#irrational

Felix had gone to live in a lotus land of his imagination. Where what is desired is dreamed of as already happened, where obstacles dissolve under the weight of desire, and where reality has vanished entirely. ↗

— Iain Pears

#cloud-cuckoo-land #desires #dreams #futility #imagination

Many great ideas, great love stories, and great achievements are born from a healthy irrationality. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#healthy #ideas #irrationality #love #love-stories

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. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#class #irrationality #nirvana #reason #society

All men are, at times, influenced by inexplicable sentiments. Ideas haunt them in spite of all their efforts to discard them. Prepossessions are entertained, for which their reason is unable to discover any adequate cause. The strength of a belief, when it is destitute of any rational foundation, seems, of itself, to furnish a new ground for credulity. We first admit a powerful persuasion, and then, from reflecting on the insufficiency of the ground on which it is built, instead of being prompted to dismiss it, we become more forcibly attached to it. ↗

— Charles Brockden Brown

#obsession #perversity #men

Reality is, you know, the tip of an iceberg of irrationality that we've managed to drag ourselves up onto for a few panting moments before we slip back into the sea of the unreal. ↗

— Terence McKenna

#rationality #reality #science #ufos #unreality

Today mythical thinking has fallen into disrepute; we often dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#bring #dismiss #effective #enabled #faculty

It's the irrational things that interest me. ↗

— Harrison Birtwistle

#irrational #irrational things #me #things

It is even possible that laws which have not their origin in the mind may be irrational, and we can never succeed in formulating them. ↗

— Arthur Eddington

#formulating #irrational #laws #may #mind

I still believe that any country understands that if they use nuclear weapons, they will be wiped out of existence. They could be irrational in many ways, but I don't think they're irrational to the point that they're ready to annihilate their own country. ↗

— Mohamed ElBaradei

#any #believe #could #country #existence

Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit. ↗

— Bill Cosby

#beautifully #child #commit #having #irrational