“One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.”
The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II
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Oscar Wilde812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Related quotes
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters
19 December 1749
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Context: We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in pursuit of it. No, we are complicated machines; and though we have one main spring that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometime stop that motion.
“Man is not a rational animal. He is only truly good or great when he acts from passion.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Book 6, chapter 12.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Henrietta Temple (1837)
“To a rational being it is the same thing to act according to nature and according to reason.”
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
VII, 11
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII
“Each man does seek his own interest, but, unfortunately, not according to the dictates of reason.”
Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War
Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter II, The First Image, p. 23
Roy A. Childs, Jr. (1949–1992) American libertarian essayist and critic
“The Contradiction in Objectivism,” 1968
“Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.”
Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer
De toutes les définitions de l'homme, la plus mauvaise me paraît celle qui en fait un animal raisonnable.
Le Petit Pierre (1918), ch. XXXIII
“Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.”
Robert A. Heinlein book Tunnel in the Sky
Source: Tunnel in the Sky (1955), Chapter 2, “The Fifth Way” (p. 42)
“There is only one good. And that is to act according to the dictates of one's conscience.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist
Source: All Men are Mortal (1946), p. 181
