Quotes & Sayings About Rationalization

Rationalization is one of the real obstacles to obedience. — Russell M. Nelson

I was living a life of a lie. And I was doing a lot of things, that hurt a lot of people. And stripping away denial and rationalization you start coming to the truth of who you really are and that can be very ugly. — Tiger Woods

Do I forget, or do I refuse to remember? — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I didn't know that empty rationalization was part of your programming," said Ram.
"We would not be fit companions for human beings without it. — Orson Scott Card

The question for the ultimate foundations and the ultimate meaning of mathematics remains open; we do not know in which direction it will find its final solution nor even whether a final objective answer can be expected at all. "Mathematizing" may well be a creative activity of man, like language or music, of primary originality, whose historical decisions defy complete objective rationalization. — Hermann Weyl

You cling so tightly to your purity, my lad! How terrified you are of sullying your hands. Well, go ahead then, stay pure! What good will it do, and why even bother coming here among us? Purity is a concept of fakirs and friars. But you, the intellectuals, the bourgeois anarchists, you invoke purity as your rationalization for doing nothing. Do nothing, don't move, wrap your arms tight around your body, put on your gloves. As for myself, my hands
are dirty. I have plunged my arms up to the elbows in excrement and blood. And what else should one do? Do you suppose that it is possible to govern
innocently? — Jean-Paul Sartre

Be ready at seven and I'll take you to dinner first."
"First?" Just because I asked, didn't mean I plannedto go. I was a master at rationalization.
"Before I take you home and fuck you until you forget your mother's name."
"If I have any thought of my mama while you're fucking me, you're definitely doing something wrong. — Amber Kell

- I should be doing my homework now. But the way I look at it, playing in the snow is a lot more important. Out here I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life.
- Such as?
- Procrastination and rationalization. — Bill Watterson

Ballet is merely a new rationalization of society's instinctive movement towards self-destruction. A dance of death for the Gadarene swine. — Eric Ambler

In 1972, the psychologist Irving Janis defined groupthink as, "a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action." Groupthink most commonly affects homogenous, close-knit communities that are overly insulated from internal and external criticism, and that perceive themselves as different from or under attack by outsiders. Its symptoms include censorship of dissent, rejection or rationalization of criticisms, the conviction of moral superiority, and the demonization of those who hold opposing beliefs. It typically leads to the incomplete or inaccurate assessment of information, the failure to seriously consider other possible options, a tendency to make rash decisions, and the refusal to reevaluate or alter those decisions once they've been made. — Kathryn Schulz

... We [can't] escape the influence of sin in the world, but [do] we have to pay money to see and hear it firsthand? — Chris Heimerdinger

Did the true, umbilical love that bound people together for the length of their lives require a certain intellectual dislocution in order to push past our insistent rationalization and enter the rough, uneven space inside our hearts? — Reif Larsen

Knowing Chris Bennett's Writing as I do, I expected Only Superhuman to have an imaginative plot and a compelling superheroine in Emry Blair. What I hadn't expected was for the backstory to make so much sense. Usually science is the first causality of superhero stories, tossed aside with the breezy rationalization: 'Hey, it's comics!' Only Superhuman is, to my knowledge, the first hard science superhero story. And the Story is the better for it. — Mike W. Barr

Of what use was memory anyway than as a template for one's most reassuring self-deceptions! — Ashim Shanker

There is a future for the auto parts industry, but it needs a consolidation and a rationalization of geography in that most suppliers have facilities in the U.S., although most of their customers are overseas. — Wilbur Ross

I don't think because I hang out with enough black people, I'm gonna turn black. What kind of rationalization is that? I'm just friends with people that I like. I don't care what skin color you are. — Khloe Kardashian

Isn't it obvious in in today's world from people's preoccupation with self-medication, drug and alcohol use, rationalization and avoidance distraction that the truth doesn't just hurt, it's extremely painful. — James Turner

One time Clu tried to explain it to me," Enos continued. "'Sometimes,' he said, 'you don't want to escape the world; sometimes you want to escape yourself.' " He cocked his head. "Do you believe that?" "Not really," Myron said. "Like a lot of cute phrases, it sounds good. But it also sounds like a load of self-rationalization. — Harlan Coben

While he loved liberty, he detested the crimes that had been committed in its name. Jon J. Ingalls — Alexis De Tocqueville

With the rationalization of culture, and the corresponding disenchantment of religious ideas and beliefs, the modern world is ordered increasingly upon instrumentally rational grounds, and hence organizes itself less and less according to value-rational principles. This leads in turn to a world in which social action is separated increasingly from the sphere of (ethical) meaning, as particular (often technical) means are employed to realize specific ends regardless of the ethical significance or meaning of such action. — Nicholas Gane

