Peace Pilgrim Quotes

In times of crisis human beings don't have it in them to be rational.

Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason. Events which excite those feelings will produce wonderful effects.

Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

I am more interested in what moves people, than how they move.

People are motivated by fear, but they are not inspired by it. Everything that inspires us comes from love.

You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp itsseat, and rule in its stead.

The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread. The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood.

Why, what a temper you are in!

Human action is governed largely by instinct and emotion.

Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason.

I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.

Frustration is an interesting emotional state, because it tends to bring out the worst in whoever is frustrated.

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

Dreams raise the emotional level of what I'm doing at the moment.

Our occasional madness is less wonderful than our occasional sanity.

I no longer idolize reason. I have come to accept that ninety percent of what we do is irrational and that we spend what little rational thought we have in justifying our irrationality.

The genes hold culture on a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance with their effects on the human gene pool. The brain is a product of evolution. Human behavior-like the deepest capacities for emotional respone which drive and guide it-is the circuitous technique by which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact.

Man is a rational animal – so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favour of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.

I had no choice. Love does funny things to people.

Logic can convince but only emotion can motivate.

People in this world are not often logical.

If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!

People are fascinated by evil because it's mysterious and it doesn't seem to have a rational behind it.

They wanted to know why I did what I did. Well, sir I guess there's just meanness in the world.

Everyone had a reason for everything they did, even if that reason was sometimes stupidity.