Rationality Quotes

• Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Fear, Future, Adventure

  "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, Book VII, (8), (c. 161 - 180 AD).

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• The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.

  Aldous Huxley

  Believe, Mind, Religion

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• Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Facts, Recognition

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.103, Penguin

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• A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone's orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone's opinions, threats, wishes, plans.

  Ayn Rand

  Truth, Knowledge, Sacrifice

  "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal".

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• If one devalues rationality, the world tends to fall apart.

  Lars von Trier

  Fall, World, Devalue

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• Common sense is not so common.

  Voltaire

  Life, Wisdom, Witty

  Dictionnaire Philosophique "Common Sense" (1765)

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• The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.

  Thomas Huxley

  Thinking, Authority, Appeals

  "\Rhetoric and Incommensurability". Book by Randy Allen Harris (p. 228), 2005.

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• Rules and models destroy genius and art.

  William Hazlitt

  Art, Freedom, Teaching

  'Sketches and Essays' (1839) 'On Taste'

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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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• The Noah rule: Predicting rain doesn't count; building arks does.

  Warren Buffett

  Rain, Ark, Doe

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• A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Powerful, Thoughtful, Love Is

  Saint Thomas Aquinas (1951). “Philosophical Texts”, London : Oxford University Press

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• Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Math, Religion, Democracy

  Antoine de Saint Exupery (1942). “Flight to Arras”

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• You don't have to believe everything you think.

  Erykah Badu

  Believe, Thinking, Computer Programming

  FaceBook post by Erykah Badu from Jan 28, 2014

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• Gratitude is the first sign of a thinking, rational creature.

  Solanus Casey

  Gratitude, Smart, Grateful

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• Men prosper or fail, survive or perish in proportion to the degree of their rationality.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Degrees, Failing

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.15, Penguin

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• Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers.

  David Hume

  Mistake, Imagination, Philosopher

  David Hume (2015). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.463, David Hume

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• Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.

  Anne Lamott

  Intuition, Juicy, Rich

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.112, Anchor

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• Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture, and so on. I'd stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.

  Paul Bloom

  Men, Animal, Sticks

  Paul Bloom (2011). “How Pleasure Works: Why we like what we like”, p.52, Random House

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• A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Art, Law, Motorcycle

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• Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Common Sense, Logic

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1902). “An Introduction to the Study of Zoology, Illustrated by the Crayfish”

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• Business is essentially applied rationality:
  a systematic process of thinking that produces a real-world result. Instead of mortgaging your life to go to business school, it's possible to dramatically increase your knowledge of business on your own time and with little cost - without setting foot inside a classroom.

  Josh Kaufman

  Real, School, Thinking

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• Rationality is what we do to organize the world, to make it possible to predict. Art is the rehearsal for the inapplicability and failure of that process.

  Brian Eno

  Art, World, Rehearsal

  "A Year With Swollen Appendices". Book by Brian Eno, 1996.

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• Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it...

  George Bernard Shaw

  Power, Cynical, Belief

  "Music in London, 1890-94: Criticisms Contributed Week by Week to The World, Volume 27 (The World (18 July 1894))". Book by George Bernard Shaw, 1931.

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• Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

  Martin Rees

  Science, Vastness, Ontology

  Quoted in Project Cyclops: A Design Study of a System for Detecting Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life, rev. ed., ed. B. M. Oliver and J. Billingham (1973). An earlier version by A. R. Burn appeared in a book review by Burn in The Classical Review, June 1969: "absence of evidence is not identical with evidence of absence."

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• Dialectic, which is the parent of logic, came itself from rhetoric. Rhetoric is in turn the child of the myths and poetry of ancient Greece. That is so historically, and that is so by any application of common sense. The poetry and myths are the response of a prehistoric people to the Universe around them made on the basis of Quality. It is Quality, not dialectic, which is the generator of everything we know.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Children, People, Common Sense

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

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