Best of Rationality Quotes

The Patrician took a sip of his beer. "I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to its day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."

-- Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." - Peter Drucker

Its now well known that if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.

The wizard who reads a thousand books is powerful. The wizard who memorizes a thousand books is insane.

"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." - Michael Shermer

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw

"Fifth Law of Decision Making: Decisions are justified by benefits to the organization; they are made by considering benefits to the decision makers." - Archibald Putt

"Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms." - Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

"[T]he purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity." - Calvin, Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes"

You got to have a dream,

If you don't have a dream,

How you gonna have a dream come true?

• Bloody Mary, South Pacific

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

-- Mark Twain

MY mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red:

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound:

I grant I never saw a goddess go,—

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

-Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

(Incidentally, I find it annoying that I can't post properly formatted poetry or song lyrics in comments. I can't use a single carriage return, and am instead forced to choose between putting a blank line in between every line of the quote, or putting everything on one line.)

Edit: Thank you! Now, is there a way to add spaces to the beginning of a line? HTML has a tendency to ignore whitespace; does the code block override that?

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rage at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-- Dylan Thomas

"First Law of Communication: The purpose of communication is to advance the communicator." - Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat

Two very similar quotes:

"It would not be a bad definition of math to call it the study of terms that have precise meanings." - Paul Graham

"Mathematics is the study of precisely defined objects." - Norman Gottlieb

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/princess_ida/webop/pi_06.html

Marijuana is death on writers. I’ve seen several go that route. Typical behavior for a long time marijuana user is as follows. He gets a story idea. He tells his friends about it, and they think it’s wonderful. He then feels as if he’s written it, published it, cashed the check and collected the awards. So he never bothers to write it down.

Alcohol can have the same effect.

-- Larry Niven

"The First Law of Innovation Management: Management by objectives is no better than the objectives." - Archibald Putt

Leadership skills are quite different from management skills. When you "manage," by definition, you're trying to distribute resources where they will do the company the most good. When you "lead," by definition, you're trying to get those resources distributed to yourself. Obviously, leadership is a better way to go. It's easier too.

-- Scott Adams, Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook

There is no mutually exclusive distinction between "is" and "ought". There is only a distinction between "is" and "is not". If "ought" cannot find a home in what "is", then "ought" is something that "is not".

-- Alonzo Fyfe

Don't bring a knife to a math fight.

-- "Olyander"

You know the good old days weren't always good

And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems...

-- Billy Joel, "Keeping the Faith"

Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.

-- Homer Simpson

"First Law of Advice: The correct advice to give is the advice that is desired." - Archibald Putt

So, if we can't derive 'ought' from 'is' - then we have no reason to keep 'ought' around at all. We have no reason not to discard it and toss it in the same bin with God, devils, souls, [non-deterministic] free will, and other mythical entities that more primitive cultures once accepted.

-- Alonzo Fyfe

"The future already happened. We just haven't reached it yet." - Sarda the Sage

Brian Clevinger, 8-Bit Theater

"Wars do not end when they are won, but when those who want to fight to the death find their wish has been granted." - Spengler

By now I have established myself as either a recognized authority possessing admirable diligence or a raving fanboy admitting dubious sanity, or just possibly the two are not mutually exclusive.

Noah Falstein

"I hold that moral intuitions are nothing but learned prejudices. Historic examples from slavery to the divine right of kings to tortured confessions of witchcraft or Judaism to the subjugation of women to genocide all point to the fallibility of these 'moral intuitions'. There is absolutely no sense to the claim that its conclusions are to be adopted before those of a reasoned argument." - Alonzo Fyfe

The Paradoxical Commandments

I didn't want to ruin the pretty formatting by posting it here, so go follow the link.

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao Zedong

"If something's hard to do, it's probably not worth doing!" - Homer Simpson, slightly misquoted

Were here to devour each other alive.

"There's only so many ways to be smart, but idiocy is Legion." - The TV Tropes Wiki

"Information wants to be WRONG!" - Sam Max: Moai Better Blues