Rationalism Quotes

• I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth

  Karl Popper

  Effort, May

  Karl Popper (2012). “The Open Society and its Enemies”, p.510, Routledge

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• Wisdom lies in thinking. The spear-head of thinking is rationalism.

  Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

  Lying, Thinking, Spears

  "Collected works of Thanthai Periyar E.V. Ramasami". Book published by Periyar Self-Respect Propaganda Institution, p. 49, 1981.

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• Rationalism is an attitude of readiness to listen to contrary arguments and to learn from experience... of admitting that "I may be wrong and you may be right and, by an effort, we may get nearer the truth."

  Karl Popper

  Attitude, Effort, Admitting

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• I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Thinking

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• Rationalism doesn't require "belief," only observation. The real, measurable world doesn't care what you believe.

  Joe Haldeman

  Real, Believe, World

  Joe Haldeman (2008). “The Accidental Time Machine”, p.82, Penguin

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• Rationalism is an adventure in the clarification of thought.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Adventure, Clarification

  Alfred North Whitehead (2010). “Process and Reality”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

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• The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Wisdom

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• In philosophical terms, the opposite of rationalism is not irrationalism but empiricism, that is, a willingness to form beliefs on the basis of experience rather than from a priori deduction. Empirical evidence never yields the dogmatic certainty that accompanies logical deduction.

  John Quiggin

  Philosophical, Yield, Opposites

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• Rationalists are admirable beings, rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is worship of stock and stone believing it to be God.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Believe, Omnipotence, Monsters

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.167, A&C Black

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• Can reason be an idol? Certainly. The philosophy of rationalism puts human reason in the place of God as the source and standard of all truth.

  Nancy Pearcey

  Philosophy, Idols, Reason

  Nancy Pearcey (2015). “Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes”, p.43, David C Cook

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• Any opposition not based on rationalism or science or experience will one day or other, reveal the fraud, selfishness, lies and conspiracies.

  Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

  Lying, One Day, Selfishness

  "Collected works of Periyar E.V.R." by Tantai Periyār, (p. 504), 2005.

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• There are also two Christianities in the world today. There is (1) the Christianity of the New Testament, and there is (2) the Christianity of accommodation to modernism, egalitarianism, niceness, naturalism, pop psychology, secular humanism, relativism, subjectivism, individualism, "Enlightenment" rationalism or postmodern irrationalism. New converts to the first Christianity are constantly amazed and scandalized by finding many of their clergy to be in love with the second and in fear of the first.

  Peter Kreeft

  Egalitarianism, Two, Psychology

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• It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Charity, Significant, Difficult

  Interview with Mike Wallace, ABC TV, www.hrc.utexas.edu. April 27, 1958.

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• The great ideas of the West - rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience, thought, and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy- quite an achievement, surely, for any civilization- - remain the best, and perhaps the only, means for all people, no matter of what race or creed, to reach their full potential and live in freedom.

  Ibn Warraq

  Mean, Race, Self

  Ibn Warraq (2010). “Virgins? What Virgins?: And Other Essays”

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• Rationalism, which is the feeling that everything is subject to and completely explicable by Reason, consequently rejects everything not visible and calculable.

  Francis Parker Yockey

  Feelings, Reason, Rejects

  Francis Parker Yockey (2013). “Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics”, p.272, The Palingenesis Project (Wermod and Wermod Publishing Group)

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• What Facebook stands for in the world is giving people a voice and spreading ideas and rationalism.

  Mark Zuckerberg

  Ideas, Voice, People

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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• In no other field of scientific endeavor do otherwise intelligent people feel free to make public claims based on prejudice and ignorance. Yet in relation to psychic phenomena, committed materialists feel free to disregard the evidence and behave irrationally and unscientifically, while claiming to speak in the name of science and reason. They abuse the authority of science and bring rationalism into disrepute.

  Rupert Sheldrake

  Ignorance, Science, Intelligent

  Rupert Sheldrake (2012). “Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery”, p.257, Deepak Chopra

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• To the fantastic mental illness of Rationalism, hard facts are regrettable things, and to talk about them is to create them

  Francis Parker Yockey

  Facts, Mental Health, Mental Illness

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• Liberalism is a most important by-product of Rationalism, and its origins and ideology must be clearly shown

  Francis Parker Yockey

  Important, Liberalism, Ideology

  Francis Parker Yockey (2013). “Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics”, p.271, The Palingenesis Project (Wermod and Wermod Publishing Group)

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• Liberalism is Rationalism in politics.

  Francis Parker Yockey

  Politics, Liberalism

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• Americans are in serious intellectual trouble - in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

  Susan Jacoby

  Truth, Expectations, Intellectual

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• Christianity is not rationalism, but faith in Gods revelation. A conspicuous, all-important item in that revelation is the resurrection of the body.

  Edward McKendree Bounds

  Important, Body, Faith In God

  Edward McKendree Bounds (1907). “The Resurrection”

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• The central problem of our age is not liberalism or modernism, nor the old Roman Catholicism or the new Roman Catholicism, nor the threat of communism, nor even the threat of rationalism and the monolithic consensus which surrounds us. All these are dangerous but not the primary threat. The real problem is this: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them.

  Francis Schaeffer

  Jesus, Real, People

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• This mindless tolerance, which places observable scientific facts, subject to proof, on the same level as unprovable supernatural fantasy, has played a major role in the resurgence of both anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism.

  Susan Jacoby

  Tolerance, Roles, Levels

  FaceBook post by Susan Jacoby from Aug 27, 2013

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• Rationalism belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average person, they follow not reason, but faith. This naïve faith, requires necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth maker to keep the ordinary person on course.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Average, Stupidity, Politics

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