His intelligence was just something he'd been born with. Luck of the draw, like being beautiful. It was a rationalization to say that he'd worked hard. It was like being given a fine knife and taking the trouble to polish and sharpen it: it's great that you make the effort, but someone had to give you the knife. — Adelle Waldman

Your theology won't always work toward your obedience, because your use of theology is dictated by the condition of your heart. If your heart is not submitting to the plan of God, you will actually use your theology to justify things that should not be justified. — Paul David Tripp

Rationalization for bad choices will not be effective, but repentance will. Those
who repent will be particularly blessed by the Atonement. — Quentin L. Cook

In my unfortunately infrequent encounters with real passion, I'm rarely as careful as I ought to be. The rationalization goes something like: With all the bullets and mortar rounds I've survived, I must be immune to sexually transmitted diseases. Stupid, I know. More likely, fate will indulge its taste for irony by killing me with AIDS os some other unpleasant alternative. — Barry Eisler

I paved the path to the very place I don't want to be. But passing the blame off to someone else doesn't put me any place else. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

This kind of thing is why more and more Christian parents are concluding that they cannot afford to keep their children in public schools. Some tell themselves that their children need to remain there to be "salt and light" to the other kids. As popular culture continues its downward slide, however, this rationale begins to sound like a rationalization. It brings to mind a father who tosses his child into a whitewater river in the hopes that she'll save another drowning child. — Rod Dreher

The chaplain had sinned, and it was good. Common sense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins. On the other hand, everyone knew that sin was evil and that no good could come from evil. But he did feel good; he felt positively marvelous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. — Joseph Heller

Rationalization is foreplay with one's conscience. — Doug Cooper

It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court's role. Otherwise the sound principle of substantial deference to a president's choice of judicial nominees will dissolve into a rationalization for senatorial abdication of the duty to hold presidents to some standards of seriousness that will prevent them from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends. — George Will

Many common lies and hypocrisies are like that, just out of the harmony of the moment. — Saul Bellow

Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Buddha and countless other mystics, in countless cultures, have preached the same thing
that we all exist amid a blur of uncertainty. That one can never know complete truth about physical reality via our senses alone. Much is made of the differences between their systems ... Socrates teaching reason, Buddha urging meditation, and Jesus prescribing faith. But what they all had in common was far more important. Each of those sage-prophets worried that the power of human egotism tends to make us lie to ourselves, leading to error, hypocrisy, and all too often, the rationalization of evil actions. — David Brin

Yet our common moral knowledge is as real as arithmetic, and probably just as plain. Paradoxically, maddeningly, we appeal to it even to justify wrongdoing; rationalization is the homage paid by sin to guilty knowledge. — J. Budziszewski

Processes of rationalization and disenchantment engender a shift from a social order founded upon value-rational beliefs and governed through charismatic and traditional forms of authority, to an order ruled by the force of instrumental reason and dominated by new forms of institutional bureaucracy. This movement results in the depersonalization of the social world: instrumental calculation steadily suppresses the passionate pursuit of ultimate values, and bureaucracy reduces the scope for individual initiative and personal fulfillment... instrumental reason... is not only tied to the devaluation or disenchantment of the highest and most sublime values and ideals, but places important limits on the scope for individual autonomy and freedom in the modern world. — Nicholas Gane

The President looked out of his window. He was not very happy. I worry about Bill, Hubert, Henry, Kevin, Edward, Clem, Dan and their lover, Snow White. I sense that all is not well with them. Now, looking out over this green lawn, and these fine rosebushes, and into the night and the yellow buildings, and the falling Dow Jones Index and the screams of the poor, I am concerned. I have many important things to worry about, but I worry about Bill and the boys too. Because I am the President. Finally. the President of the whole fucking country. And they are Americans, Bill, Hubert, Henry, Kevin, Edward, Clem, Dan and Snow White. They are Americans. My Americans. — Donald Barthelme

Global warming is socialism by the back door. The whole point of global warming is that it's a rationalization for progressives to do what progressives want to do, which is concentrate more and more power in Washington, more and more Washington power in the executive branch, more and more executive branch power in independent czars and agencies to micromanage the lives of the American people -- our shower heads, our toilets, our bathtubs, our garden hoses. Everything becomes involved in the exigencies of rescuing the planet. — George F. Will

The easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists. — Sidney Hook

My experience is that the absence of firm prior resolve results in regular rationalization. — John Piper

