Konrad Adenauer Quotes

But with man the case is otherwise, in that when logic leads to any humiliating conclusion, the sole effect is to discredit logic.

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

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

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

Humans naturally think more highly of themselves and their communities than their evidence can justify, but deny that they are biased in this way. This sincere confidence helps people to convince others to think highly of them, and to convince their group of their strong attachment to it. If you force yourself to face facts squarely you may gain better insight into yourself and human nature, and perhaps even signal a certain rare ability to achieve this result. But you may less convince others of your other abilities, and to convince your group of your loyalty

The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives.

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.

I've always had this fascination with the brain. I'm not really much of a religious person, but like anybody, you are at least fascinated by what some call a soul - what I would call the brain - and who we are and how we work.

Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.

I regard belief as a form of brain damage.

Logic is something the mind has created to conceal its timidity, a hocus-pocus designed to give formal validity to conclusions we are willing to accept if everybody else in our set will too.

The human mind is not a terribly logical or consistent place.

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

The dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters the desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic.

It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.

There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.

I have sympathy for any human being that's driven by their limbic part of their brain. We all know that exists in a person.

It is impossible to live without brains, either one's own or borrowed.

Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, some theory which, a posteriori, makes their actions appear to be logical. If that theory could be demolished scientifically, the only result would be that another theory would be substituted for the first one, and for the same purpose.

The human mind is generally far more eager to praise or dispraise than it is to describe and define.

This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.

Rationality will not save us.

There is no one part of the brain which recognizes or responds emotionally to music. Instead, there are many different parts responding to different aspects of music: to pitch, to frequency, to timbre, to tonal intervals, to consonance, to dissonance, to rhythm, to melodic contour, to harmony.

Fear or stupidity has always been the basis of most human actions.

The ethos of not fooling yourself is one of the best you could possibly have. It's powerful because it's so rare.