The reader who thinks that rationality does not require a definition should ponder the following: I'll give you a million dollars to do something irrational.

~ Lakshman Krishnamurthi

Lakshman Krishnamurthi 2012 Definition Economics Irrationality Rational Self Interest Rationality

We are betrayed by our maps of salience. They plot our narratives, identify our enemies and then coat them in distorting layer of loathing and dread. We feel that hunch - withdraw - and then conduct a post factum search for evidence that justifies it. We are motivated to fight our foes because we are emotional about them, but emotion is the territorial scent-mark of irrationality.

~ Will Storr

Will Storr Emotion Evidence Irrationality

It is better to make an irrational noise in a bush than in a desert.

~ Duop Chak Wuol

Duop Chak Wuol Bush Comical Desert Humor Irrationality Noise Philosophical Proverb

Indeed if one had just seen him at the end of the evening with the dusk and the mist of the fenlands close behind him he might have believed that in the dusk and the mist was an army that followed this gay worn confident man. Had the army been there Niv was sane.Had the world accepted that an army was there, still he was sane. But the lonely fancy that had not fact to feed on, nor the fancy of any other for fellowship, was for its loneliness mad.

~ Lord Dunsany

Lord Dunsany Illusion Irrationality Madness Megalomania

It seems that life, in order to maintain itself, must revolt every so often against man's ceaseless attempts to master its irrational forces with his mind.

~ Otto Rank

Otto Rank Actualization Irrationality Life Rationality Struggle

I am like a machine being driven to excessive rotations: the bearings are incandescing and, in a minute, melted metal will begin to drip and everything will turn to nothing. Quick: get cold water, logic. I am pouring it over myself by the bucketload but the logic sizzles on the hot bearings and dissipates elusive white steam into the air.

~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yevgeny Zamyatin Irrationality Logic

No evidence is powerful enough to force acceptance of a conclusion that is emotionally distasteful.

~ Theodosius Dobzhansky

Theodosius Dobzhansky Illogical Irrationality Stupidity Unscientific Wishful Thinking

The most important thing to remember about confronting an irrational person is that they are usually attributing an inaccurate meaning to a situation causing them to react irrationally.

~ Paul Colaianni

Paul Colaianni Behavior Crazy Insane Irrational Irrationality Stupid

Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you never met, and to take pride in accomplishments you had no part in.

~ Doug Stanhope

Doug Stanhope Anarchy Countries Delusions Irrationality Libertarian Statism

We do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the other. But what are we to say of the fanatic who wrecks this world out of hatred of the other? He sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all.

~ G.k. Chesterton

G.k. Chesterton Atheist Fanatic Irrationality Secularism

All men are, at times, influenced by inexplicable sentiments. Ideas haunt them in spite of all their efforts to discard them. Prepossessions are entertained, for which their reason is unable to discover any adequate cause. The strength of a belief, when it is destitute of any rational foundation, seems, of itself, to furnish a new ground for credulity. We first admit a powerful persuasion, and then, from reflecting on the insufficiency of the ground on which it is built, instead of being prompted to dismiss it, we become more forcibly attached to it.

~ Charles Brockden Brown

Charles Brockden Brown Irrationality Obsession Perversity