Irrational Quotes

Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness.

For people of color – especially African Americans – the idea that racist cops might frame members of their community is no abstract notion, let alone an exercise in irrational conspiracy theorizing. Rather, it speaks to a social reality about which blacks are acutely aware.

The Democratic Party, the mainstream media are using fear to control people and to control African Americans in particular. You cannot function properly if you live in an irrational fear.

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

When I was old enough to realize all meat was killed, I saw it as an irrational way of using our power, to take a weaker thing and mutilate it. It was like the way bullies would take control of younger kids in the schoolyard.

It is the mission of the twentieth century to elucidate the irrational.

I don’t know if it’s irrational, and I would never say this before, but I think I’m a little bit agoraphobic when I’m in huge crowds of people. I mean, it’s claustrophobic, probably – small spaces and large groups of people, anxiety rises for me.

I used to always prefer to text, and in fact got indignant when people called. This was totally irrational.

It is no more irrational for the mind to take the word of the Eternal Word than for the eye to use light and for the ear to welcome sound.

I still believe that any country understands that if they use nuclear weapons, they will be wiped out of existence. They could be irrational in many ways, but I don’t think they’re irrational to the point that they’re ready to annihilate their own country.

It is even possible that laws which have not their origin in the mind may be irrational, and we can never succeed in formulating them.

Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit.

There’s absolutely nothing irrational about me; insane, yes, irrational, no. But my dumbest fear would be spinning in the magic tea cups. Who the hell wants to pay to spin around like a bent yoyo for laughs?

Passing on a full scholarship to MIT would be irrational for me, but to my father and his parents, what would have been the point of spending five years at one of the world‘s most prestigious universities if he just ended up back on the farm?

I think tech lives inside of a society that still has a lot of systemic racism and doesn’t stop at the boundaries of the tech industry. But neither is it especially exacerbated by being around technology. But it is maybe exacerbated by the irrational decision making of people who are trying to make money.

It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.

The more I work with the body, keeping my assumptions in a temporary state of reservation, the more I appreciate and sympathize with a given disease. The body no longer appears as a sick or irrational demon, but as a process with its own inner logic and wisdom.

It is economically irrational to exclude large environmental costs from the balance sheets of the producers and the consumers. You are only kidding yourself if you export those costs on to society as a whole.

Today mythical thinking has fallen into disrepute; we often dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective.

I’m not a monarchist. But I’m English. And I have an irrational emotion for my country.

While I take no pleasure in others‘ misfortunes, we’ve historically made most of our profits from other investors behaving in a panicked and irrational fashion and selling us certain stocks at prices far below their intrinsic value. More volatility equals cheaper stocks, which equals higher returns.

Your first company is like your first baby.You have this unconditional, irrational love.

We face a conflict between civilisation and culture, which used to be on the same side. Civilisation means rational reflection, material wellbeing, individual autonomy and ironic self-doubt; culture means a form of life that is customary, collective, passionate, spontaneous, unreflective and irrational.

My job is making irrational people do rational things.

All religions are, in some basic sense, irrational.

The truth is, you cannot run a political campaign like a tech startup. Technology is a field that fetishizes disruption. The old ways are suspect, and we place an almost irrational trust on new tools. That’s fine for developing games, but it was a failing playbook for politics.

The ending of irrational fantasies is always going to come as a rude jolt.

To all my young fans out there, I ask that you no longer consider me a role model. See me as an individual who had the opportunity to be a role model but blew it. Blew it with irresponsible, irrational, immature decisions.

Rational anxiety is when you’re aware of the source of your anxiety. Like, if I have to host an award show or talk to millions of people on the radio, I’m going to feel anxious, and I know why. Irrational anxiety is when I’m leaving CVS, and there’s a car behind me, and I’m wondering if he’s following me home.

I think life’s an irrational obsession.

One term that’s used in this industry a lot is this notion of ‘feeding the beast.’ You’ve got all of these people whose livelihoods are dependent on it. There are enormous pressures to keep material going into it, and the pressures to feed it are not irrational. They’re the basis of your business.

Our society is full of hypocrites and irrational people.

What I like to say when you get into something that feels like a bubble or, at least, feels irrational is that you still want to build a company that has a strong discipline, business-building culture.

Humans are hard-wired to be irrational when it comes to financial decisions. We must understand that so we don’t become the sucker at the poker table.

Richard Nixon, famously, conducted his foreign policy according to the ‘madman theory‘: he tried to convince enemy leaders that he was irrational and volatile in an attempt to intimidate them. But this was a potentially useful approach to foreign policy only because it was an act.

There’s no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational.

Why are women always described as ‘desperate,’ while men are just… irrational?

I don’t have any irrational fears. Obviously, if I was walking through the outback, and I saw a snake, I wouldn’t go up and stroke it, but I wouldn’t run screaming from it, either.