The basic point of the lion's roar is that, if we are able to deal with emotions directly, able to relate with them as workable, then there is no need for external aid or explanations. It is a self-maintained situation. Any help from outsiders becomes credentials. So self-existing help develops. At that point, one does not need to avoid the credential problem any more, because there is no room for speculation or rationalization. Everything becomes obvious and immediate, workable. And there is no chance or time or space to speculate on how to become a charlatan, how to con other people, because the situation is so immediate. So the idea of charlatanism does not appear at all, because there is no room for the idea of a game. — Chogyam Trungpa

Don't knock rationalization. Where would we be without it? I don't know anyone who'd get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex. Have you ever gone a week without a rationalization? — Jeff Goldblum

Soothing assumptions about the good faith and shared interests of antagonists are natural to democracy, as is the desire to spend money on things other than defense. Getting a democracy to do what does not come naturally requires leadership. — George F. Will

Sometimes evil didn't need an excuse. Sometimes evil just was. — Nenia Campbell

Stirner and Nietzsche ... reveal how prone morality is to being used as a means of rationalization, a cloak for concealing violent and brutish passions, and making their sadistic expression a virtue. — John Carroll

Right knowledge, of itself, EVIDENTLY does not bring about moral transformation in human beings - even supposing that right knowledge is something we are predisposed to desire in the first place. It is possible to be highly educated and at the same time morally depraved. There is, in fact, a certain kind of moral depravity that only the highly educated can attain, because it requires sophisticated skills of rationalization and self-deception. — Iain W. Provan

Carmen hated the 'life is too short" rationalization. She thought it was one of the lamer excuses in the history of excuse-making. Whenever you did something because "life is too short not to," you could be sure life would be just long enough to punish you for it. — Ann Brashares

Judah had failed to grasp that God's loyalty to his own character, and therefore to his own creatures, has serious implications. Some of Judah's leaders had fallen into thinking that, because their nation had been chosen to play a special role for God in history, it did not really matter how the leaders or the nation behaved. This was dangerously irresponsible and undermined the moral fibre of the people, because it led to the rationalization of corrupt and immoral behaviour that was incompatible with the law of God, albeit widely practised in the surrounding nations. — John C. Lennox

if one's religion is to mean anything, if it is to last, it has to stand outside of time and place. Its truths have to be transcendent. And though we moderns have to find a way to make the tradition livable in our own situations, we must never forget that we don't judge the religion; the religion judges us. To be blunt, a god that is no bigger than our own desires is not God at all, but a divinized rationalization for self-worship. — Rod Dreher

Reason is universal because no attempted challenge to its results can avoid appealing to reason in the end-by claiming, for example, that what was presented as an argument is really a rationalization. This can undermine our confidence in the original method or practice only by giving us reasons to believe something else, so that finally we have to think about the arguments to make up our minds. — Thomas Nagel

Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. — Viktor E. Frankl

But I contend that the disgusting behavior of many of their alleged 'holy men' relieves us of any intellectual obligation to take the stuff seriously. No amount of sanctimonious rationalization can make such behavior anything but pathological. — Robert A. Heinlein

I've been benefited from a dictionary definition I found that reads: "Rationalization is giving a socially acceptable reason for socially unacceptable behavior, and socially unacceptable behavior is a form of insanity. — Alcoholics Anonymous

I am king. I do as I please. And I am not within Israelite territory." She smiled at his rationalization and thought, This one is corrupt. I can play him. She turned her head in curiosity, much like a dog would. She squinted her reptilian eyes with revelation. The spirits in her twitched her body with ticks. She sensed something in him. Or rather, something not in him. She said, "You are alone." He said, "I have my bodyguard." "Yet, you are alone." He could see in her eyes what she was not saying explicitly. She sensed Yahweh was not with him. She said, "Why do you not consult with your seer?" "He is not speaking to me." He knew he could not gain her trust by lying to her. — Brian Godawa

The act of gaining true insights from self - reflection is a futile action for most ... as there are easy way out things like self justification, rationalization, delusions and denial which keeps us away from our true self, the inner core and thus we live contented — Anubhav Mishra

The end result is spirituality without dogma, religion without God, argument without substance, rationalization without rationality, and tranquillity by transfer of funds from the seeker's bank account to the company that makes the best offer of nirvana, at the same time producing dogmatism about relativism in matters of ultimate meaning. — Ravi Zacharias

In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail. JUDITH LEWIS HERMAN Trauma and Recovery — Jon Krakauer

