rationality quotes

The ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

We need an adult in the White House. When making life-or-death, war-or-peace decisions, a president can’t just pop off or lash out irrationally.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

I call him free who is led solely by reason.

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

In everything one thing is impossible: rationality.

Presented with the claims of nineteenth-century racist anthropology, a rational person will ask two sorts of questions: ‚What is the scientific status of the claims?‘ ‚What social or ideological needs do they serve?‘

While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.

We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them.

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.

The law is reason, free from passion.