W. H. Auden Quotes

Talk about rationality can get very confusing unless the things with which rationality deals are also included.

We can't avoid reasoning; we can only avoid doing it well.

The very essence of rationalism is that it assumes that the reason is the highest faculty in man and the lord of all the rest.

Common sense is calculation applied to life.

People are powerfully moved by imagination, belief, and knowledge. They can consider the past and future. They can make changes in their behavior out of reason in a way that animals can't do.

Mostly, I try to take a rational approach to life.

Logic can become enormously difficult, and it would undoubtedly be well to produce more assurance in its use.

Everything is reason. If you don't have reason, you have nothing.

Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought.

Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation or the continuance of his species.

There are those who reason well, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who reason badly.

The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental.

There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction. And thinking through, asking the questions, "Well, then what happens? What comes next?" is critically important.

Bein logical gave me a reason to doubt

When you have answers, when everything has a reason, when it makes sense to an analytical person, you're going to be more successful. You're going to be more comfortable.

It is for this reason that rationality is of supreme importance to the well-being of the human species...even more, in those less fortunate times in which it is despised and rejected as the vain dream of men who lack the virility to kill where they cannot agree.

Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.

Reason has seldom failed us because it has seldom been tried.

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

We seem to have trouble with [critical thinking]. And our political system doesn't help.

Thought is essentially practical in the sense that but for thought no motion would be an action, no change a progress.

Stupidity is no excuse of not thinking.

Reason is universal because no attempted challenge to its results can avoid appealing to reason in the end-by claiming, for example, that what was presented as an argument is really a rationalization. This can undermine our confidence in the original method or practice only by giving us reasons to believe something else, so that finally we have to think about the arguments to make up our minds.

Rationality is the master lifehack which distinguishes which other lifehacks to use.

To disparage the dictate of reason is equivalent to contemning the command of God.