Irrational Quotes - Page 19

• Reason in my philosophy is only a harmony among irrational impulses.

  George Santayana

  Peace, Philosophy, Harmony

  George Santayana (1945). “The Middle Span”

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• One thing we may be sure of, however: For the believer all pain has meaning; all adversity is profitable. There is no question that adversity is difficult. It usually takes us by surprise and seems to strike where we are most vulnerable. To us it often appears completely senseless and irrational, but to God none of it is either senseless or irrational. He has a purpose in every pain He brings or allows in our lives. We can be sure that in some way He intends it for our profit and His glory.

  Jerry Bridges

  God, Religious, Jesus

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• Customers perceive service in their own unique, idiosyncratic, emotional, irrational, end-of-the-day, and totally human terms. Perception is all there is!

  Tom Peters

  Funny, Leadership, Educational

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• Fashion somehow, for me, is purely and happily irrational.

  Hedi Slimane

  Fashion

  "Hedi Slimane: putting the flounce into fashion" by Viv Groskop, www.theguardian.com. October 6, 2012.

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• O Woe to his blinded soul! Saying this, he as it were said to God: "Thou Thyself are guilty, because the woman whom Thou gavest me hast deceived me." This very same thing I myself now suffer, wretched and miserable, when I do not desire to be humbled, and to say with my whole soul that I myself am guilty of my perdition. But on the contrary I say: "That person over there inspired me to do or say this. He advised me and knocked me off the path." Woe is my poor soul which speaks such words filled with sin! O most shameless and irrational words of a shameless and irrational soul!

  Symeon the New Theologian

  Humility, Soul, Suffering

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• Last year a friend went dark in a nervous city alone, the sea flashing against his glasses, the sea sorted out at last in his inner ear so he could leave this world as he'd entered it through the undependable irrational influence of water. -Kevin Jeffery Clark It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get at.

  Sylvia Plath

  Suicidal, Dark, Sea

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• It is an irrational claim to believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and at the same time to hold that the greater part of his teachings have no application at the present time. If you say that the reason why the powers do not follow them that believe (as Christ said they would) is because you have not faith enough and are not pure enough-that will be all right. But to say that they have no application at the present time is to be ridiculous.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Jesus, Believe, Teaching

  Swami Vivekananda (1963). “Complete Works”

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• If naturalism were true then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes. It cuts its own throat.

  C. S. Lewis

  Atheist, Cutting, Atheism

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.39, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• War is an irrational, counter-productive way to handle conflicts.

  Lawrence S. Wittner

  War, Way, Conflict

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• A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death. By doing this, you will awaken from your dreams.

  Nabeshima Naoshige

  Dream, Real, War

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• For you deal here above all with human life, and human life is sacred; no one may dare make an attempt upon it. Respect for life, even with regard to the great problem of the birth rate, must find here in your Assembly its highest affirmation and its most rational defense. Your task is to ensure that there is enough bread on the tables of mankind, and not to encourage an artificial control of births, which would be irrational, in order to diminish the number of guests at the banquet of life.

  Pope Paul VI

  Numbers, Order, Birth Rate

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• Sometimes that irrational commitment to principle is what society needs to survive. Whenever you talk about radicalism, whenever you talk about activism, whenever you talk about progressive activity, that sort of moves the measure of liberty in human society forward, makes us all enjoy a better standard of liberty, it typically starts out criminal. It typically starts out a little bit shaky, and rather radical. And that's irrational to put yourself up to do that.

  Edward Snowden

  Moving, Commitment, Liberty

  Source: www.nesta.org.uk

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• I know that the dream mind is irrational, but I like to think that if I hear something in a dream that's really good, then it's irrational... but it's not crazy.

  Ted Leo

  Dream, Crazy, Thinking

  "Ted Leo and Ben Arthur Discuss Carly Simon, Joyce Carl Oates, and the Touring Grind". Interview with Ben Arthur, logger.believermag.com. June 26, 2016.

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• Magic is a two-way process: you use it to change yourself and in return, it changes you. Letting yourself enter a magical reality is not about creating an enclave of magic beyond your everyday life, but of allowing magic in- allowing for the intrusion of the weird, the irrational, the things you can't explain, yet are undeniably real.

  Phil Hine

  Real, Two, Creating

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• Great performers require a measure of confidence that would strike many as absurd, unfounded, and downright irrational. They believe in themselves utterly, without question, even when everyone else is questioning how good (or sane) they are.

  John Eliot

  Faith, Believe, Achievement

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• I've always had an irrational fear - it's really not an irrational fear, I think - whenever I've been standing at a urinal at a bar, or Giants Stadium or Yankee Stadium. You've got a bunch of drunks behind you, often in a hostile, adrenalized environment like a football game. What's to prevent the guy behind me from slamming my head into the porcelain wall in front of me?

  Steve Rushin

  Football, Wall, Thinking

  Source: www.gq.com

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• To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason. Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature, and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of evolution.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Law, Mind, Excellence

  "The Architecture of Theories". The Monist, Volume I, No. 2, p. 161, January 1891.

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• You are allowed to draw lines even if your feelings are irrational. Part of the marvelous business of being an adult human is that you get to set your own boundaries for whatever reasons you like, without appending a sensible rationale to them.

  Mallory Ortberg

  Feelings, Adults, Lines

  "Backup Mommy". Live chat, www.slate.com. March 8, 2016.

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• I have huge admiration for people who think like the effective altruist, who try to rationally think about how they can change the world for the better, and who try not to be swayed by irrational considerations, such as skin color or whether or not someone lives in the same neighborhood.

  Paul Bloom

  Thinking, Skin Color, People

  "Paul Bloom: The Trouble With Empathy". Interview with Allyson Kirkpatrick, www.guernicamag.com. February 1, 2016.

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• A man can only grow to a certain point when alone; to grow further you need some "irrational shocks", like a wife and children; a dramatic change to your own life.

  Varg Vikernes

  Children, Men, Wife

  Source: heathenharvest.org

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• I chose the name Pi because it's an irrational number (one with no discernable pattern). Yet scientists use this irrational number to come to a "rational" understanding of the universe. To me, religion is a bit like that, "irrational" yet with it we come together we come to a sound understanding of the universe.

  Yann Martel

  Irrational Numbers, Names, Understanding

  Interview, www.bookbrowse.com. October 2, 2002.

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• Science for me is very close to art. Scientific discovery is an irrational act. It's an intuition which turns out to be reality at the end of it-and I see no difference between a scientist developing a marvellous discovery and an artist making a painting.

  Carlo Rubbia

  Art, Science, Reality

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• The human animal varies from class to class, culture to culture. In one way we are consistent: We are irrational.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Animal, Class, Culture

  Rita Mae Brown (2011). “Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual”, p.79, Bantam

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• Even the most analytical thinkers are predictably irrational; the really smart ones acknowledge and address their irrationalities.

  Dan Ariely

  Smart, Addresses, Thinker

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• It is true that from a behavioral economics perspective we are fallible, easily confused, not that smart, and often irrational. We are more like Homer Simpson than Superman. So from this perspective it is rather depressing. But at the same time there is also a silver lining. There are free lunches!

  Dan Ariely

  Depressing, Confused, Smart

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