Quotes About Rationality

Non-fiction is a big responsibility. Rationality. Facts. The urgent need to reflect some small aspect of reality. But fiction is a private autism, a self-referential world in which the writer is omnipotent. Gravity, taxes, and death are mere options, subject to the writer's fancy.

I'm dependent on writing for a living, so really it's to my advantage to understand how the creative process works. One of the problems is, when you start to do that, in effect you're going to have to step off the edge of science and rationality.

Let's say that Person 1 thinks their hair dryer is telling them to shoot every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train. And let's say Person 2 thinks their hair dryer is telling them to volunteer twice a week at a homeless shelter. Is it better to volunteer at a homeless shelter than it is to shoot every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train? Of course it is. But you still have a basic problem — which is that you think your hair dryer is talking to you.

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Autobiography

I shall never be very merry or very sad, for I am more prone to analyse than to feel.

Ama mistiklerin gördüÄŸü düÅŸlerin dünyan?n ac?mas?z ak?lc?l??? kar??s?nda ne a??rl??? olabilirdi ki?

All great wealth was inconsistent with common sense. (from 'The Fish can Sing

Vernunft (reason) is traced back to its origin in the verb vernehmen (to perceive, to hear)

Mental illnesses are so strange. A physical problem we can understand. But when the mind works irrationally, well, by its very definition, the rational mind cannot truly relate.

Extremism and outrage are simple, relentless, attention-seeking. Rationality and prudence are difficult, exhausting, mundane. Occam's razor works in reverse when it comes to answers: If the answer is easy, it is wrong.

Extremism and outrage are simple, relentless, attention-seeking. Rationality and prudence are difficult, exhausting, mundane.

I cannot live on myths; somehow, science convinces me more easily. I am prone to lean towards science, ethics, and philosophy rather than myth, religion, and rituals.

Astrology is a sickness, not a science ... It is a tree under the shade of which all sorts of superstitions thrive.

Logic chases truth up the tree of grammar.

I can't be talking to a tree. If I was talking to a tree I'd be mad, and I'm not mad, so trees can't talk.

One of the things this world is finding is that emotion is the basis of reason. We really have to trust our emotions, which are much smarter than our reason in some ways.

The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.

Your trust in rationality makes you irrational.

I don't believe in empirical science. I only believe in a priori truth.

The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value counts. On it centers the rationality of the status quo, and all alien rationality is bent to It.

Beware of being too rational. In the country of the insane, the integrated man doesn't become king. He gets lynched.

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.

In design, be logical, search for truth, be clear.

The panic was sudden and complete. One minute Stuart was calmly discussing the proposed Customs and Inland Revenue Act with the Chancellor Exchequer, the next minute every last bit of his logic and rationality had deserted him. What if she'd met Michael and left already? What if she did not want to be found? The false sense of security that came from knowing where she was evaporated in a second.