Albert Ellis Quotes

We have too many intellectuals who are afraid to use the pistol of common sense.

All policies should be guided by science, not just whose voice is the loudest.

A third ideal that has made its way in the modern world is reliance on reason, especially reason disciplined and enriched by modern science. An eternal basis of human intercommunication is reason.

Conservatives need to go where the facts, not ideology, take them.

No political cliche can stand up to reality.

I'm the type of person who responds to facts.

I don't make decisions with my heart, I use my brain to think things through.

I'm a rationalist and a skeptic, someone who safely separates faith from reason.

You cannot build public policies on sentiment, on panic and fear.

A miscalculation is not negligence, nor prudence a crime. I am a scientist. I base my action or inaction upon probability and evidence. There is a reason we call science a discipline! Inferior minds bolt or build pyres to roast the witches in their midst!

I'm supposed to be a scientific person but I use intuition more than logic in making basic decisions.

Decisions should be based on facts, objectively considered what I call the fact-founded, thought-through approach to decision making.

My position is that we should not succumb to irrational belief.

RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.

You're neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You're right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right - that's the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don't have to worry about anybody else.

Thinking. A process by which I use my brain to make a rational decision.

The investigation of mathematical truths accustoms the mind to method and correctness in reasoning, and is an employment peculiarly worthy of rational beings.

A truly open mind means forcing our imaginations to conform to the evidence of reality, and not vice versa.

No Ghost of any common sense begins a conversation

The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy.

Opinions don't affect facts. But facts should affect opinions, and do, if you're rational

Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present.

I can put two and two together, you know. Do not think you are dealing with a man who has lost his grapes.

I agree that it's important to be of a virtuous nature, but I would also contend that if you had to choose between giving a man a noble disposition or teaching him to think clearly, you'd do better to teach him to think clearly. Too many problems in this world are caused by men with noble dispositions and clouded minds.

And the quality of good judgement is clearly a form of knowledge and skill, as it is because of knowledge and not because of ignorance that we judge well.