Quotes About Rationality

Pride is undoubtedly the original of anger; but pride, like every other passion, if it once breaks loose from reason, counteracts its own purposes.

It was clear that the man was no fool. But what was the use of not being a fool if you acted like this?

A professor from UBC observed that he agreed with Alexander Pope about the ultimate unreality of evil. Seen from the highest point of metaphysics. To a rational mind, nothing bad ever really happens. He was talking high-minded balls. Twaddle! I thought. I said, 'Oh? Do you mean that every gas chamber has a silver lining?

Few things are as destructive and limiting as a worldview that assumes people are mostly rational.

Everything he talked about had a kind of logic to it, but so do many things that are nonsense.

When politicians tell lies, they know the press will call them out. They also know it doesn't matter. Politicians understand that reason will never have much of a role in voting decisions. A lie that makes a voter feel good is more effective than a hundred rational arguments. That's even true when the voter knows the lie is a lie.

If you believe people use reason for the important decisions in life, you will go through life feeling confused and frustrated that others seem to have bad reasoning skills. The reality is that reason is just one of the drivers of our decisions, and often the smallest one.

If you believe people use reason for the important decisions in life, you will go through life feeling confused and frustrated that others seem to have bad reasoning skills.

A lie that makes a voter feel good is more effective than a hundred rational arguments.

Humans think they are rational, and they think they understand their reality. But they are wrong on both counts.

If your view of the world is that people use reason for their important decisions, you are setting yourself up for a life of frustration and confusion. You'll find yourself continually debating people and never winning except in your own mind. Few things are as destructive and limiting as a worldview that assumes people are mostly rational.

As a general rule, irrational people don't know they are irrational.

I encourage you to remain skeptical about any details in this book, but it might help you to know I'm in good company—philosophically speaking—on the big picture: Humans think they are rational, and they think they understand their reality. But they are wrong on both counts.

Anyone who is confident in the face of great complexity is insane.

Here's an example of why the idea that humans are rational is pure nonsense. One of my Twitter followers copied President Trump's inauguration speech and showed it to a "leftist friend," telling him it was President Obama's speech. His friend loved it.

If you believe people use reason for the important decisions in life, you will go through life feeling confused and frustrated that others seem to have bad reasoning skills. The reality is that reason is just one of the drivers of our decisions, and often the smallest one. Recently

The main theme of this book is that humans are not rational. We bounce from one illusion to another, all the while thinking we are seeing something we call reality. The truth is that facts and reason don't have much influence on our decisions, except for trivial things, such as putting gas in your car when you are running low. On all the important stuff, we are emotional creatures who make decisions first and rationalize them after the fact.

If your view of the world is that people use reason for their important decisions, you are setting yourself up for a life of frustration and confusion. You'll find yourself continually debating people and never winning except in your own mind. Few things are as destructive and limiting as a worldview that assumes people are mostly rational. On

The business model of the press manipulated our brains until our emotions overwhelmed whatever traces of rationality we started with.

it helps to see the world as math and not magic.

Mental prison: The illusions and unproductive thinking that limit our ability to see the world clearly and act upon it rationally.

You're wasting your time if you try to make someone see reason when reason is not influencing the decision.

Faith and reason are indeed complementary faculties that we use to think about the truth. When any winged creature (or mechanism) tries to fly on just one wing, it falls to the ground. In a similar way, when we human beings try to wing it with just one faculty, we crash.

Nature was tough, it could be dangerous, but unlike Dr. Cable or shay, or peris-unlike people in general-it made sense. The problems it threw at you could be solved rationally.