Rationalize Quotes - Page 4

• Your brand image is primarily an emotional construct. Emotion is probably always more powerful in swaying people than reason, but people like to be able to rationalize their choices.

  Drayton Bird

  Powerful, Emotional, People

  16 Copy quote

• Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.

  Walter Lippmann

  Successful, Insecure, Men

  "Essays in the Public Philosophy". Book by Walter Lippmann, 1955.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm not a big gore hound but monster gore is different to me than killing a teenager in any way that you can when another human-like person does it. I don't know how I rationalize that really but it seems different to me.

  Rick Baker

  Teenager, Monsters, Doe

  4 Copy quote

• Honestly admitting what you lost and not trying to rationalize it or push it off is an important step in self-assessment and mindfulness.

  Frederick Lenz

  Wisdom, Buddhism, Assessment

  4 Copy quote

• Most of my choices come about through some kind of intuition or instinct, and if I need to, I'll post-rationalize them, intellectually, afterwards. But generally, they come about just by feeling.

  Joe Wright

  Choices, Feelings, Intuition

  4 Copy quote

• Don't apologize, justify or rationalize bad art or bad writing. If you do, you are part of it.

  Walter Darby Bannard

  Art, Writing, Advice

  9 Copy quote

• I also came to see that liberalism's superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin. The more I thought about human nature the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin causes us to use our minds to rationalize our actions. Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Thinking, Men, Optimism

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.65, Beacon Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whenever any black man in america shows signs of an uncompromising attitude, against the injustices that he experiences daily, and shows no tendency whatsoever to compromise with it, then the American press [characterizes him] as a radical, as an extremist someone who's irresponsible, or as a rabble rouser or someone who doesn't rationalize in dealing with the problem.

  Malcolm X

  Attitude, Men, America

  11 Copy quote

• People sometimes rationalize their greed by saying that it is all for the good of their children but this is nothing but an excuse they use to make their despicable actions appear respectable and praiseworthy.

  Democritus

  Children, Hypocrisy, People

  91 Copy quote

• It is amazing to hear grown-up people rationalize homophobia and discrimination. The lengths they go to trying to prove their points take reason to its breaking point.

  Henry Rollins

  People, Point Break, Trying

  4 Copy quote

• I'm an extremely private dude and all this is happening so damn quick. I really haven't had any time to rationalize it. But it's nothing that I'm going to let freak me out or take control of me or my thoughts or my real life.

  Heath Ledger

  Real, Freak, Damn

  The Times (London), July 1, 2000.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The role of the human brain was to rationalize suffering.

  Maile Meloy

  Brain, Suffering, Roles

  "The Proxy Marriage" by Maile Meloy, www.newyorker.com. May 21, 2012.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• It has been hard to get my head around how Justice Antonin Scalia rationalizes his decisions. His body blow to the Voting Rights Act was a head scratcher, but at least he was calm when he attempted to justify his odd logic.

  Henry Rollins

  Blow, Rights, Justice

  "Henry Rollins: Misguided Outrage Over DOMA’s Demise" by Henry Rollins, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 8, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I can't rationalize the brilliance and knowledge that you have about the intricacies of the market with the crazy bullshit I see you do each night.

  Jon Stewart

  Crazy, Night, Bullshit

  "Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Part 2". "The Daily Show" official website, March 12, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I sit in my loft with the haves and look out at the have-nots - the bottom of the bottom - and I have to rationalize it, ... Am I pushing out the homeless?

  Thomas Reid

  Looks, Pushing, Homeless

  4 Copy quote

• What kind of people would be able to rationalize better than other people? Better storytellers, right? Creative people, right? Because if you're creative, you find more ways to cheat and still yourself a story about why this is okay.

  Dan Ariely

  People, Creative, Would Be

  4 Copy quote

• In my experience, you always think you know what you're doing; you always think you can explain, but you always discover, years later, that you didn't and you couldn't. This leads me to suspect that the principal function of human reason is to rationalize what your lizard brain demands of you. That's my idea.

  Dave Hickey

  Thinking, Years, Ideas

  Interview with Sheila Heti, believermag.com. November 2007.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• The assurance of His total forgiveness of our sins through the blood of Christ means we don't have to play defensive games anymore. We don't have to rationalize and excuse our sins. We can call sin exactly what it is, regardless of how ugly and shameful it may be, because we know that Jesus bore that sin in His body on the cross.

  Jerry Bridges

  Forgiveness, Jesus, Mean

  4 Copy quote

• The use of force is easy to rationalize in terms of basic economics. 'We should make them PAY for what they've done!' It's just the law of demand: raise the price of crossing us, and fewer people will cross us. Make the price another Hiroshima, and perhaps the quantity demanded will fall to zero.

  Bryan Caplan

  Zero, Fall, Law

  8 Copy quote

• There is no horror, no amount of evil in the world, that a true believer can't rationalize as consistent with a loving God. It's the ultimate way of fooling yourself.

  Jerry A. Coyne

  Evil, World, Way

  4 Copy quote

• Just as we're always told that schoolyard bullies are actually deeply insecure, liberals rationalize their own ferocious behavior by claiming to have been wounded somehow. What about the little guy our poor, insecure bully is beating the living daylights out of? How's his self-esteem coming along? That is the essence of liberals: They viciously attack everyone else, while wailing that they are the victims.

  Ann Coulter

  Self Esteem, Insecure, Essence

  "Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America". Book by Ann Coulter, www.today.com. January 6, 2009.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• How a man who holds the entire population of a country as his prisoners, and punishes the families of those who escape, can be admired by people who call themselves liberals is one of the many wonders of the human mind's ability to rationalize. Yet such is the case with Fidel Castro.

  Thomas Sowell

  Country, Men, People

  18 Copy quote

• The way that I rationalize making photographs is because you're countering what's offensively mass-produced with something that you just want more people to see.

  Mary Mattingly

  People, Want, Way

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• With so much money riding on reported numbers, human nature is to manipulate them. And with so many doing it, you get Serpico effects, where everyone rationalizes that it's okay because everyone else is doing it. It is always thus.

  Charlie Munger

  Numbers, Riding, Human Nature

  "Charlie Munger Speaks - Part 2". Charlie Munger's general comments at the 2000 Wesco Financial Annual Meeting, www.fool.com. May 15, 2000.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Basically the movies I make are my life, so I choose how I want to live my life for the next two years. So that's a decision I have to make. At some point if I feel there are enough elements - it doesn't even have to have great characters or great stories - it's just elements that can get my excitement and curiosity for one or two years, then I'll jump in and I'll find out what that is. Then I have to do [interviews like this] and rationalize why I do this.

  Ang Lee

  Character, Years, Two

  "Ang Lee Talks LIFE OF PI, the Difficulty of Getting the Project Off the Ground, 3D as a New Artistic Form, Deleted Scenes and More". Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. October 3, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source