As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.
Cyril Connolly

Bin Laden does reprehensible activities, and we should surely take care of that by killing him as soon as we can. But he's not an irrational man. He's a very worthy enemy. He's an enemy to worry about.
Michael Scheuer

By the way, the point between rationality and what we would call the irrational is a very difficult point to establish. There's no specific line, as you know.
Leo Ornstein

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
Louis D. Brandeis

For centuries many of the world's distinguished philosophers have assaulted Christianity as being irrational, superstitious and absurd.
Josh McDowell

Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness.
George Jean Nathan

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

I approach my character with the question: What would an animal think? How would an animal respond? A lot of times, it's quick action and no fear, and sometimes it's irrational fear. You don't always know.
Victoria Pratt

I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?
Philip Zimbardo

I think it would be very foolish not to take the irrational seriously.
Jeanette Winterson

I think life's an irrational obsession.
Sean Penn

If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic.
Albert Ellis

It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.
Edgar Allan Poe

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

It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.
Thomas Huxley

It is the mission of the twentieth century to elucidate the irrational.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty

It's the irrational things that interest me.
Harrison Birtwistle

Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble... to give way to hope, fear and greed.
Benjamin Graham

Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals.
T. E. Lawrence

Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion.
Scott Adams