Quotes About Rationality

The willingness to change one's mind in the light of new evidence is a sign of rationality not weakness.

What constitutes a rational decision depends upon one's knowledge. There is a rider to this. If one has reason to believe one's knowledge is insufficient, then it is rational, particularly in the case of important decisions, to seek out more evidence: unfortunately, as we will see, when people do so, they usually act in a wholly irrational way, since they only seek evidence that will support their existing beliefs.

I am not religious in any sense; in fact, I consider myself an atheist.

Los buenos generales son de otra manera: se comprometen hasta la muerte, pero no se aferran a la esperanza de sobrevivir; actúan de acuerdo con los acontecimientos en forma racional y realista sin dejarse llevar por las emociones ni estar sujetos a quedar confundidos. Cuando ven una buena oportunidad, son como tigres, en caso contrario cierran sus puertas. Su acción y su no acción son cuestiones de estrategia y no pueden ser complacidos ni enfadados.

This I know for sure: Life is...uncertain. As a society and as individuals, we must protect healthy people from disease. We must also treat those suffering from disease in an intelligent, humane, and compassionate way. We need to be rational and keep our fears in check.

You may substitute knowledge for superstition without satisfying the needs that drive people into superstition's arms.

A defence of the Enlightenment is a defence of the modern world, along with all its possibilities for self-criticism and transformation. If you're committed to Enlightenment, you're committed to understanding the world in order to improve it.

One of my oldest crusades is against the distinction between thought and feeling, which is really the basis of all anti-intellectual views: the heart and the head, thinking and feeling, fantasy and judgment . . . and I don't believe it's true. . . . I have the impression that thinking is a form of feeling and that feeling is a form of thinking.

If there was one life skill everyone on the planet needed, it was the ability to think with critical objectivity

We can never speak about God rationally as we speak about ordinary things, but that does not mean we should give up thinking about God. We must push our minds to the limits of what we could know, descending ever deeper into the darkness of unknowing.

Solo en un tiempo todavía distante, quizás la racionalidad logre controlar los sentimientos más delirantes, y la loca ansia de inmortalidad personal dará paso a una resignación serena, a una sabiduría epicúrea, solo preocupada por la breve vida en este mundo y el disfrute de los momentos de alegría y de goce que las propias acciones y la suerte brinden.

en ningún sitio está escrito que la historia sea o racional o justa.

Etchenike apeló a su miedo, al sentido común, a una necesaria racionalidad agarrada con alfileres, semiintoxicada por el olor de la pólvora:

When faced with the illogical, one must expand the sphere of logic to include rules of logic for that which is not logic. This is the only possibility in a world that works according to the rules of rationality.

Jenseits von jugendlichen Leidenschaften begegnete man der Welt am besten mit gut gekühltem Pragmatismus.

As he once told her, "a long closely connected train of reasoning is like a beautiful strain of music.")

Fear is a disease that eats away at logic and makes man inhuman.

Intellectuals are too sentimental for me.

Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence.

L'obsession de la rationalité est d'autant plus effrayante qu'elle ne répond plus guère à l'existence légitime de la raison, mais à la dictature de l'efficacité.

I believe in God, but I don't think you have to go crazy to prove it.

Realmente ella era una persona muy equilibrada. (Aunque a veces, bajo las más grandes apariencias de equilibrio encontráramos las locuras más sorprendentes o los misterios más inescrutables.)

Part of the human makeup which distinguishes man from other creatures is his ability to reason and make moral decisions. Man is a free moral agent.

There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not found God and seek him, and those who live not seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the third foolish and unhappy.