Quotes About Rationality

a man wholly under the influence of his passions has lost his ability to think rationally, and is regarded as intoxicated or insane.

Mathematical Knowledge adds a manly Vigour to the Mind, frees it from Prejudice, Credulity, and Superstition.

when a person's commitment to evidence and logic grows dangerously thin or simply snaps under the burden of fear, wishful thinking, tribalism, or ecstasy, we recognize that he's being "religious.

The likelihood of being killed by terrorism is extremely low, yet we have instituted actions to counter terrorism that significantly reduce our quality of life. As a recent example, X-ray body scanners could increase the risk of cancer to a degree greater than the risk from terrorism—the same sort of counterproductive overreaction as the one to spiders. This does not imply that we should let spiders, or terrorists, crawl all over us—but the risks need to be managed rationally.

The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality. Reasoning can lead to poor outcomes, not because humans are bad at it, but because they systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or their actions. This explains the confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reason-based choice, among other things.

RIDLEY Science writer; founding chairman, International Centre for Life; author, The Rational Optimist

optimization under constraints," and many Nobel prizes have been awarded in this area. Using the concept of bounded rationality

It's simply not the case that secular liberalism, grounded in materialist utilitarianism, is the inevitable and default worldview of anyone who isn't stupid, brainwashed, or uneducated;

the way stock prices are made, the silly and almost childlike basis upon which grown men decide that a stock should be bought, and at what price

Everybody "thinks" - Homo sapiens means "thinking man" - but most people don't "think" very well.

Thinking is not a case of spontaneous combustion; it does not occur just on "general principles.

Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims.

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It's a battle you can't hope to win - it's a battle that's going to go on forever. It's part of the human condition.

The life of sense begins by assuming that we can only fitfully live the life of reason.

Not only our moral life, but even our use of theoretical reason - on which we rely in rationally inquiring into nature - presupposes that we are free.

Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims.

For faith, properly understood, does not contradict reason in the least; indeed...it is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it.

If you make the effort to work through the ideas I'll be setting out in this book, then even if you do not end up agreeing with me that the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the natural law conception of morality are rationally unavoidable, you will understand how reasonable people could be convinced of this.

Reason: The arithmetic of the emotions.

Logic is one thing and commonsense another.

O que se passava, afinal, no mundo dos adultos, na cabeça de pessoas extremamente racionais, em seus corpos carregados de saber? O que os reduzia a animais dentre os menos confiáveis, piores que os répteis?

Temptation is the voice of reason without its clothes on.

No matter how well you argue from premises to conclusion, your conclusion will be weak if your premises are weak.

The theoretician believes in logic and believes that he despises dreams, intuition, and poetry. He does not recognize that these three fairies have only disguised themselves in order to dazzle him.... He does not know that he owes his greatest discoveries to them.