{"quotes":[{"text":"They are very good odds. And I know that my scientific brain believes them, if not my panic-ridden, maternal one. Those odds should have made a difference to my reaction. I should have been able to take the diagnosis calmly, intelligently, reflectively. But that would be to assign rationality to this phenomenon. The trouble with abject fear - with searing, lurid metaphor - is that it is not rational. And the myths that spring out of fear that deep are certainly not. They are the stuff of nightmares. They are tenacious.","author":"Alanna Mitchell","tags":["disease","fear","irrationality","metaphor","science"],"id":11745,"author_id":"Alanna+Mitchell"},{"text":"The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["anxiety","class","irrationality","nirvana","reason","society","struggle","utopia"],"id":14750,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"},{"text":"Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.","author":"Stanisław Lem","tags":["faith","irrationality","religion"],"id":28604,"author_id":"Stanis%C5%82aw+Lem"},{"text":"Statism ends with an eye roll.","author":"Stefan Molyneux","tags":["anarcho-capitalism","anarchy","ancap","freedom","government","irrationality","liberation","libertarian","liberty","nationalism","patriotism","philosophy","state","superstition","voluntaryism"],"id":68356,"author_id":"Stefan+Molyneux"},{"text":"Then, one sunny September morning, the illusion of a personal God that I tried so hard to believe in, exploded over the skies of Manhattan. Even as the ashes and ruin of this horrific act of blind faith settled over New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, I watched people across the country scrambling to that same irrational altar for their answers. In the fierce storm of emotion that rolled across this country, one realization rose to the surface of my mind with blinding clarity: certainly this mechanism of unassailable blind faith is one of the greatest risks mankind faces today.","author":"Nathan Phelps","tags":["america","blind-faith","fred-phelps","harm","irrationality","leaving-faith","leaving-religion","leaving-westboro-baptist-church","manhattan","new-york","pennsylvania","religious-harm","september-11","september-11-terrorist-attacks","terrorism","washington","westboro-baptist-church"],"id":97407,"author_id":"Nathan+Phelps"},{"text":"To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["irrationality","logic","rationalisation","reason","september-11-attacks"],"id":101739,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"},{"text":"No evidence is powerful enough to force acceptance of a conclusion that is emotionally distasteful.","author":"Theodosius Dobzhansky","tags":["illogical","irrationality","stupidity","unscientific","wishful-thinking"],"id":102000,"author_id":"Theodosius+Dobzhansky"},{"text":"I sensed that if I were ever to meet [Senator Orrin] Hatch face-to-face there would be little that we could agree upon. There was something about watching Hatch that reminded me of unpleasant, futile political arguments I had had in my life. I wondered whether such political disagreements did not issue from underlying, perhaps even innate characteristics. Certainly, experience teaches us that when we encounter another person whom we instinctively dislike, constructive political dialogue is not likely to follow. Humans can intuitively sense through a variety of subtle clues (I.E., dress, accent, gestures) when another person possesses a mix of cultural and psychological characteristics that is so substantially different to our own that political discord is also likely. Put otherwise, a liberal can usually smell a conservative, and vice versa. Moreover, the smell is not a pleasant one.-- Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality.","author":"Guillermo Jimenez","tags":["irrationality","partisanship","political-irrationality","politics"],"id":108831,"author_id":"Guillermo+Jimenez"},{"text":"People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting bad economics because they have embraced collectivism.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["austrian-economics","austrian-school-of-economics","capitalism","coercion","collectivism","communism","evil","force","free-market","freedom","government","idiots","individualism","irrationality","keynesian","laissez-faire","libertarian","liberty","mafia","non-aggression-principle","socialism","statism","superstition","taxation","theft","useful-idiots","voluntayism"],"id":121580,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"If thou really believe in one God,irrationality is subset of thou logic.","author":"Toba Beta","tags":["god","irrationality","logic"],"id":127134,"author_id":"Toba+Beta"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":50,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}