Rational Quotes - Page 36

• Reason ... contradicts the established order of men and things on behalf of existing societal forces that reveal the irrational character of this order for "rational" is a mode of thought and action which is geared to reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality, and oppression.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Ignorance, Character, Men

  Herbert Marcuse (2012). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.142, Beacon Press

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• (Game theory is) essentially a structural theory. It uncovers the logical structure of a great variety of conflict situations and describes this structure in mathematical terms. Sometimes the logical structure of a conflict situation admits rational decisions; sometimes it does not.

  Anatol Rapoport

  Games, Decision, Doe

  "Prisoner's dilemma: A study in conflict and cooperation" by Anatol Rapoport, Albert S. Chammah, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, (p. 196), 1965.

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• Humor could not flourish in a wholly serious and rational atmosphere.

  Raymond Smullyan

  Atmosphere, Serious

  Raymond M. Smullyan, Jason Rosenhouse (2014). “Four Lives: A Celebration of Raymond Smullyan”, p.273, Courier Corporation

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• [Burke] emphasized that the new forms of politics, which hope to organize society around the rational pursuit of liberty, equality, fraternity, or their modernist equivalents, are actually forms of militant irrationality.

  Roger Scruton

  Liberty, Fraternity, Form

  Roger Scruton (2009). “The Roger Scruton Reader”, p.10, A&C Black

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• Who should know better than a cosmetician that human beings are less than rational creatures?

  John Brunner

  Should, Humans, Creatures

  John Brunner (2011). “Stand on Zanzibar”, p.52, Macmillan

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• Art is the expression of the conviction that we can have a rational relationship with the world and each other. It isn't the faith or hope that we can, it is the demonstration that we can.

  Edward Bond

  Art, Expression, World

  Edward Bond (2013). “Lear”, p.12, A&C Black

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• [There can be no] rational administration of government when good men are held in the same esteem as bad ones.

  Polybius

  Integrity, Men, Good Man

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• The danger of Iran is if you listen to what the Ayatollah is saying, to what the Mullahs are saying, rational self-preservation is not their objective. If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon the odds are unacceptably high that that weapon will not be simply stockpiled, but it will be detonated over Tel Aviv, or New York, or Los Angeles.

  Ted Cruz

  New York, Odds, Self

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• It is a mistake to let aesthetics drive your rational decision making.

  Cory Doctorow

  Mistake, Decision, Aesthetics

  YouTube Channel "UNC-Chapel Hill"/"Cory Doctorow: Pwned: How Copyright turns us all into IP ser", October 11, 2007.

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• Disruption never helps your cause. ... It just looks like you're afraid to have rational discussion.

  Barney Frank

  Looks, Causes, Helping

  "Frank Blasts Nazi Comparisons From LaRouche Backers". voices.washingtonpost.com. August 19, 2009.

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• The horn of dilemma of energy politics is what really drives concern about this energy in this country, at the gut level for most people, is high gas prices. And if you really want to fight global warming and try to reduce our carbon emissions, the cleanest, easiest, most rational way to do it would to make the price of gas even higher through very stiff gas prices.

  Rich Lowry

  Country, Fighting, Carbon Emissions

  "Senate Passes Energy Bill; Clinton Spoofs 'Sopranos'". "PBS NewsHour" with Jim Lehrer, www.pbs.org. June 22, 2007.

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• Mathematical Analysis is... the true rational basis of the whole system of our positive knowledge.

  Auguste Comte

  Analysis, Mathematical, Bases

  Auguste Comte (1858). “Positive Philosophy”, p.57

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• Although objectively greater demands are placed on this authority, it operates less as a public opinion giving a rational foundation to the exercise of political and social authority, the more it is generated for the purpose of an abstract vote that amounts to no more than an act of acclamation within a public sphere temporarily manufactured for show or manipulation.

  Jurgen Habermas

  Exercise, Giving, Political

  "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere". Book by Jürgen Habermas, 1962.

