Irrational Quotes - Page 16

I understand and sympathize with the reasonable needs of a reasonable number of people on a finite continent. All life depends upon other life. But what is happening today, in North America, is not rational use but irrational massacre. Man the Pest, multiplied to the swarming stage, is attacking the remaining forests like a plague of locusts on a field of grain.

Edward Abbey

Men, Numbers, America

"The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West". Book by Edward Abbey ("The Crooked Wood", p. 208), 1977.

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To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Crush, Work, Character

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I am a reasonable and sane functionalist tempered by irrational frivolity.

Alexander Girard

Sane, Reasonable, Frivolity

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Forced to define 'irrational subconscious,' I would say that it is a small padded room inside all of us, where the only furnishing is a small card table, and the only thing on the card table is a revolver loaded with flexible bullets.

Stephen King

Cards, Tables, Bullets

Stephen King (2017). “Skeleton Crew: Stories”, p.671, Simon and Schuster

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When I photograph, I try to use my instincts as much as possible. It is when pictures are unconsidered and irrational that they come to life; that they evolve from showing to being.

Jacob Aue Sobol

Trying, Use, Photograph

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God has given us the fascination and mystery of irrational numbers, as one aspect of a rich world

Vern Poythress

Irrational Numbers, Fascination, World

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Pathological Stubbornness and Irrational Optimism – Lessons I’ve learned on my entrepreneurial journey

Ruth Kelly

Journey, Optimism, Lessons

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Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of irrational parts.

Aristotle

Philosophical, Plot, Poet

'Poetics' ch. 24, 1460a

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If anyone gets in my way when I'm making a picture, I become irrational. I'm never sure what I am going to do, or sometimes even aware of what I do-only that I want that picture.

Margaret Bourke-White

Photography, Want, Way

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To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable.

Epictetus

Unendurable, Rational

Epictetus (1926). “Discourses”

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To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom.

Rowan Atkinson

Race, Irrational Fear, Ridiculous

"Law to safeguard religion is no joke, warns Blackadder" by Sarah Hall and Tania Branigan, www.theguardian.com. December 7, 2004.

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Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power, and to withhold from them information without which power is abused.

James Madison

People, Giving, Information

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Since all life is futility, then the decision to exist must be the most irrational of all.

Emile M. Cioran

Futility Of Life, Decision, Life Is

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To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.

Ayn Rand

Men, Action, Life Is

Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.961, Penguin

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I believe our concept of romantic love is irrational, impossible to fulfill and the cause of many broken homes. No human being can maintain that rarefied atmosphere of 'true love'.

Rita Mae Brown

Love, Believe, Home

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I can't with any conscience argue for New York with anyone. It's like Calcutta. But I love the city in an emotional, irrational way, like loving your mother or your father even though they're a drunk or a thief. I've loved the city my whole life - to me, it's like a great woman.

Woody Allen

Mother, New York, Father

Woody Allen, Robert E. Kapsis, Kathie Coblentz (2006). “Woody Allen: Interviews”, p.128, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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On scientific grounds this big bang assumption is much less the palatable of the two. For it is an irrational process that cannot be described in scientific terms. . . . On philosophical grounds too I cannot see any good reason for preferring the big bang idea. Indeed it seems to me in the philosophical sense to be a distinctly unsatisfactory notion, since it puts the basic assumption out of sight where it can never be challenged by a direct appeal to observation.

Fred Hoyle

Philosophical, Sight, Ideas

Fred Hoyle (1960). “The nature of the universe”

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PRONOIA: The irrational belief that people like you

Jon Winokur

People, Belief, Like You

Jon Winokur (2013). “Encyclopedia Neurotica”, p.276, St. Martin's Press

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Most illogical Irrational nature of our womanhood, That blushes one way, feels another way, And prays, perhaps another!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Women, Way, Praying

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1872). “Poetical Works”, p.349

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It’s right to say that people fall in love. We don’t glide, slip, or stumble into it. Instead we tumble head first from the moment we decide to step off the edge of a cliff with someone and see whether we’ll fly together. Love might be irrational, but we make the choice to risk everything.

Martin Pistorius

Falling In Love, Together Love, People

Martin Pistorius (2011). “Ghost Boy”, p.241, Simon and Schuster

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Fox opposes a Syria peace plan because its modus operandi is to foment dissent in the form of a relentless and irrational contrarianism to Barack Obama and all things Democratic, to advance its ultimate objective of creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose fear, anger, mistrust, and discontent is the manna upon which it sustains its parasitic succubus-like existence.

Jon Stewart

Creating, Body, Foxes

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Anthropocentrism is simply irrational. And yet this is the thrust of much of our traditional religious thought and teaching, particularly in the West.

Russell E. Train

Religious, Teaching, West

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I think anybody who has been abused as a kid - and I was abused as a kid, by various people - will say it's irrational because violence is irrational.

Samantha Morton

Kids, Thinking, People

"Samantha Morton: 'I was abused for a long time and I retaliated'". Interview with Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. April 24, 2009.

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I don't know if it's irrational, and I would never say this before, but I think I'm a little bit agoraphobic when I'm in huge crowds of people. I mean, it's claustrophobic, probably - small spaces and large groups of people, anxiety rises for me.

Taylor Hanson

Mean, Thinking, Space

"Taylor Hanson Talks About Hanson’s New Album & Staying Out Of The Tabloids For HuffPost’s #nofilter". Interview With Stephanie Marcus, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 12, 2013.

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I've always been sceptical about the notion that the market is a person you can engage in an argument with, and that that person is an intelligent, rational, well-intentioned person: it is fantasy. We know that ... the market is subject to irrational optimism and pessimism, and is vindictive ... You're dealing with a crazy man ... Having got what he wants he will still kill you.

Joseph Stiglitz

Business, Crazy, Intelligent

"The Money Man: Super-economist Joseph Stiglitz on how to fix the recession". Interview with Sean O'Grady, www.independent.co.uk. February 9, 2010.

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