One of the essential and most valid objections against the act of faith is that it is irrational, inasmuch as it offends against the syllogistic rule that the conclusion of an argument shall contain nothing more than the premises.

I think we are intrinsically prone to being irrational and superstitious. A lot of it comes from our fear of the unknown and the fear of a lack of control over our fate.

I have an irrational fear that something bad is going to happen to me when I’m drinking out of a water fountain. I have no idea why.

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.

Among irrational animals the love of the offspring and of the parents for each other is extraordinary because God, who created them, compensated for the deficiency of reason by the superiority of their senses.

It’s totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race – to despise an entire nation – to vilify an entire religion.

I just think there is so much irrational pessimism in the world.

It doesn’t sound rational for a Klansman to sit down to dinner with a black man. What you’re overlooking is, to be racist is to be irrational. So, they are already irrational, and irrational people do irrational things. That’s why a Klansman will sit down with me.

In the battle between the sexes, men and women will go practically to the end of the earth in illogical, irrational ways to give each other pain.

Poetry is a form of necessary speech… I have sought to restore the aura of sacred practice that accompanies true poetic creation, to honor both the rational and the irrational elements of poetry.

The more irrational you make your opponent, the more control you have over him in the ring.

Symptoms, those you believe you recognize, seem to you irrational because you take them in an isolated manner, and you want to interpret them directly.

Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals.

For kids like me, being called childish can be a frequent occurrence. Every time we make irrational demands, exhibit irresponsible behavior, or display any other signs of being normal American citizens, we are called childish.

Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational – but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?

Distortions control my self-image, like they do for a lot of us. It’s irrational.

I’m quite a rational person, but I’m drawn to the irrational. I love coincidences, and I like to question that in fiction: ‘Is this random, or is there something working underneath?’

I have this irrational fear of north London – it feels like proper London, scary and fast moving.

We want an Afghanistan that is shaped by the dreams of the great Afghan people, not by irrational fears and overreaching ambitions of others.

Tastes and behavior are important in economics. Nobody denies that. But the question is: How much of behavior is irrational, and how much of the irrational behavior really affects prices? It turns out that’s very difficult to answer.

It’s the irrational things that interest me.

In medicine as well as in romantic poetry, it is the heart that is the center and controlling mechanics of life. If the heart stops, life stops. The loss of sight doesn’t not mean death. Yet for ages, the eyes was believed to contain a human being‘s vital essence – a not wholly irrational belief.

When hypocrisy is a character trait, it also affects one’s thinking, because it consists in the negation of all the aspects of reality that one finds disagreeable, irrational or repugnant.

By the way, the point between rationality and what we would call the irrational is a very difficult point to establish. There’s no specific line, as you know.

As an engineer, I learned that a long time ago: you don’t want to get into a rational discussion about irrational subjects.

Even the most analytical thinkers are predictably irrational; the really smart ones acknowledge and address their irrationalities.

Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that’s hard for a puritan to understand.

For centuries many of the world’s distinguished philosophers have assaulted Christianity as being irrational, superstitious and absurd.

Abnormal stresses and strains tend to accentuate man’s animal instincts and provoke irrational and socially disruptive behavior among the less stable individuals in the maddening crowd.

I started in business journalism from the outside, so when I started writing about markets and business, I was struck by the fact that markets seemed to work well even though people are often irrational, lack good information and are not perfect in the way they think about decisions.

Religion is an irrational construct.

You could argue that war is always an irrational act, and yet many states enter into military conflict out of rational calculation or national interest or the stability or longevity of their regime.

You’re an actor, are you? Well, all that means is: you are irresponsible, irrational, romantic, and incapable of handling an adult emotion or a universal concept without first reducing it to something personal, material, sensational – and probably sexual!

We must not demonstrate any arrogance, and we must refrain from any irrational or undemocratic behavior.

I am bundle of nerves riddled with irrational fears.

The advance of science spares us from irrational dread.

I can’t speak for everybody. But I will say that for me, when I’ve been depressed – and I get depressed. I have irrational bouts of anxiety. I have random FedEx deliveries of despondency. Just like, ‘I didn’t order this. Oh, well, keep the PJs on, cancel everything you’re doing today. It’s time to take a sad shower.’

I am never excited to play through a song all the way, because it can reveal more flaws that mean more work. For some reason, I always have an irrational fear that the song will never be finished.

I became a Communist by studying capitalist political economy, and when I had some understanding of that problem, it actually seemed to me so absurd, so irrational, so inhuman, that I simply began to elaborate on my own formulas for production and distribution.

What we need to understand is, one, that there are market failures; and two, that there are things like asset bubbles and irrational exuberance. There are periods of booms, bubbles, and manias. These things, if left to themselves, can lead to crashes, to busts, to panics.

The most important thing when you study hypnosis is that you learn that humans are irrational. Until you understand that, hypnosis is hard to do… For me, it was this great awakening to understand that humans are deeply irrational, and it’s probably the greatest influence on me in terms of my writing.

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.