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• Until the Great Depression, most economists clung to a vision of capitalism as a perfect or nearly perfect system. That vision wasn’t sustainable in the face of mass unemployment, but as memories of the Depression faded, economists fell back in love with the old, idealized vision of an economy in which rational individuals interact in perfect markets.

  Paul Krugman

  Memories, Perfect, Vision

  "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?". www.nytimes.com. September 2, 2009.

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• To stand on the firing parapet and expose yourself to danger; to stand and fight a thousand miles from home when you're all alone and outnumbered and probably beaten; to spit on your hands and lower the pike; to stand fast over the body of Leonidas the King; to be rear guard at Kunu-Ri; to stand and be still to the Birkenhead Drill; these are not rational acts. They are often merely necessary.

  Jerry Pournelle

  Kings, Home, Fighting

  "There Will Be War". Book by Jerry Pournelle, 1983.

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• Properly understood, then, the desire to act justly derives in part from the desire to express most fully what we are or can be, namely free and equal rational beings with the liberty to choose.

  John Rawls

  Desire, Liberty, Equal

  John Rawls (2009). “A Theory of Justice”, p.225, Harvard University Press

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• At best the principles that economists have supposed the choices of rational individuals to satisfy can be presented as guidelines for us to consider when we make our decisions.

  John Rawls

  Choices, Decision, Principles

  John Rawls (2009). “A Theory of Justice”, p.489, Harvard University Press

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• "Akrasia" [weakness of will] in rational beings is as common as wine in France.

  John Searle

  Wine, Weakness, France

  "Rationality in Action". Book by John Searle, 2001.

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• Raymond Aron ascribes to Weber the view that 'each man's conscience is irrefutable.' ... while [Weber] holds that an agent may be more or less rational in acting consistently with his values, the choice of any one particular evaluative stance or commitment can be no more rational than any other. All faiths and all evaluations are equally non-rational.

  Alasdair MacIntyre

  Commitment, Views, Choices

  "After Virtue". Book by Alasdair MacIntyre, 1981.

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• The idea of a rational bureaucracy, of skill, merit, and consistency, is essential to all modern states.

  Bernard Crick

  Skills, Ideas, Consistency

  Bernard Crick (1993). “In Defense of Politics”, p.143, University of Chicago Press

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• Historically, labor unions arose when people had gotten a taste of a different lifestyle and were willing to pay a lot more for their basic livelihood and had gotten into a fix they couldn't get out of - because they had accepted the unacceptable to begin with. Accepting something you have to form a labor union to fight after the fact only tells me that people were acting against their own best (or even good) interests for a long time. I don't see any rational, coherent explanation for this sort of behavior in humans, but it's all over the place.

  Erik Naggum

  Fighting, Long, People

  "Source access vs dynamism". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. August 28, 1999.

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• Sometimes I feel that a more rational explanation for all that has happened during my lifetime is that I am still only thirteen years old, reading Jules Verne or H. G. Wells, and have fallen asleep.

  Stanislaw Ulam

  Reading, Years, Sometimes

  "Adventures of a Mathematician". Book by Stanislaw Ulam. Preface To the 1983 Edition, p. 27,

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• The influence of friendship upon culture differs from that of love, in that it assumes the basic idiosyncrasies of personal taste to be unalterable. Love, in spite of all rational knowledge to the contrary, is always in the mood of believing in miracles.

  John Cowper Powys

  Believe, Miracle, Culture

  "The Meaning of Culture". Book by John Cowper Powys, p. 170, 1929.

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• There is never a rational reason for a man to rejoice that a certain pretty girl exists and that he has found her. The experience, however, is universal.

  Murray Leinster

  Girl, Men, Reason

  "Time Tunnel". Book by Murray Leinster, ch. 2, p. 19, 1964.

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• The First Aphorism of Religion Cases: Only the religious convictions of other people are weird. Yours are perfectly rational.

  Dahlia Lithwick

  Religious, People, Firsts

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