Quotes About Irrationality

identifying an irrational person's M.O. gives you considerable power over him.

But other times, you'll discover that you're sticking with an irrational person simply because you don't want to feel like a bad person yourself.

The advanced societies of the future will not be governed by reason. They will be driven by irrationality, by competing systems of psychopathology.

You know that thing humans do where they think they're being completely logical and they absolutely are not being logical at all, and on some level they know that, but can't stop? Apparently it can happen to SecUnits, too.

I think it's a very confused culture. On the one hand, no one is better than anyone else; no one is prettier. On the other hand, everyone is completely obsessed by their looks and by how they strike the world. On the one hand, we're all equal; on the other hand, everyone's a superstar. It's all very irrational, like all ideology.

Cuanto mayor sea el grado de estrés, más temerosos, inseguros e inciertos nos sentimos y más irracional tiende a ser nuestro comportamiento.

At points on the day's spectrum of adverse political developments, he could have moments of, almost everyone would admit, irrationality. When that happened, he was alone in his anger and not approachable by anyone. His senior staff largely dealt with these dark hours by agreeing with him, no matter what he said. And if some of them occasionally tried to hedge, Hope Hicks never did. She agreed absolutely with all of it.

what if it was precisely the absence of intent and, instead, the swings of irrationality and mania that managed, even as his government collapsed, to hold so many people in thrall?

predecessor of Isaac Newton at Cambridge University, maintained that irrational numbers have no meaning independent of geometric lengths.

The number ?, which is the ratio of the circumference of any circle to its diameter, is irrational, though this fact was not proved until 1768. Many other examples could be given.

Can we combine ?2 + ?3 into the simpler ?5? Let us test this operation on whole numbers expressed as roots. Certainly ?9 + ?16 does not equal , that is, 3 + 4 does not equal 5. Hence we should not assert the analogous relation for irrational numbers.

The idea of Jewish settlements under Palestinian sovereignty, as was suggested by someone in the Prime Minister's office, is very dangerous and reflects an irrationality of values.

The more illogical a fool's position, the more passionate he's likely to be about hanging on to it.

philosopher Galen Strawson, the denial of consciousness "is surely the strangest thing that has ever happened in the whole history of human thought." It shows "that the power of human credulity is unlimited, that the capacity of human minds to be gripped by theory, by faith, is truly unbounded." It reveals "the deepest irrationality of the human mind.

Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all:

Never mind that the trade in abducted or orphaned children or children sold by desperate parents goes on all over the country and everyone knows it. No matter. The hint that some cult is taking in children for "questionable purposes" is enough to make some people irrational.

What frightened me was the logic of the world; in it lay the foretaste of something incalculably powerful. Its mechanism was incomprehensible, and I could not possibly remain closeted in that windowless, bone-chilling room. Though outside lay the sea of irrationality, it was far more agreeable to swim in its waters until presently I drowned.

Irrationality. I found the thought faintly pleasurable. Or rather, I felt at ease with it. What frightened me was the logic of the world; in it lay the foretaste of something incalculably powerful. Its mechanism was incomprehensible, and I could not possibly remain closeted in that windowless, bone-chilling room. Though outside lay the sea of irrationality, it was far more agreeable to swim in its waters until presently I drowned.

Fuera se extendía el océano de la irracionalidad, y lanzarme a nadar en sus aguas hasta morir se me hacía más placentero.

Irrationality. I found the thought faintly pleasurable. Or rather, I feel at ease with it. What frightened me was the logic of the world; in it lay the foretaste of something incalculably powerful. Its mechanism was incomprehensible, and I could not possibly remain closeted in that windowless, bone-chilling room. Though outside lay the sea of irrationality, it was far more agreeable to swim in its water until presently, I drowned.

In fact, all the additional knowledge gained by an irrationally constituted society may but enlarge and enhance the powers of death and destruction.

Humans are irrational creatures. Many of our decisions are not based on a logical thought process. Our "Reptilian Brain" has an abundance of cognitive biases that prevent us from making choices based on pure logic. Society's perception of the utility of psychedelics is a case in point. Considering the documented history, the scientific findings, and the anecdotal reports, it's obvious that we as a society are not thinking logically about their use.

Once you begin to accept that a mentally ill person will sometimes behave irrationally, you alleviate some of your own internal stress and strain… [O]nce you do so you can begin to develop more effective coping mechanisms. No longer burdened by the "what-ifs" and "shoulds" in your mind, you can deal with the way things really are. And you seek out what works.

We undervalue irrationality, I believe. It can protect us in hostile settings.