The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.
Even the most analytical thinkers are predictably irrational; the really smart ones acknowledge and address their irrationalities.
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is to learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
A rational man never distorts or corrupts his own standards and judgment in order to appeal to the irrationality, stupidity, or dishonesty of others.
Irrationality is the square root of all evil.
I no longer idolize reason. I have come to accept that ninety percent of what we do is irrational and that we spend what little rational thought we have in justifying our irrationality.
The advanced societies of the future will not be governed by reason. They will be driven by irrationality, by competing systems of psychopathology.
Power doesn't corrupt. It's neutral. Someone always wants to corrupt power. It's the way a shotgun is not a deadly weapon until someone chooses to use it irrationally.
A miracle entails a degree of irrationality-not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.
I don't think you can rely on Iran. I don't think you can rely on other radicals like the Taliban. They dispatched Al Qaida to bomb New York and Washington. What were they thinking? Were they that stupid? They weren't stupid. There is an irrationality there, and there is madness in this method.
The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.
Human beings act in a great variety of irrational ways, but all of them seem to be capable, if given a fair chance, of making a reasonable choice in the light of available evidence. Democratic institutions can be made to work only if all concerned do their best to impart knowledge and to encourage rationality. But today, in the world's most powerful democracy, the politicians and the propagandists prefer to make nonsense of democratic procedures by appealing almost exclusively to the ignorance and irrationality of the electors.
In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.
I stand four-square for reason, and object to what seems to me to be irrationality, whatever the source. If you are on my side in this, I must warn you that the army of the night has the advantage of overwhelming numbers, and, by its very nature, is immune to reason, so that it is entirely unlikely that you and I can win out. We will always remain a tiny and probably hopeless minority, but let us never tire of presenting our view, and of fighting the good fight for the right.
If the world is irrational, we can never know it -- either it or its irrationality.
Difference of opinion has never been sufficiently appreciated. It is the unexpected, the unknowable, the divine irrationality of life that saves us.
The experience of the irrationality of the world has been the driving force of all religious revolution.
Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
Because history is only an aggregate of personal hostilities, personal prejudices, personal blindness and irrationality, there are times when we have to live against it.
The search for truth is a cooperative, unending endeavor. We can, and should, engage in it to the extent we can and encourage others to do so as well, seeking to free ourselves from constraints imposed by coercive institutions, dogma, irrationality, excessive conformity and lack of initiative and imagination, and numerous other obstacles.
The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.
The point is that religion puts a value on irrationality, which makes it the perfect tool for promoting irrational beliefs like misogyny. Other ideologies can be challenged with evidence and reason, but religion is allowed a pass by most people. And that's why it's especially dangerous.
Reason is the shepherd trying to corral life's vast flock of wild irrationalities.
What frightened me was the logic of the world; in it lay the foretaste of something incalculably powerful. Its mechanism was incomprehensible, and I could not possibly remain closeted in that windowless, bone-chilling room. Though outside lay the sea of irrationality, it was far more agreeable to swim in its waters until presently I drowned.
We must have research for peace ... It would embrace the outstanding problems of morality. The time has come for man's intellect, his scientific method, to win over the immoral brutality and irrationality of war and militarism ... Now we are forced to eliminate from the world forever this vestige of prehistoric barbarism, this curse to the human race.
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