“The point is that humans are rarely at their best when they use rational reasoning.”
Didier Sornette (1957) French scientist
Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 4, Positive Feedbacks, p. 106.
“Rationality is not one of humanity’s strong points.”
— John Scalzi, book The Ghost Brigades
Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 5 (p. 88)
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John Scalzi68
American science fiction writer 1969Related quotes
David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist
How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (BBC Horizon, 2009)
Michael Bishop (1945) American writer
Source: A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975), Chapter 14, “Denouement: Ascent to the Acropolis” (p. 266)
“Stupidity is not my strong point.”
Paul Valéry book Monsieur Teste
Variant translations:
Stupidity is not my strong suit.
Monsieur Teste (1919)
Context: Stupidity is not my strong point. I have seen many persons; I have visited several countries; I have taken part in various enterprises without liking them; I have eaten nearly every day; I have had women. I can now recall a few hundred faces, two or three great spectacles, and the substance of perhaps twenty books. I have not retained the best nor the worst of these things: what could stay with me did.
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author
Örn Úlfar
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet
“Man is a rationalizing beast, if not a rational one.”
Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain
Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 14 (p. 142)
“Strong, deeply rooted desire is the starting point of all achievement.”
Napoleon Hill book The Law of Success
Source: The Law of Success (1928), p. 109
Variant: Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.
As quoted in Quote-A-Quote: To Your Success Health Wealth & Happiness (2005) by Michael E. Ruge, p. 38
Context: Strong, deeply rooted desire is the starting point of all achievement. Just as the electron is the last unit of matter discernible to the scientist. DESIRE is the seed of all achievement; the starting place, back of which there is nothing, or at least there is nothing of which we have any knowledge.
Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher
Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks http://singularity.org/files/CognitiveBiases.pdf, a chapter of Global Catastrophic Risks, edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Cirkovic (2008) <br class="br">Context: The human brain cannot release enough neurotransmitters to feel emotion a thousand times as strong as the grief of one funeral. A prospective risk going from 10,000,000 deaths to 100,000,000 deaths does not multiply by ten the strength of our determination to stop it. It adds one more zero on paper for our eyes to glaze over.