It is self-evident that the tabula rasa of modernization favors the optimum use of earth-moving equipment inasmuch as a totally flat datum is regarded as the most economic matrix upon which to predicate the rationalization of construction. — Kenneth Frampton

Most every old civilizations looks at others--members of the same species but not of the same tribe--as wild men. It's a common rationalization, because when you reduce someone else to a level of something like an animal, it makes them easier to kill. — Gene Doucette

It has been said that a person's religion is best defined not by what he says what he believes but by what he actually does.Equally, it could be said that one's friends are simply those people with whom one spends one's life.Period.Anything else is a form of rationalization.
Perhaps the criterion of 'People with whom one spends one's life is better reframed as people on whom one spends one's emotional energies. — Andrew Sullivan

Reason adapts impulses and beliefs into the real world; rationalization, on the other hand, adapts the concept of reality to the impulses and beliefs of the individual. Reasoning discovers the true cause of our acts, rationalization finds good reasons for justifying our acts. — Gordon Allport

How many times has our conscience firmly prompted us to 'draw the line,' and we showed up with an eraser? — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Well, in a world where so few of us are obliged to cook at all anymore, to choose to do so is to lodge a protest against specialization - against the total rationalization of life. Against the infiltration of commercial interests into every last cranny of our lives. To cook for the pleasure of it, to devote a portion of our leisure to it, is to declare our independence from the corporations seeking to organize our every waking moment into yet another occasion for consumption. (Come to think of it, our nonwaking moments as well: Ambien, anyone?) It is to reject the debilitating notion that, at least while we're at home, production is work best done by someone else, and the only legitimate form of leisure is consumption. This dependence marketers call freedom. — Michael Pollan

Some are filled with a compelling urge, a temptation that recycles in the mind, perhaps to become a habit, then an addiction. We are prone to some transgression and sin and also a rationalization that we have no guilt because we were born that way. We become trapped, and hence comes the pain and torment that only the Savior can heal. You have the power to stop and to be redeemed. — Boyd K. Packer

Fear comes in many forms, and we usually don't call it by its four-letter name. Fear itself is quite fear-inducing. Most intelligent people in the world dress it up as something else: optimistic denial. Most who avoid quitting their jobs entertain the thought that their course will improve with time or increases in income. This seems valid and is a tempting hallucination when a job is boring or uninspiring instead of pure hell. Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough clever rationalization. — Anonymous

In a way, gluttony is an athletic feat, a stretching exercise. — John Updike

The forms rationalization can take are limited only by human creativity, and we are a very creative species. — Dan Gardner

Theology is the post hoc rationalization of what you want to believe. — Jerry A. Coyne

With all the god-awful suffering in this war, I suppose somebody ought to be enjoying it. — Henry V. O'Neil

All theology represents an intellectual rationalization of the possession of sacred values... Every theology... presupposes that the world must have a meaning, and the question is how to interpret this meaning so that it is intellectually conceivable. — Max Weber

We are so clothed in rationalization and dissemblance that we can recognize but dimly the deep primal impulses that motivate us. — James Ramsey Ullman

We live Law to ourselves. Our reason is our Law. — John Milton

Sometimes I feel foolish for hoping she's alive. But then I feel guilty--as if being 'realistic' is giving up.
Other times, I think the uncertainty is the worst part. Alive or dead, I just need to know...
Or maybe that's just a bullshit rationalization. Because I know the day you come here to tell me that she's dead will be the worst day of my life. — Jeff Jensen

Lifting your eyes from the things of this world is an activity that must begin WHERE YOU ARE. — K.P. Yohannan

People never mean to do thingd that are hurtful, yet sometimes it just happens, through an intense moment, through brief rationalization, or by simply speaking words that only belong inside one's head. — Jessica Sorensen

Companies can add value and simultaneously promote themselves if their product or service truly improves the lives of their customers. I mean really improve lives, not wishful thinking, rationalization. That's the acid test. — Guy Kawasaki

To use ones religion as a rationalization for lack of financial success demeans that faith. — James Cook

I have great respect for the corrosive influence of bias, systematic distortions of thought, the power of rationalization, the guises of self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended consequences. — Michael Crichton

In further institutionalizing the great power of the majority, we are making the individual come to distrust himself. We are giving him a rationalization for the unconscious urging to find an authority that would resolve the burdens of free choice. We are tempting him to reinterpret the group pressures as a release, authority as freedom, and that this quest assumes a moral guise makes it only the more poignant. — William H. Whyte

