James Branch Cabell Quotes

Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.

Reason is so unreasonable, that few people can say they are in possession of it.

All logical arguments can be defeated by the simple refusal to reason logically

It is easier to rationalize than it is to be rational.

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

People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

The Enlightenment view of mankind is a complete myth. It leads us into thinking we're sane and rational creatures most of the time, and we're not.

Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning.

It's awfully hard to get into the head of a liberal. Instead of logic and reason, they are drawn to emotions and feelings.

Human beings will justify anything.

Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?

But we all recognise the primary foible of frail humanity - our propensity for embracing hope and shunning logic, our tendency to believe what we desire rather than what we observe.

God designed the stomach to eject what is bad for it, but not the human brain.

Man's ability to delude himself is infinite.

It is the habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire

Our conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information, biases, irrational passions, rationalizations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth swim around and give the reassurance albeit false, that the whole mixture is real and true. The thinking processes attempt to organize this whole cesspool of illusions according to the laws of plausibility. This level of consciousness is supposed to reflect reality; it is the map we use for organizing our life.

We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is to learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.

To expect reason is where the fallacy lies.

The vast majority of human beings are not interested in reason or satisfied with what it teaches.

There are no such self-deceivers as those who think they reason when they only feel.

The human mind has an infinite capacity for self-deception.

Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.

Reason adapts impulses and beliefs into the real world; rationalization, on the other hand, adapts the concept of reality to the impulses and beliefs of the individual. Reasoning discovers the true cause of our acts, rationalization finds good reasons for justifying our acts.

Your trust in rationality makes you irrational.