedonism? Besides, I did not have the courage for the more rational procedure of suicide.

  Robert S. Mulliken

  Suicide, Science, Interesting

  Robert S. Mulliken (2012). “Life of a Scientist: An Autobiographical Account of the Development of Molecular Orbital Theory”, p.24, Springer Science & Business Media

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• I was there when Abbe Georges Lemaître first proposed this [Big Bang] theory. ... There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. .... It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.

  Hannes Alfven

  Time, Science, Years

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• Obsession is so extreme and so hard to imagine with the rational mind that it has a science-fiction-like quality to it-it's almost as if the obsessed one has been taken over by a replica, a pod, a facsimile of the rational person.

  Susan Cheever

  Taken, Mind, Quality

  Susan Cheever (2009). “Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction”, p.56, Simon and Schuster

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• The ghostly presence of virtual particles defies rational common sense and is nonintuitive for those unacquainted with physics. Religious belief in God, and Christian belief that God became Man around two thousand years ago, may seem strange to common-sense thinking. But when the most elementary physical things behave in this way, we should be prepared to accept that the deepest aspects of our existence go beyond our common-sense intuitions.

  Antony Hewish

  Christian, Religious, Men

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• I do not see why the axiom of Prudence should not be questioned, when it conflicts with present inclination, on a ground similar to that on which Egoists refuse to admit the axiom of Rational Benevolence. If the Utilitarian has to answer the question, 'Why should I sacrifice my own happiness for the greater happiness of another?' it must surely be admissible to ask the Egoist 'Why should I sacrifice a present pleasure for a greater one in the future? Why should I concern myself about my own future feelings any more than about the feelings of other persons?'

  Henry Sidgwick

  Sacrifice, Psychology, Feelings

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• While reasons are provided by the facts,...rationality...depends instead on our beliefs. [...] [I]f I believe falsely that my hotel is on fire, it may be rational for me to jump into the canal. But I have no reason to jump. I merely think I do. And, if some dangerous treatment would save your life, but you don't know that fact, it would be irrational for you to take this treatment, but that is what you have most reason to do.

  Derek Parfit

  Believe, Thinking, Fire

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• In legal parlance, that is called 'the rational person test,' ... That's where somebody else says, 'Even though we have no idea what this person would want in this circumstance in which they cannot themselves tell us what they want, a 'rational' person - meaning, myself - in that circumstance would want to die.' So you move very quickly from so-called voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia. These legal and medical developments are not simply hypothetical They're in the courts right now.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Moving, Ideas, Development

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• You must never stop dreaming. Face reality, yes. But don't stop with the way things are; dream of things as they ought to be. Dream of peace. Peace is rational and reasonable. War is irrational in this age and unwinnable.

  Jesse Jackson

  Love, Dream, War

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• What our leaders and pundits never let slip is that the terrorists-whatever else they might be-might also be rational human beings ; which is to say that in their own minds they have a rational justification for their actions. Most terrorists are people deeply concerned by what they see as social, political, or religious injustice and hypocrisy, and the immediate grounds for their terrorism is often retaliation for an action of the United States.

  William Blum

  Religious, People, Hypocrisy

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• Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Ethics And Morals, Morality, Moral Ethics

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• So virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. It is a mean between two kinds of vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency.

  Aristotle

  Lying, Mean, Men

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• [D]iscipline consists in this, that the men who undergo the instruction and have followed it for a certain time are completely deprived of everything which is precious to a man-of the chief human property, rational freedom-and become submissive, machine-like implements of murder in the hands of their organized hierarchic authorities.

  Leo Tolstoy

  War, Men, Hands

  graf Leo Tolstoy (1905). “The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy”

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• I believe that decisions about the timing and manner of death belong to the individual as a human right. I believe it is wrong to withhold medical methods of terminating life painlessly and swiftly when an individual has a rational and clear-minded sustained wish to end his or her life.

  A.C. Grayling

  Believe, Decision, Wish

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• In comparison to the emotionally-charged axing of a striker, Ruud van Nistelrooy, who averaged 30 goals a season, even the sale of David Beckham for, in Real Madrid's opinion, "peanuts", and the never-explained departure of Jaap Stam appear to be the rational acts of a sage and far-sighted manger. To offload a player because he could not be reconciled with a role within the squad is a failing of management.

  Pete Gill

  Soccer, Football, Real

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• What a man really says when he says that someone else can be persuaded by force, is that he himself is incapable of more rational means of communication.

  Norman Cousins

  Communication, Mean, Men

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• Whether the teacher is authoritarian, undisciplined, competent, incompetent, serious, irresponsible, involved, a lover of people and of life, cold, angry with the world, bureaucratic, excessively rational, or whatever else, he/she will not pass through the classroom without leaving his or her mark on the students.

  Paulo Freire

  Teacher, Teaching, People

  Paulo Freire (2000). “Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage”, p.64, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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• Fischer Chess play was always razor-sharp, rational and brilliant. One of the best ever

  Dave Regis

  Play, Razors, Chess

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• What is faith? If you believe something because you have evidence for it, or rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it.

  Peter Singer

  Faith, Believe, Argument

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• Be a balanced optimist. Nobody is suggesting that you become an oblivious Pollyanna, pretending that nothing bad can or ever will happen. Doing so can lead to poor decisions and invites people to take advantage of you. Instead, be a rational optimist who takes the good with the bad, in hopes of the good ultimately outweighing the bad, and with the understanding that being pessimistic about everything accomplishes nothing. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best - the former makes you sensible, and the latter makes you an optimist.

  Dale Carnegie

  Optimistic, Poor Decisions, Accomplish Nothing

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• In my opinion, economists and sociologists are the people to whom we ought to turn more than we do for instruction in the grounds and foundations of all rational decisions.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  People, Decision, Foundation

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• The natural scientists of the previous age knew less than we do and believed they were very close to the goal: we have taken very great steps in its direction and now discover we are still very far away from it. With the most rational philosophers an increase in their knowledge is always attended by an increased conviction of their ignorance.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Taken, Ignorance, Science

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• Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sea, Rights, Territory

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

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• Surely no rational or realistic person will discount the possibility that [during wartime] the United States might suddenly resort to nuclear weapons. Those who retain the instinct for survival, not to speak of minimal concern for their fellow man, will seek ways to act before rather than after the event.

  Noam Chomsky

  Men, Survival, Church

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• Although reducing human emissions to the atmosphere is undoubtedly of critical importance, as are any and all measures to reduce the human environmental "footprint", the truth is that the contribution of each individual cannot be reduced to zero... If we believe that the size of the human "footprint" is a serious problem (and there is much evidence for this) then a rational view would be that along with a raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of population management must be addressed.

  Chris Rapley

  Zero, Believe, Issues

  "Earth is too crowded for Utopia". news.bbc.co.uk. January 6, 2006.

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• The rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.

  Thomas Jefferson

  People, Voting, Reform

  "The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826".

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