Quotes About Irrationality

People are likely to do the most ridiculously illogical things for the most incomprehensible of reasons.

I've noticed that people got the most irrational whenever family was around—while simultaneously losing their ability to distinguish reason from insanity. I call it familial dementia.

Reality is, you know, the tip of an iceberg of irrationality that we've managed to drag ourselves up onto for a few panting moments before we slip back into the sea of the unreal.

The unthinking embrace of irrationality is literally madness. But embracing rationality while denying the existence of any mystery to life and its meaning — that is no less a form of madness than is eager devotion to unreason.

it. At intervals of forty or fifty feet, air monitors were mounted on the right-hand wall. I found no signs of tampering. If the passageway led to the cooling-tower vault, as I was sure that it must, then it would be about four hundred feet long. Twice I thought I heard something behind me. When I looked over my shoulder, nothing loomed. The third time, I refused to succumb to the urge to glance back. Irrational

Fantasy is a doorway to superstition. Talking animals, humble pig, a clever spider - A corrupting influence...the first step in a life of unreason and irrational beliefs... It would've been better if they hit us. Much better. Bruises, broken bones - that's the kind of thing gets the attention of Child Protective Services.

We human beings do a lot of dumb things, and war is certainly the dumbest.

I love my early movies, but naturalism is an artist's early style. Now I want to deal with feelings, dreams, an acceptance of irrationality.

if people do things for lunk-headed, backward-looking reasons, why wouldn't we also do things for significance-seeking, self-actualizing reasons? If we are predictably irrational - and we clearly are- why couldn't we also be predictably transcendent?

The universe consists primarily of dark matter. We can't see it, but it has an enormous gravitational force. The conscious mind—much like the visible aspect of the universe—is only a small fraction of the mental world. The dark matter of the mind, the unconscious, has the greatest psychic gravity. Disregard the dark matter of the universe and anomalies appear. Ignore the dark matter of the mind and our irrationality is inexplicable.

It seemed as though he had a fundamental belief that the merit of his argument depended on the strength of his feelings about the matter, and since he always felt uncontrollably passionate about everything, then clearly he was always right. This irrational claptrap, coming as it did from a swarthy, excitable, plump Celtic demi-dwarf, struck me not just as thoroughly impertinent but also as a noisy and ignorant attempt to undermine the most basic principles of the Enlightenment.

He said, in some ways you're older than I am. You've never been deeply in love. Perhaps you never will be. He said, love goes on happening to you. To men. You become twenty again, you suffer as twenty suffers. All the dotty irrationalities of twenty. I may seem very reasonable at the moment, but I don't feel it. When you telephoned I nearly peed in my pants with excitement. I'm an old man in love. Stock comedy figure. Very stale. Not even funny.

So that, in effect, religion, which should most distinguish us from beasts, and ought most peculiarly to elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts themselves.

It can be of no practical use to know that Pi is irrational, but if we can know, it surely would be intolerable not to know.

The experience of the irrationality of the world has been the driving force of all religious revolution.

Faith is irrational, which is why those who exercise it are rewarded irrationally.

That was the thing about terror: it made rational people act irrationally.

That was the thing about terror: it made rational people act irrationally. From a certain perspective, the fear was more destructive than the actual killing.

People do stupid, thoughtless things every day, and very often there's no understanding why.

We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of others and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us.

You humans are crazy.

Why do these people behave the way they do? To stay in control. As I mentioned in Chapter 2, irrational people—especially those who are firmly in the grip of crazy—are terrified of losing control.

An irrational person's M.O. is a weapon. However, it's also a weakness because if you can figure out the person's M.O., you can turn this information to your advantage.

When you understand irrational people's M.O.s, it'll be easier for you to realize that their weeping, coldness, whining, withdrawal, or attack-dog behavior isn't really about you. Instead, it's about them and their need to feel in control.