Quotes About Irrationality

The purely economic man is indeed close to being a social moron. Economic theory has been much preoccupied with this rational fool.

A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death.

Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

Human beings are the only creatures who are able to behave irrationally in the name of reason.

When you are irrationally irrational you may find that life is magical.

In daily life, reality gives us material incentives to restrain our irrationality. But what incentive do we have to think rationally about politics?

The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.

Nuclear power must be dealt with irrationally. . . . Nuclear plants are carcinogens. Let's get that story out. . . . Their lies will catch up to them. We need endless Chernobyl reminders.

I think this represents a greater leap of faith than belief in the existence of God. For it is, I repeat, literally worse than magic. If this is the alternative to belief in God, then unbelievers can never accuse believers of irrationality, for what could be more evidently irrational than this?

People hate as they love, unreasonably.

There was nothing dreadfully wrong with me, I was just upsetting myself with my irrational thinking. I just couldn't admit it until I knew for sure. Now, I feel like a whole man, and I had to call you up and let you know where I stood . . . It was hard for me to do this, and I'm sorry it took so long for me to get around to telling you.

The most profound legacy of the dominance of bureaucratic forms of organization over the last two hundred years is that it has made this intuitive division between rational, technical means and the ultimately irrational ends to which they are put seem like common sense.

It's hard to imagine a surer sign that one is dealing with an irrational economic system than the fact that the prospect of eliminating drudgery is considered to be a problem.

Because history is only an aggregate of personal hostilities, personal prejudices, personal blindness and irrationality, there are times when we have to live against it.

Rationally I have no hope, irrationally I believe in miracles.

Sometimes I wonder if the human race isn't collectively as mad as a sack of door knobs.

Irrationality is the exclusive preserve of humans as among all creatures only we have the power to rationalise, that being the art of packaging patently irrational as apparently rational.

Human nature is such that when we are suddenly taken up by someone whom we consider superior and admirable, we accept his attentions calmly, whereas when we are dropped we cannot rest until we feel we have got to the bottom of the person's profound irrationality.

They're irrational.

Sin is not rational. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't look into the future. It doesn't consider consequences, especially if they are not immediate. All it knows is "I WANT—I WANT MORE.

I don't think you can rely on Iran. I don't think you can rely on other radicals like the Taliban. They dispatched Al Qaida to bomb New York and Washington. What were they thinking? Were they that stupid? They weren't stupid. There is an irrationality there, and there is madness in this method.

I believe, in the stock market - that's one of my fields - that most people are irrational. And to be irrational, you can be irrational in so many different ways that, practically, the result is indeterminate.

If I thought about planning, I'd plan movies. If I thought about planning my life, I'd plan my life more rationally, not like New Yorkers who live their lives so irrationally, without reason. Maybe that's the connection between my movies and New York: the movies have the same kind of lack of overall design.

I suppose if you look back to your early childhood you accept everything people tell you, and that includes a heavy dose of irrationality - you're told about tooth fairies and Father Christmas and things.