Rationalism Quotes

“There is no imam but the mind, who guides by day and night.”
― Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri, The Luzumiyat Of Abu'l-Ala: Selected From His Luzum Ma La Yalzam And Suct Uz-Zand

“I say, gentleman, hadn’t we better kick over the whole show and scatter rationalism to the winds, simply to send these logarithms to the devil, and to enable us to live once more at our own sweet foolish will!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

“If science could comprehend all phenomena so that eventually in a thoroughly rational society human beings became as predictable as cogs in a machine, then man, driven by this need to know and assert his freedom, would rise up and smash the machine.”
― William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

“To be rational is not the same as to be reasonable.”
― William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

“I spend the next few days watching Maï die. I can't stand that voice, that protest. Katzenelenbogen shows up and explains in that rational, no-nonsense, doctoral tone that no one has the right to make such a fuss over a cat, while the whole world. . . . . I kick them out, both him and the world.
Maï is no longer a cat. She is a human being in agony. Every living thing that suffers is a human being.
She is cuddled in my arms, a small ball of lackluster fur, which gives her a horrible stuffed air already smacking of taxidermists. Every now and then she raises her head, looks at me inquiringly and miaows a question I understand, but am unable to answer. Our vocal cords are totally inadequate there.
What goings-on about a mere cat, huh? I hate your guts, you antisentimental, antiemotional, hardheaded rationalists. You are the ones who have raised the going rate of sensitivity. You have put all your emphasis on ideas, and ideas without "emotions" and without "sentimentalism," that's the world you have built, your work.
All the pseudo-people who have the Nazi arrogance to be reading this book make my hands ache for a grenade.”
― Romain Gary, White Dog

“Nobody has it all figured out, not even me - anybody who thinks otherwise, is an idiot.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Every Generation Needs Caretakers: The Gospel of Patriotism

“... while transparency is a natural associate of liberalism, it falls short of implying rationalism. It is one aspiration, that social and ethical relations should not essentially rest on ignorance and misunderstanding of what they are, and quite another that all the beliefs and principles involved in them should be explicitly stated. That these are two different things is obvious with personal relations, where to hope that they do not rest on deceit and error is merely decent, but to think that their basis can be made totally explicit is idiocy.”
― Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy

“He was a convinced but hardworked rationalist, always hard at it re-convincing himself of his convictions.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean's Watch

“...We find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness, so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction... even from the sciences... they find that they have, in fact, only brought more trouble on their shoulders rather than gained in happiness; and they end by envying rather than despising the more common stamp of men who keep closer to the guidance of mere instinct, and do not allow their reason much influence on their conduct... [T]here lies at the root of these judgments the idea that our existence has a different and far nobler end, for which, and not for happiness, reason is properly intended...”
― Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals

“There is an inexplicable sense of relief in being proven wrong, which perhaps can only be realized by either a scientist or a philosopher.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lord is My Sheep: Gospel of Human

“Beliefs are personal, but universal truths are above that. For example, the surface temperature of the sun is around 5,505 degrees Celsius – the speed of light is around 300,000 kilometers per second – the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old – modern day chimps are the closest cousins of us humans. These are irrefutable universal truth, regardless of what anyone believes.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lord is My Sheep: Gospel of Human

“What I am trying to say is that more than your own life has to be at stake, before a person becomes desperate enough to resort to math.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, The Less Wrong Sequences

“More personally, my intellect is a stumbling block to much that makes life worth living: laughter, love; a wiling acceptance of being created. The rational intellect doesn't have a great deal to do with love, and it doesn't have a great deal to do with art.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet

“Pride is poison.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Time to Save Medicine

“Birth of a question is the beginning of education.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Build Bridges not Walls: In the name of Americana

“Personal reason is admittedly a meager asset, but take away human reason and we would exist in a world of utter ignorance and perpetual darkness.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“There is more to life than both cold facts and blind faith.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Znasz przypowieść o żabie w śmietanie? Jak dwie żaby wpadły do dzbanka ze śmietaną? Jedna, myśląc racjonalnie, szybko zrozumiała, że opór jest bezcelowy i że losu nie da się oszukać. A może jest jakieś życie pozagrobowe, więc po co się niepotrzebnie wysilać i na próżno pocieszać płonnymi nadziejami? Złożyła łapki i poszła na dno. A druga była na pewno durna, albo niewierząca. I zaczęła się szamotać. Wydawałoby się, po co się szarpać, jeśli wszystko przesądzone? Szamotała się i szamotała... Aż ubiła śmietanę na masło. I wylazła z dzbanka. Uczcijmy pamięć jej towarzyszki, przedwcześnie poległej w imię postępu filozofii i racjonalnego myślenia.”
― Dmitry Glukhovsky, Metro 2033

“Religion has no work in justifying the man-made imaginations, hallucinations and delusions of the world. Real religion has to do with reality - empirical one - philosophical one - humane one.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lord is My Sheep: Gospel of Human

“Rationalism is imperative in the pursuit of truth, whereas the pursuit of a harmonious global progress demands a human to be simply human first, not a scientist, a philosopher, a preacher, or a politician. Be a human, then everything else.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lord is My Sheep: Gospel of Human

“Without the human my friend, truth has no value whatsoever. So, do not be blinded by the false glory of truth, but be conscientious enough to utilize that truth in a humane fashion in the human society. Truth not brought to the service of humanity, is a truth of no value.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lord is My Sheep: Gospel of Human

“Reincarnation of soul does not happen, but reincarnation, renovation and evolution of ideas do.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lord is My Sheep: Gospel of Human

“[W]here the rationalist sees contact with theoretical considerations as a source of contamination, we should instead view such influence as potentially beneficial. Theory-mediated judgment is not automatically “contaminated”; under the right circumstances, and under the guidance of appropriate theory, it is instead a source of correction and illumination. We should not search for a realm of reason somehow insulated from and uninformed by our best available theories. Instead we should welcome the prospect of a conception of rational inference which is itself fully vetted by all available evidence.”
― Hilary Kornblith

“Love gives life, so should faith.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosutra: The Abhijit Naskar Collection

“Facts alone without the human warmth, is a nut without the kernel.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Following the ascendancy of the conservative Sunni Caliph al-Mutawakkil, whom Syed Ameer Ali describes as a 'cruel drunken sot in league with the qazis and mullahs,' the physical extermination of Mu'tazilites, together with Shias, began in earnest. They were removed from all governmental positions, accused of heresy, subjected to torture, and summarily executed. Scholars and scientists, most of whom subscribed to rationalist beliefs, fled Baghdad for other parts of the Islamic world. Thus ended the most serious attempt to combine reason with revelation in Islam. Apart from various isolated efforts by individua119th century Muslim reformers, the separation between the religious and secular has been complete in Islam ever since.”
― Pervez Hoodbhoy, Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality

“Should you wish to pursue the infinity of truth, you must make yourself humble as ashes and vigorous as the wind. And with that attitude flowing through your veins, bring your novel thinking in action and disinfect the world with a bold, radical and positive change – a change of egalitarianism, a change of globalism, a change of rationalism, a change of humanism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Saint of The Sapiens

“Talking reason with a fundamentalist is like talking balanced diet with a hungry tiger - you can't win.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“There's a difference between an open mind and an empty head.”
― Abhijit Naskar, All For Acceptance

“The way forward for humanity is not really about giving up either empiricism or ethics, rather it's about knowing which one is needed when and what kind of implications it will have on others.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mission Reality