All of us are prone to excuse our own mediocre performance. We blame our misfortunes, our disfigurements, our so-called handicaps. Victims of our own rationalization, we say silently to ourselves, 'I'm just too weak,' or 'I'm not cut out for better things.' Others soar beyond our meager accomplishments. Envy and discouragement take their toll. — Thomas S. Monson

But I cheered myself up slightly with the rationalization that all new relationships - even the fictional ones - have obstacles to overcome in the beginning. I would not give up hope on this one. Not yet. — Lauren Weisberger

Our common humanity is neither a rationalization nor a deduction. It is as much a given as our nationality. — Nicos Hadjicostis

The author says we enlist reasons to convince others to join the direction of our instincts. — Jonathan Haidt

There is, indeed, a viewpoint from which this "rationalization" of life is not rational. The brain is clever enough to see the vicious circle which it has made for itself. But it can do nothing about it. Seeing that it is unreasonable to worry does not stop worrying; rather, you worry the more at being unreasonable. — Alan W. Watts

Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics. This is why, when pressed, the atheist will often attempt to hide his lack of conviction in his own beliefs behind some poorly formulated utilitarianism, or argue that he acts out of altruistic self-interest. But this is only post-facto rationalization, not reason or rational behavior. — Theodore Beale

Ingenuity was apparently given man in order that he may supply himself in crises with shapes and sounds with which to guard himself from truth. — William Faulkner

Small wonder our national spirit is husk empty. We have more information but less knowledge. More communication but less community. More goods but less goodwill. More of virtually everything save that which the human spirit requires. So distracted have we become sating this new need or that material appetite, we hardly noticed the departure of happiness — Randall Robinson

Darkness should never be an excuse to quit, for with God, darkness is the exact stuff that light was built for. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

The concept of deferred gratification, or sacrificing now to save for the future, can be helpful in setting aside money in a retirement account for old age. It can also serve as an effective rationalization for life avoidance. — Chris Guillebeau

You don't realize how small you really are until you're faced with something like that. We live our lives as if we're at the center of our own universe, but we're just tiny pieces of a shattered whole. — Cora Carmack

The incommensurability between the modern economic system and the people who staff it explains why modern workers have so often been depicted as 'cogs' in the larger 'machinery' of industrial civilization; for while the practical rationalization of enterprise does require workers to be consistent, predictable, precise, uniform, and even to a certain extent creative, it does not really require them to be persons, that is, to live examined lives, to grow, to develop character, to search for truth, to know themselves, etc. — Craig M. Gay

Logic is simply the language of convenient rationalization in a pseudo-science-loving civilization. — Steven Erikson

We humans, you see, have an infinite capacity for self-rationalization. — Charles Colson

Pope Francis reminds us of Pope John XXIII because both men share the same lack of self-consciousness, and neither needs to keep his guard up through the use of psychological defenses such as rationalization, projection or intellectualization. — Eugene Kennedy

In the range of my character at any given moment, I have acted in the only way it seemed to me I could have acted. This in no way means that I have done what was right; only what was possible for me. Sometimes I have done what I knew was wrong, and have rationalized. But rationalization is a form of desperation. It takes kindness to forgive oneself for one's life. — Anne Truitt

I get sick of that old rationalization, "We're staying together because of the children." Kids couldn't be more miserable living with parents who can't stand each other. They're far better off if there's an honest, clean divorce. — Johnny Carson

The truth is, most people who do what you'd call 'wrong' do it for what they call 'right' reasons. — Brandon Sanderson

Of course, that rationalization didn't work at all. It would have helped if I'd had some Oreo cookie ice cream to eat that the same time. I've learned that self-delusion is much easier when there's something sweet in your mouth. — Lee Goldberg

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. — Carl Sagan

Avoidance is paying forward that which I would be much wiser to pay off. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

This is the art of rationalization, and we do it so often that some researchers believe that a majority of our time is spent rationalizing. That is, we go around much of the day lying to ourselves about why we are doing most of the things we do. When — Hugh Howey

In their propaganda today's dictators rely for the most part on repetition, suppression and rationalization - the repetition of catchwords which they wish to be accepted as true, the suppression of facts which they wish to be ignored, the arousal and rationalization of passions which may be used in ther interests of the Party or the State. — Aldous Huxley

The capacity of sex offenders for denial, rationalization, and minimization of their deviant behavior is confirmed by Salter's (1995) finding that the population she has interviewed seemed rather proud of their ability to manuipulate their victims into remaining attached and loyal to them. Salter notes that frequently child abusers target their victims by calculating their probably vulnerability relative to other children, recognizing that those already being abused by others are better prey than the never-molested children. — Harvey L. Schwartz