Rational Quotes - Page 31

• The tragedy of being both rational and animal seems to consist in having to choose between duty and desire rather than in making any particular choice

  Mortimer Adler

  Animal, Choices, Desire

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• Cheshvan starts tonight," Rixon said, "What are you doing arsing around in a graveyard?" "Thinking." "Thinking?" "A process by which I use my brain to make a rational decision.

  Becca Fitzpatrick

  Thinking, Decision, Brain

  Becca Fitzpatrick (2013). “The Complete Hush, Hush Saga: includes Hush, Hush; Crescendo; Silence and Finale”, p.220, Simon and Schuster

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• Like fanning through a deck of cards, my mind flashes on the thousand chances, trivial to profound, that converged to re-create this place. Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different. Where did the expression "a place in the sun" first come from? My rational thought process cling always to the idea of free will, random event; my blood, however, streams easily along a current of fate.

  Frances Mayes

  Fate, Expression, Blood

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• to rest one's case on faith means to concede that reason is on the side of one's enemies- that one has no rational arguments to offer.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Enemy, Religion

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.116, Penguin

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• There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not found God and seek him, and those who live not seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the third foolish and unhappy.

  Blaise Pascal

  People, Unhappy, Three

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• Reason flows from the blending of rational thought and feeling. If the two functions are torn apart, thinking deteriorates into schizoid intellectual activity and feeling deteriorates into neurotic life-damaging passions.

  Erich Fromm

  Passion, Thinking, Two

  Erich Fromm (2011). “The Revolution of Hope”, p.51, Lantern Books

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• Morality is neither rational nor absolute nor natural. World has known many moral systems, each of which advances claims universality; all moral systems are therefore particular, serving a specific purpose for their propagators or creators, and enforcing a certain regime that disciplines human beings for social life by narrowing our perspectives and limiting our horizons.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Discipline, Perspective, Horizon

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• Murphy watched me thoughtfully for several empty seconds. Then she said, very gently, "You're a good man, Harry." I swallowed and bowed my head, made humble by the tone of her voice and the expression on her face, more than the words themselves. Not always rational," she said, smiling. "But you're the best kind of crazy.

  Jim Butcher

  Crazy, Humble, Men

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• When you by nature subscribe to the view that everyone except yourself is a berk or a wanker, it is hard to bond with anybody in any rational common cause.

  Lynne Truss

  Views, Causes, Common

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• I have no phobias. Phobias are irrational. My fears are rational and CAREFULLY CULTIVATED, like roses.

  Maureen Johnson

  Rose, Irrational, Phobia

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• Religious ideas and practices take root not because they are promoted by forceful theologians, nor because they can be shown to have a sound historical or rational basis, but because they are found in practice to give the faithful a sense of sacred transcendence.

  Karen Armstrong

  Religious, Practice, Ideas

  Karen Armstrong (2002). “Islam: A Short History”, Random House Digital, Inc.

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• It’ll probably be brutal, too. They might even feed you to the dog. He doesn’t have a dog. Yeah, well, he might get one just to feed you to it. She’d never been the kind of person to let something as ridiculous as rational logic interfere with her fear.’ (Alix)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Dog, Might, Ridiculous

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2009). “Born of Ice”, p.50, Macmillan

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• When it shall be said in any country in the world my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want; the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness: When these things can be said, there may that country boast its Constitution and its Government

  Thomas Paine

  Happiness, Country, Ignorance

  Thomas Paine (1995). “Collected Writings”, p.649, Library of America

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• If men will permit themselves to think, as rational beings ought to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expence of building navies, filling them with men, and then hauling them into the ocean, to try which can sink each other fastester. Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infintely more advantage than any victory with all its expence. But this, though it best answers the purpose of Nations, does not that of Court Governments, whose habited policy is pretence for taxation, places, and offices.

  Thomas Paine

  Ocean, Thinking, Reflection

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• Thinking. A process by which I use my brain to make a rational decision.

  Becca Fitzpatrick

  Thinking, Decision, Brain

  Becca Fitzpatrick (2013). “The Complete Hush, Hush Saga: includes Hush, Hush; Crescendo; Silence and Finale”, p.220, Simon and Schuster

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• Now I must give one smirk and then we may be rational again

  Jane Austen

  Giving, Smirk, May

  Jane Austen (2009). “Northanger Abbey”, p.13, Wild Jot Press

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• Action is the activity of the rational soul, which abhors irrationality and must combat it or be corrupted by it. When it sees the irrationality of others, it must seek to correct it, and can do this either by teaching or engaging in public affairs itself, correcting through its practice. And the purpose of action is to enable philosophy to continue, for if men are reduced to the material alone, they become no more than beasts.

  Iain Pears

  Philosophy, Teaching, Men

  Iain Pears (2003). “Dream of Scipio”, p.237, Penguin

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• Any time there's something so ridiculously dangerous that no rational human being would try it, they send for me.' --Garion

  David Eddings

  Trying, Dangerous, Humans

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• ...mediocre people find their way into positions of authority...because when it comes to even the most important positions, our selection decisions are a good deal less rational than we think.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Thinking, People, Decision

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• Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth

  Ayn Rand

  Fighting, Pride, Men

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.817, Hamilton Books

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• All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Thinking, Firsts, Action

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Socialism - An Economic and Sociological Analysis: The Economist”, p.86, VM eBooks

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• Why was the judgement of the disapproving so valuable? Who said that their good opinions tended to be any more rational than those of generally pleasant people?

  Shannon Hale

  People, Judgement, Opinion

  Shannon Hale (2013). “Austenland: A Novel”, p.112, A&C Black

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• If faith cannot be reconciled with rational thinking, it has to be eliminated as an anachronistic remnant of earlier stages of culture and replaced by science dealing with facts and theories which are intelligible and can be validated.

  Erich Fromm

  Fear, Thinking, Religion

  Erich Fromm (2013). “Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics”, p.203, Open Road Media

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• Suddenly, madness was everywhere, and I was determined to learn about the impact it had on the way society evolves. I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?

  Jon Ronson

  Impact, Insanity, What If

  Jon Ronson (2012). “Jon Ronson's Adventures With Extraordinary People”, p.448, Pan Macmillan

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• Grandma, please. It’s okay. Dad’s doing a great job. I give him kudos for at least being calm and rational, and not losing his temper with everyone around him who isn’t in childbirth. And he has yet to start shooting lighting bolts at people. Poor Damien still has a burn scar.” – Kat

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Jobs, Dad, Grandma

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2011). “Retribution”, p.400, St. Martin's Press

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