Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.
Quentin Crisp (1908-1999) English writer and raconteur [b. Denis Pratt]
The Naked Civil Servant, ch. 29 (1968)
Quotations about:
rationalization
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.
Alexander Solzhenitsen (1918-2008) Russian novelist, emigre [Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn]
The Gulag Archipelago, Vol. 1, Part 1, ch. 4 (1973) [tr. Whitney]
(Source)
Few of us take the pains to study the origin of our cherished convictions; indeed, we have a natural repugnance to so doing. We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to them. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.
James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936) American historian and educator
The Mind in the Making, ch. 4 “Rationalizing” (1921)
(Source)
Observe the invincible tendency of the mind to unify. It is a law of our constitution that we should not contemplate things apart without the effort to arrange them in order with known facts and ascribe them to the same law.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1836)
MICHAEL: I don’t know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They’re more important than sex.
SAM: Ah, come on. Nothing’s more important than sex.
MICHAEL: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?
Lawrence Kasdan (b. 1949) American screenwriter, director, producer
The Big Chill (1983) [with Barbara Benedek]
How convenient does it prove to be a rational animal, that knows how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination so to do.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
The Life of Benjamin Franklin (1791)
(Source)
Often paraphrased: "Man is a rational animal. He can think up a reason for anything he wants to believe." Sometimes attributed to Anatole France.
Necessity can make a doubtful action innocent, but it cannot make it commendable.
[La nécessité peut rendre innocente une action douteuse ; mais elle ne saurait la rendre louable.]
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 9 “De la Sagesse, de la Vertu, etc. [On Wisdom and Virtue],” ¶ 20 (1850 ed.) [tr. Auster (1983), 1808]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:Necessity may render a doubtful act innocent, but it cannot make it praiseworthy.
[tr. Attwell (1896), ¶ 133]Necessity may render a doubtful action innocent; but it cannot make it praiseworthy.
[tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 8, ¶ 16]
The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 71 (1951)
(Source)
EDMUND: This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, — often the surfeit of our own behavior, — we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, Act 1, sc. 2, l. 125ff (1.2.125) (1606)
(Source)
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
Aesop (620?-560? BC) Legendary Greek storyteller
Fables [Aesopica], “The Wolf and the Lamb” (6th C BC) [tr. Jacobs (1894)]
(Source)
Alternate translations:
- "'Tis an Easie Matter to find a Staff to Beat a Dog." [tr. L'Estrange (1692)]
- "A tyrant never wants a plea." [tr. James (1848)]
- "The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny." [tr. Townsend (1887)]
