Quotes About Rationality

Here's the perversity of Wall Street's psychology: The more Wall Street is convinced that Washington will act rationally and raise the debt ceiling, most likely at the 11th hour, the less pressure there will be on lawmakers to reach an agreement. That will make it more likely a deal isn't reached.

We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.

Rational thoughts never drive people's creativity the way emotions do.

Be able to defend your arguments in a rational way. Otherwise, all you have is an opinion.

The lesson of my field, behavioral economics, is that we need to understand the ways in which we differ from the rational human assumed in standard economic theory.

Science is objective. And in my view we cannot take any experimental results seriously except in the light of good explanations of them.

Logic must look after itself. In a certain sense, we cannot make mistakes in logic.

We cannot sway extremists with rational thought or with our ideas of right and wrong.

Game theorists analyze negotiations as if they were split-a-pie games involving selfish players.

Well if done a lot of hard work to try and get people to act rationally, the fact that weve had 15 deviant Muslims, plus 5 or 8 others that got away does not mean that all Muslims are deviant or extremists.

Logic plus logic equals the illogical. Do you know what I mean?

Logic is pointless.

Envy blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly.

We've lost common sense.

It's called common sense, but it's not common. Most people don't have it.

Can the knowledge deriving from reason even begin to compare with knowledge perceptible by sense?

Common sense is compelled to make its way without the enthusiasm of anyone.

If we are to assess the rationality of government expenditures to protect the lives of Americans through massive domestic surveillance, we need to compare this program to others aimed at saving American lives.

I think most people are more susceptible to prejudice than to reason.

The modern believer is not suspicious enough, which is perhaps why, when they try to construct arguments in their defence, the convictions are left doing all the work and reason, debilitated by neglect, weakly fails to prop them up.

Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

a politician's capacity to ignore contradictory evidence

Cicero believed "luck" determined the success of gambling with essentially random devices. He also apparently understood that there was a relationship between the luck (odds) on a particular throw or set of throws and long-term frequencies. But Cicero was later executed, illustrating that rationality does not guarantee success; it only increases its likelihood. In fact, as pointed out earlier, opting for rationality when others do not can lead to social ostracism.

Reason is a necessary instrument, to be used for good or evil, but it has no moral qualities.