Rationality Quotes - Page 9

• This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Self, Hypocrisy, Moments

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2015). “Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)”, p.218, Library of America

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• The dilemma of Brechtian performance is that, for all of Brecht's emphasis on rationality and the undermining of theatrical illusion, the actor must convincingly portray something that she is not.

  Philip Auslander

  Actors, Illusion, Brecht

  Philip Auslander (2002). “From Acting to Performance: Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism”, p.33, Routledge

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• The inversion of external compulsion into the compulsion of conscience ... produces the machine-like assiduity and pliable allegiance required by the new rationality.

  Max Horkheimer

  Machines, Inversions, Produce

  "The Essential Frankfurt School Reader" by Max Horkheimer, (p. 34), 1982.

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• In the 'in-itself' there is nothing of 'causal connections', of 'necessity', or of 'psychological non-freedom'; there the effect does not follow the cause, there is no rule or 'law'. It is we alone who have devised cause, sequence, for-each-other, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose; and when we project and mix this symbol world into things as if it existed 'in itself', we act once more as we have always acted- mythologically.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Law, Numbers, Connections

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• ...in this way the structure of the universe- I mean, of the heavens and the earth and the whole world- was arranged by one harmony through the blending of the most opposite principles.

  Aristotle

  Mean, Opposites, Heaven

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• Rationality is the master lifehack which distinguishes which other lifehacks to use.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Use, Masters

  "Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians". lesswrong.com. April 20, 2011.

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• Part of the sexual revolution is bringing rationality to sexuality. Because when you don't embrace sexuality in a normal way, you get the twisted kinds, and the kinds that destroy lives.

  Hugh Hefner

  Way, Revolution, Normal

  "A Visit with 'Playboy' Founder Hugh Hefner". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. September 6, 2003.

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• Without a commitment to science and rationality in its proper domain, there can be no solution to the problems that engulf us. Still, the Yahoos never rest.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Commitment, Science, Problem

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  Happiness is man's greatest aim in life. Tranquility and rationality are the cornerstones of happiness.

  Epicurus

  Happiness, Ambition, Men

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• Institutionalized desublimation thus appears to be an aspect of the "conquest of transcendence" achieved by the one-dimensional society. Just as this society tends to reduce, and even absorb opposition (the qualitative difference!) in the realm of politics and higher culture, so it does in the instinctual sphere. The result is the atrophy of the mental organs for grasping the contradictions and the alternatives and, in the one remaining dimension of technological rationality, the Happy Consciousness comes to prevail.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Differences, Alternatives, Dimensions

  Herbert Marcuse (2013). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.82, Routledge

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• The outcome of a non-constant-sum game may be dictated by the individual rationality of the respective players without satisfying a criterion of collective rationality.

  Anatol Rapoport

  Player, Games, Outcomes

  "Game Theory as a Theory of Conflict Resolution" by Anatol Rapoport, (p. 4), 1974.

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• Most of us fail to appreciate the extent to which our behavior is under situational control, because we prefer to believe that is all is internally generated. We wander around cloaked in an illusion of vulnerability, mis-armed with an arrogance of free will and rationality.

  Philip Zimbardo

  Believe, Appreciate, Arrogance

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• The people I know who seem to make unusual efforts at rationality, are unusually honest, or, failing that, at least have unusually bad social skills.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Skills, People, Effort

  "Honesty: Beyond Internal Truth". lesswrong.com. June 06, 2009.

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• If we can combine our knowledge of science with the wisdom of wildness, if we can nurture civilization through roots in the primitive, man's potentialities appear to be unbounded, Through this evolving awareness, and his awareness of that awareness, he can emerge with the miraculous-to which we can attach what better name than 'God'? And in this merging, as long sensed by intuition but still only vaguely perceived by rationality, experience may travel without need for accompanying life.

  Charles Lindbergh

  God, Wisdom, Science

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• Scientists are not the paragons of rationality, objectivity, openmindedness and humility that many of them might like others to believe.

  Marcello Truzzi

  Believe, Humility, Science

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• Science is simply common sense at its best.

  Thomas Huxley

  Motivational, Math, Science

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

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• I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.

  A. R. Ammons

  Stress, Successful, Order

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

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• I think looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's something for research.

  Richard Dawkins

  Thinking, Childhood, Stories

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• To deal with future we have to deal with possibilities. Analysis will only tell us what is.

  Edward de Bono

  Future, Analysis, Possibility

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  I’m not insane, I’m voluntarily indifferent to conventional rationality.

  Jared Leto

  Insane, Indifferent, Conventional

  FaceBook post by Jared Leto from Aug 04, 2013

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• There is joy in rationality, happiness in clarity of mind. Freethought is thrilling and fulfilling - absolutely essential to mental health and happiness.

  Dan Barker

  Joy, Doubt, Mind

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

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• To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Humble, Modesty, Fallibility

  "Twelve Virtues of Rationality". Personal Website, yudkowsky.net.

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• There's something in us that is very much attracted to madness. Everyone who looks off the edge of a tall building has felt at least a faint, morbid urge to jump. And anyone who has ever put a loaded pistol up to his head... All right, my point is this: even the most well-adjusted person is holding onto his or her sanity by a greased rope. I really believe that. The rationality circuits are shoddily built into the human animal.

  Stephen King

  Depression, Suicide, Believe

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• If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

  Isaac Asimov

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Science

  Isaac Asimov (1984). “Asimov's New guide to science”, Basic Books (AZ)

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• Afraid? Batman's not afraid of anything. It's me. I'm afraid. I'm afraid that The Joker may be right about me. Sometimes…I question the rationality of my actions. And I’m afraid that when I walk through those asylum gates... when I walk into Arkham and the doors close behind me... it’ll be just like coming home.

  Grant Morrison

  Home, Doors, May

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