Rational Quotes - page 2

In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else. (Lee Iacocca)
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately. View quote
Bertrand Russell
The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite. View quote
Robert M. Pirsig
The nude gains its enduring value from the fact that it reconciles several contrary states. It takes the most sensual and immediately interesting object, the human body, and puts it out of reach of time and desire; it takes the most purely rational concept of which mankind is capable, mathematical order, and makes it a delight to the senses; and it takes the vague fears of the unknown and sweetens them by showing that the gods are like men and may be worshiped for their life-giving beauty rather than their death-dealing powers. View quote
Kenneth Clark
Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd. View quote
Annie Besant
There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago. View quote
Hannes Alfvén
The idea of sin and retribution is just an attempt to hide behind the shield of superstition. You are trying to find rational causes where there aren't any. View quote
George Alec Effinger
Reason ... contradicts the established order of men and things on behalf of existing societal forces that reveal the irrational character of this order - for "rational” is a mode of thought and action which is geared to reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality, and oppression. View quote
Herbert Marcuse
Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided. View quote
John Locke
Religion, which should most distinguish us from beasts, and ought most peculiarly to elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts themselves. (John Locke)
It is the considered opinion of most members of our rational élites that, in any given difference of opinion with reality, reality is wrong. View quote
John Ralston Saul
In the humanist ideal, the mainstream is where interesting debate, the generating of new ideas and creativity take place. In rational society this mainstream is considered uncontrollable and is therefore made marginal. The centre ground is occupied instead by structures and courtiers. View quote
John Ralston Saul
If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe. View quote
Augustine of Hippo
I have no phobias. Phobias are irrational. My fears are rational and CAREFULLY CULTIVATED, like roses. View quote
Maureen Johnson
It's all emotion. But there's nothing wrong with emotion. When we are in love, we are not rational; we are emotional. When we are on vacation, we are not rational; we are emotional. View quote
Frank Luntz
So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational. View quote
Charles Cooley
It is one of the most beautiful characteristics of Theosophy that it gives back to people in a more rational form everything which was really useful and helpful to them in the religions which they have outgrown... in this teaching as to the immortality of the soul and the life after death, Theosophy...does not put forward these great truths merely on the authority of some sacred book of long ago; in speaking of these subjects it is not dealing with pious opinions, or metaphysical speculations, but with solid, definite facts, as real and as close to us as the air we breathe or the houses we live in - facts of which many among us have constant experience - facts among which lies the daily work of some of our students, as will presently be seen. View quote
Charles Webster Leadbeater
Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world. View quote
Albert Ellis
I started to call myself a rational therapist in 1955; later I used the term rational emotive. Now I call myself a rational emotive behavior therapist. View quote
Albert Ellis
There's no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational. (Albert Ellis)
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? View quote
Jon Ronson
If you simply announce that things are irrational, then that alone doesnt get you very far. You have to replace rational agents with some concrete notion of what it means to be irrational. View quote
Lars Peter Hansen
From 1918 on, trade unionists were to express from the platforms of their congresses the workers' desire for peace through a rational organization of the world. View quote
Leon Jouhaux
Linguistics will have to recognise laws operating universally in language, and in a strictly rational manner, separating general phenomena from those restricted to one branch of languages or another. View quote
Ferdinand de Saussure