Rational Quotes - Page 28

• Most astronauts are very down-to-earth people. Many of us, three-quarters, have an engineering degree, and we have a very Cartesian, rational approach to things. You don't go and get swept off your feet. That's not your job and that's not why you're hired. So if you get so mesmerized that you forget to do what you're supposed to do, whether it's to open the cargo door of the space shuttle or configure something inside, then you should not be there as a professional operator.

  Julie Payette

  People, Forget, Astronaut

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• I realized that, to a large degree, I had kept my rational mind at bay my whole life. I just acted on intuition in terms of how I related to life. At some point, my rational mind started creeping in, and it would not shut up. I finally had to address it and confront it. I think most intelligent people, at a younger age than I have, begin to question some of the fundamental assumptions our society promotes. But me, I just rejected it without even considering it.

  Jeff Mangum

  Intelligent, Thinking, People

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• I am a relatively rational being and I like to create order in poems. I like meter, I like rhyme, but ultimately I don't know where the poems come from, and I feel, at least in the beginning, that I'm taking dictation from my own dream that I don't remember.

  Mary Jo Salter

  Dream, Remember, Rhyme

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• The scarcest resource these days is reason. What's certainly striking about American culture today is the great hostility toward science and the decline of respect for rational scientific thinking. People seem to think that we are ruled by the scientific method and that we overvalue reason. If there was ever a period when we overvalued reason, I think that it was probably extremely brief. What I see now is a great deal of superstition, as much superstition as there has ever been. There are probably more people who believe in guardian angels than who understand the law of gravity.

  Wendy Kaminer

  Believe, Angel, Thinking

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• In Turkey religion not only affects society but is affected by it, which is why Turkish Islam differs from Arab Islam. It's a more modern, more rational, more self-confident society.

  Andrew Mango

  Islam, Modern, Turkish

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• Turkey, as an ex-imperial power, is all in favor of empires guaranteeing law and order on its borders. Turkey's and America's basic interests with regard to Iraq are identical. They both want a stable and rational Iraq that would use its considerable oil wealth in order to improve its own lot. But there doesn't seem to be very much prospect of that at the moment.

  Andrew Mango

  Wealth, Moments, Interest

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• I'm optimistic about Turkey's prospects for reaching the E.U.'s standards of development, governance, and democracy, whether inside or outside the E.U. Provided you have a prosperous, rational society in Turkey that can interact with Europe and the West, I don't really care what kind of institutional arrangement you have. The point to make about Turkey and Europe is that it's a very long, drawn-out process. What's important is that the process not be stopped, that Turkey and Europe evolve in the right direction, on a path of convergence. Convergence is the name of the game.

  Andrew Mango

  Optimistic, Long, Democracy

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• Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed.

  A. R. Ammons

  Self, Return, Source

  A. R. Ammons (1996). “Set in motion: essays, interviews, and dialogues”, Univ of Michigan Pr

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• Gardening is not a rational act.

  Margaret Atwood

  Garden, Gardening

  Margaret Atwood (2012). “Bluebeard's Egg”, p.277, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I don't think of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My poems usually begin with words or phrases which appeal more because of their sound than their meaning, and the movement and phrasing of a poem are very important to me.

  Margaret Atwood

  Thinking, Important, Sound

  Margaret Atwood (2006). “Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood”

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• If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe.

  Saint Augustine

  Believe, Philosophical, Soul

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• Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense; of punishing injustice?

  Frederic Bastiat

  Self, Law, Liberty

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.41, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.

  Annie Besant

  Believe, Ignorance, Denial

  Annie Besant (1890). “Why I Became a Theosophist”

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• Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Islam, Looks, Followers

  "'How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen'". www.outlookindia.com. November 15, 2001.

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• In the span of my own lifetime I observed such wondrous progress in plant evolution that I look forward optimistically to a healthy, happy world as soon as its children are taught the principles of simple and rational living.

  Luther Burbank

  Children, Simple, Healthy

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• Illogical thinkers throw names and slurs around because they have no arguments with which to rebut their opponents. Rational people have to keep hammering their points home.

  Benjamin Carson

  Home, Names, People

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• In general I was a good kid. It usually took a lot to make me mad. But once I reached the boiling point, I lost all rational control. Totally without thinking, when my anger was aroused, I grabbed the nearest brick, rock, or stick to bash someone. It was as if I had no conscious will in the matter.

  Benjamin Carson

  Kids, Thinking, Rocks

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• I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.

  Noam Chomsky

  Fascists, Fascism, Dictatorship

  Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault (2006). “The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature”, The New Press

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• Put simply, behavioural economics argues that human beings' decision-taking is guided by the evolutionary baggage which we bring with us to the present day. Evolution has made us rational to a point, but not perfectly so. It has given us emotions, for example, which programme us to override our rational brain and act more instinctively.

  Evan Davis

  Decision, Brain, Example

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• There are two kinds of terrorism. Rational terrorism such as Palestinian terrorism and apocalyptic terrorism like Sept. 11. You have to distinguish between the two.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Two, Kind, Terrorism

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• A man can believe a considerable deal of rubbish, and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner.

  Norman Douglas

  Attitude, Believe, Men

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• When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.

  Frederick Douglass

  Men, Wind, Literature

  Frederick Douglass (1999). “Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings”, Chicago Review Press

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• For people who have no critical acumen, a state is a mythical entity, for those who think critically it is a rational fiction, created by man in order to facilitate human coexistence.

  Friedrich Durrenmatt

  Men, Thinking, Order

  "The Limits of State Power in Africa: A Case Srudy of the Democratic Republic of Congo". Book by Georges/Sembe Bakaly (p. 14), 2006.

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• We face a conflict between civilisation and culture, which used to be on the same side. Civilisation means rational reflection, material wellbeing, individual autonomy and ironic self-doubt; culture means a form of life that is customary, collective, passionate, spontaneous, unreflective and arational.

  Terry Eagleton

  Mean, Reflection, Self

  "Culture conundrum" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. May 20, 2008.

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• The internet was supposed to make this whole business of job searching rational and simple. You could post your resume and companies would search them and they'd find you. It doesn't seem to work that way. There aren't enough jobs for experienced, college educated managers and professionals.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Jobs, Simple, College

  "Bait and Switch: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich". Interview with April Dembosky, www.motherjones.com. September 9, 2005.

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