Rationality Quotes - Page 3

• Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.

  John von Neumann

  Religion, Complicated, Truth Is

  John Von Neumann, F. Br¢dy, Tibor V mos (1995). “The Neumann Compendium”, p.626, World Scientific

  145 Copy quote

  Show source

• We live at a time that is notable for the polemical nature of discussions about identity, consciousness, rationality, agency, memory, and feeling. 'New atheists' and reductive materialists conduct gladiatorial debates against defenders of faith and enemies of reductionism. Lots of heat is produced, but, alas, little light is shed. How marvelous it is, then, to see this fine new book by Lenn E. Goodman and Gregory Caramenico. Here is a learned, illuminating, and decidedly non-polemical treatment of the classic questions of soul, mind, and brain-an exemplary work of scholarship.

  Robert P. George

  Atheist, Memories, Book

  8 Copy quote

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

  L.E. Modesitt Jr.

  Irrational, Gifted, Humans

  4 Copy quote

• A man demonstrates his rationality, not by a commitment to fixed ideas, stereotyped procedures, or immutable concepts, but by the manner in which, and the occasions on which, he changes those ideas, procedures, and concepts.

  Stephen Toulmin

  Change, Commitment, Ideas

  "Human Understanding". Book by Stephen Toulmin (Volume 1 "The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts", epigraph), 1972.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Philosophy ought to be able to give an account of rationality that is not wholly detached from science's account of nature, even if it is not straightforwardly reducible to it.

  Ray Brassier

  Philosophy, Giving

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The tangible source of exploitation disappears behind the façade of objective rationality.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Tangible, Disappear, Source

  Herbert Marcuse (2013). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.35, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A conviction akin to religious feeling of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a high order.

  Albert Einstein

  Religious, Lying, Order

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.323, Princeton University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• First, study the present construction. Second, ask for all past experiences ...study and read everything you can on the subject.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Past, Firsts, Study

  13 Copy quote

• I regard individuality as the most precious trait we have, because without it there is no creativity, there is no consciousness, there is no rationality. There is nothing that could make me speak more strongly to this point.

  Murray Bookchin

  Creativity, Individuality, Consciousness

  Interview with Jeff Riggenbach, reason.com. October 1979.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value counts. On it centers the rationality of the status quo, and all alien rationality is bent to It.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Soul, Aliens, Bent

  Herbert Marcuse (2013). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.61, Routledge

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it?

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Believe, Thinking, Fundamentals

  "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality". Book by Eliezer Yudkowsky, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even intellectuals should have learned by now that objective rationality is not the default position of the human mind, much less the bedrock of human affairs.

  Roy Blount, Jr.

  Should Have, Mind, Affair

  Roy Blount, Jr. (2009). “Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South”, p.18, Knopf

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Knowledge, Thinking, Knowing

  27 Copy quote

• The term "rational" and its variants (rationality, rationalism) are used in a lot of contexts in economic debate, both positively and negatively, but nearly always sloppily or dishonestly. A specimen I've seen on more occasions than I can count is the line (usually presented with a sense of witty originality) "if you are opposed to economic rationalism, you must be in favor of economic irrationalism"... I've come to the conclusion that the word "rational" has no meaning that cannot better be conveyed by some alternative term and that the best advice is probably to avoid it altogether.

  John Quiggin

  Witty, Advice, Alternatives

  5 Copy quote

• Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money.

  Warren Buffett

  Investing Money, Buffets, Effortless

  Warren Buffett (2009). “Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha”, p.163, John Wiley & Sons

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.

  Francis Schaeffer

  Communication, Men, Purpose

  30 Copy quote

• Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. [They are the two sides of a coin, so learning how to manage fear through learning, understanding, rationality, controlled imagination, preparation, mental focus (including distraction) and a gratitude attitude is very helpful.]

  Baruch Spinoza

  Gratitude, Attitude, Two Sides

  11 Copy quote

• Why do we not exhaust the heritage of the ages, spiritual and material for our immediate pleasure, and let posterity go hang? So far as simple rationality is concerned, self-interest can advance no argument against the appetite of present possessors. Yet within some of us, a voice that is not the demand of self-interest or pure rationality says that we have no right to give ourselves enjoyment at the expense of our ancestors' memory and our descendants' prospects. We hold our present advantages only in trust.

  Russell Kirk

  Spiritual, Memories, Simple

  4 Copy quote

• There is always some madness in love.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Love, Crush, Sexy

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.99, Penguin

  68 Copy quote

  Show source

• There must be only three supreme values which govern a person's life: Reason, Purpose, and Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge--Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve--Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man's virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.

  Ayn Rand

  Honesty, Integrity, Self Esteem

  4 Copy quote

• It is not the slumber of reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality

  Gilles Deleuze

  Monsters, Slumber, Reason

  Gilles Deleuze, FeÌl?ix Guattari (2004). “Anti-Oedipus”, p.122, A&C Black

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• In general, we’re least aware of what our minds do best.

  Marvin Minsky

  Mind

  Marvin Minsky (1988). “Society Of Mind”, p.29, Simon and Schuster

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Buffett’s genius was largely a genius of character—of patience, discipline, and rationality.

  Roger Lowenstein

  Character, Discipline, Genius

  Roger Lowenstein (2013). “Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist”, p.13, Random House

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The hope for the twentieth century rests on recognition that war and depression are man-made, and needless. They can be avoided in the future by turning from the nineteenth-century characteristics just mentioned (materialism, selfishness, false values, hypocrisy, and secret vices) and going back to other characteristics that our Western Society has always regarded as virtues: generosity, compassion, cooperation, rationality, and foresight, and finding a increased role in human life for love, spirituality, charity, and self discipline.

  Carroll Quigley

  War, Compassion, Men

  33 Copy quote

• Anger may bring extra energy, but it eclipses the best part of our brain: its rationality. The energy of anger is almost always unreliable.

  Dalai Lama

  Brain, Energy, May

  18 Copy quote