Best of Rationality Quotes

22 points DSimon 03 August 2010 03:27:01AM Permalink

My hotel doesn't have a 13th floor because of superstition, but people on the 14th floor, you should know what floor you're really on. If you jump out the window, you will die sooner than you expect.

-- Mitch Hedberg (Quoted from memory)

18 points DSimon 04 November 2010 08:06:19PM Permalink

Man, I'm amazing! I'm a machine that turns FOOD into IDEAS!

-- T-Rex, Dinosaur Comics #539

11 points DSimon 02 July 2010 10:25:36PM Permalink

When I was 14, my father was stationed in Japan. I went rock climbing with this kid from school. He fell and got injured, and I had to bring him to the hospital. We came in through the wrong entrance, and passed this guy in the hall. He was a janitor. My friend came down with an infection, and the doctors didn't know what to do. So they brought in the janitor. He was a doctor. And a Buraku - one of Japan's untouchables. His ancestors had been slaughterers, gravediggers. And this guy knew that he wasn't accepted by the staff, didn't even try. He didn't dress well. He didn't pretend to be one of them. People around that place didn't think he had anything they wanted, except when they needed him - because he was right, which meant that nothing else mattered. And they had to listen to him.

-- Dr. Greg House

7 points DSimon 03 December 2010 08:05:15AM Permalink

| Theory and practice sometimes clash. And when that happens, theory loses. Every single time.

-- Linus Torvalds

5 points DSimon 03 December 2010 08:14:26AM Permalink

| "Why did I do that?" I asked.

-- The Poet Who Is Odd, Knapsack Poems by Elanor Arnason

2 points DSimon 10 November 2010 07:44:21PM Permalink

I can't keep rationalizing away everything like this, or I'm gonna die!

-- Gordon Freeman, kind of