Rational Quotes

The rules of friendship are tacit, unconscious; they are not rational. In business, though, you have to think rationally.

Becoming fully rational is not enough anymore; evidently it can lead to distortions of all the great human possibilities.

Faith in God's promises means not always following the expected, rational path.

A large plural society cannot be governed without recognizing that, transcending its plural interests, there is a rational order with a superior common law.

Investment must be rational; if you can't understand it, don't do it.

Skepticism is not a denial of belief, but rather a denial of rational grounds for belief.

To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.

I urge a willingness to reserve a place in rational science for non-rational wonder.

I have yet to meet the famous Rational Economic Man theorists describe. Real people have always done inexplicable things from time to time, and they show no sign of stopping.

It is remarkable that God began this work among the Indians at a time when I had the least hope, and to my apprehension the least rational prospect of success.

It is more rational to suspect knavery and folly than to discount, at a stroke, everything that past experience has taught me about the way things actually work

If I was a nightingale I would sing like a nightingale; if a swan, like a swan. But since I am a rational creature my role is to praise God.

...one may say anything about the history of the world - anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one can't say is that it's rational.

The Enlightenment view of mankind is a complete myth. It leads us into thinking we're sane and rational creatures most of the time, and we're not.

In the face of such overwhelming statistical possibilities hypochondria has always seems to me to be the only rational position to take on life.

In times of crisis human beings don't have it in them to be rational.

only that which is deeply felt can change us. Rational arguments alone cannot penetrate the layers of fear and conditioning that comprise our crippling belief system.

On any longer view, man is only fitfully committed to the rational -- to thinking, seeing, learning, knowing. Believing is what he's really proud of.

The word 'tolerance' once meant we all have the right to argue rationally for our deepest convictions in the public arena. Now it means those convictions are not even subject to rational debate.

He knew when to compromise. Yet he never compromised his principles. He was a militant. Yet a militant who knew how to plan, assess concrete situations and emerge with rational solutions to problems.

An external thing that is knowable [is knowable] by means of something internal that is consubstantial [with the rational soul].

We are rational creatures: Our virtue and perfection is to love reason, or rather to love order.

Suppose that we believe what we are taught. . . . destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies . . . of institutional lunacy.

In the end, rational policy is always good.

I'm a militant fundamentalist atheist. I'm going to get on a crowded train, unbutton my coat and say rational things. People will be hurt.

... there is no such thing as a rational world and a separate irrational world, but only one world containing both.

It is no more rational to have lawyers in positions of power than it would be to have garbage collectors in positions of power. And in human terms garbage collectors would be preferable.

Heaven forbid that we should believe in such a way as not to accept or seek reasons, since we could not even believe if we did not possess rational souls.

[My art is] capable of liberating man from the tyranny of the 'practical, rational world.'

If we had a better understanding of the ways we think about enemies, we might be able to think of more rational ways of settling conflict.

The divine therapy helps us integrate our animal nature with the new possibilities of rational consciousness.

Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.

Behind every flinch is a fear or an anxiety - sometimes rational, sometimes not. Without the fear, there is no flinch. But wiping out the fear isn't what's important - facing it is.

The hope is indeed that some will experience and believe: The purpose of a number of spiritual gurus is to demonstrate to God-fearing men faux spirituality.

I survive by finding the sweet spot between reason and unreason, between the rational and irrational.

Sometimes knowing what's right isn't a rational decision, or even what works on paper. Sometimes leaving is the best course of action after all.

Innovation in tech favors the naive and the stubborn. If you are too rational you won't tackle problems that others once failed at.

A person without a shadow should keep out of the sun, that is the only safe and rational plan.

There are two kinds of terrorism. Rational terrorism such as Palestinian terrorism and apocalyptic terrorism like Sept. 11. You have to distinguish between the two.

I would think that you are more fluent with the rational. It has its appeal. But the irrational permits a greater exercise of ... shall we say, power.

The only rational way of educating is to be an example. If one can't help it, a warning example.

Most of all I admire Mozart's capacity to be both deep and rational, a combination often said to be impossible.

It is both theoretically mistaken and morally wrong to regard others as objects of investigation rather than partners in free rational communication.

We commit not only theoretical error but also moral wrong in objectifying ourselves or other rational beings, ignoring their capacities for free action and communicative interaction with us.

Kant did think he had a moral route back to rational faith in God, for those who need it, and he thought that at some level, we all do need something like it.

If being "iron headed" is to be lacking such feelings, then Kant's position is that an ironheaded person could not be a moral agent because such a person would not be rational.

What is central to morality is rational self-constraint (acting from duty), in cease where there is no other incentive to do your duty except that the moral law commands it.

Kant was a rational theologian. He did not pretend to be a biblical or revealed theologian.

Kant certainly was sympathetic with the metaphysical tradition of rational theology that he criticized.

Income is the natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability.