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rational
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show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • We found him in a state of considerable excitement, but far more rational in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him.   (source)
    rational = reasonable
  • In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being.   (source)
    rational = capable of reasoning
  • It sounded so rational, the alternatives so clear.†   (source)
  • Were science and rationality really coming back?†   (source)
  • Rory's words made rational sense, but hunger and fear had a way of overpowering intellect.†   (source)
  • The books the bellhops had lugged to the attic had been his father's and, devoted as they were to studies of rational philosophy and the science of modern agriculture, each promised heft and threatened impenetrability.†   (source)
  • When the driver—nicknamed Big Red because of his size and hair color—repeated the insult, Uncle Pet did what any rational business owner would do: He pulled the man from his truck, beat him unconscious, and ran an electric saw up and down his body.†   (source)
  • You're not dumb, but you're not being rational.†   (source)
  • It was too strange; he couldn't bring his rational mind to accept what was happening.†   (source)
  • Her protective vigilance for her surviving family had overtaken rationality.†   (source)
  • "But the Grail seems the only rational conclusion," she insisted.†   (source)
  • We asked courts to recognize that such a judgment cannot rationally be passed on children below a certain age because they are unfinished products, human works in progress.†   (source)
  • What monsters will creep from the darkness and steal my rationality?†   (source)
  • He spoke quite rationally to me.†   (source)
  • When Laila "went to bed, her mind was muffled up, clouded, incapable of sustained rational thought.†   (source)
  • 'Love is the only rational act.'†   (source)
  • Why do you think all rational creatures fear the dark?†   (source)
  • The basic idea of science-that there was a new way to look at reality, that it was objective, that it did not depend on your beliefs or your nationality, that it was rational-that idea was fresh and exciting back then.†   (source)
  • I seemed, on the surface, to be continually talking to myself, giving myself instructions or admonishments, asking myself what I really wanted, making comparisons, busily working my rational faculties over every aspect of Jess and my feelings for him as if there were actually something to decide.†   (source)
  • These are the rational steps.†   (source)
  • He's too calm, too rational, too cool for it to be completely, well, cool.†   (source)
  • And his rationality.†   (source)
  • Toast cannot be explained by any rational means.†   (source)
  • She stared at the note and tried to think rationally.†   (source)
  • She was a therapist and relied on her ability to hear bad news and discuss rationally the difficult details of her patients' lives, but she found herself leaning into the young policeman who had led her over.†   (source)
  • My version of events sounded perfectly rational until I was forced to say the words aloud, and then it sounded insane, particularly on the day I had to say them to the police officer who came to our house.†   (source)
  • I'm determined to speak rationally in his presence.†   (source)
  • If you didn't know that she was acting rational on the far side of crazy.†   (source)
  • In fact, rational thinking is a struggle.†   (source)
  • In a more rational society, an ability to write would be of great help to her.†   (source)
  • It was hard to think rationally when he looked at me that way.†   (source)
  • Because, I mean—mending old things, preserving them, looking after them—on some level there's no rational grounds for it —"†   (source)
  • It doesn't seem one bit rational."†   (source)
  • They knew now that their fear had been rational.†   (source)
  • Although by any rational standard I was still at high altitude-21,300 feet-this place felt manifestly different from the South Col. The murderous wind had completely abated.†   (source)
  • Part of my brain—the rational, educated part, the logical me part—screams, Blue!†   (source)
  • However, he had a problem; one that he was trying to deal with calmly and rationally.†   (source)
  • On a scale of one to ten, one being perfectly rational and reasonable and ten being absurd and certifiable.†   (source)
  • Let's discuss this rationally.†   (source)
  • Meanwhile Mrs. Huckaby, the woman I considered to be somewhat near fair and rational about the whole situation, had lapsed back into her attitude of trying to convince me there was nothing going on.†   (source)
  • One night I came home and she sat me down and laid everything out, very calmly, very rationally—or at least as rational as you can be in that kind of situation.†   (source)
  • Our persona was opinionated to the point of absurdity, prejudiced beyond rationality, and functionally insane.†   (source)
  • Be rational.†   (source)
  • I tried to stay calm and rational because it seemed Sarawa and his men were intent on saving me.†   (source)
  • There was nothing rational about Holmes, but his behavior seemed to follow a pattern.†   (source)
  • The one rational explanation for all this would have been that she did not sleep, but this was not the case.†   (source)
  • They are not rational.†   (source)
  • I let her out was the first rational thought I had.†   (source)
  • Judaism was the first of the rational religions.†   (source)
  • The sociologist George Ritzer has attacked the fast food industry for celebrating a narrow measure of efficiency over every other human value, calling the triumph of McDonald's "the irrationality of rationality."†   (source)
  • For purposes of discussion, keep your passion to a minimum and make your points rationally.†   (source)
  • He tried to be rational.†   (source)
  • I had just learned I would soon die, and in my inability to stop being rationally focused, I found myself thinking: "Shouldn't a room like this, at a time like this, have a box of Kleenex?†   (source)
  • But shortly afterwards, guided by an instinct that I could hardly have analysed rationally, I changed my plan: I left the room, hurried to the ladder leading from the landing to the attic, climbed up it, pushed the ladder away and closed the attic trapdoor after me.†   (source)
  • It doesn't mean that it is actually irrational, but it surely is not rational.†   (source)
  • I felt as though I could think more rationally.†   (source)
  • I was so worried that I wasn't acting rationally.†   (source)
  • Like rational people.†   (source)
  • Even though I am not yet a member of the board, I was able to meet with Superintendent Seymour—who has, I assure you, my deepest respect—and discuss in a calm, rational fashion what might be done.†   (source)
  • Nathaniel is confronting his fears and thinking more rationally.†   (source)
  • Go back to the Institute and talk to her rationally.†   (source)
  • He was a deplumed, maniacal parrot who did not speak when asked to but only when it was least expected, but then he did so with a clarity and rationality that were uncommon among human beings.†   (source)
  • There is a fear beyond words, beyond rational thought.†   (source)
  • You could go around implying you'd read all kinds of things, nodding knowingly when someone mentioned, say, War and Peace, and the understanding was that no one would scrutinise your claim too rationally.†   (source)
  • The hope. he said, was that, aided by the calming effects of the drug, Marley would be able to more rationally cope with storms and eventually realize they were nothing but a lot of harmless noise.†   (source)
  • The world was far too rational for that.†   (source)
  • The voice came from a cool, rational region far above my head.†   (source)
  • He might have spent two-thirds of his life caught up in something beyond rational belief, but he'd never heard another woman talk like Quinn Black.†   (source)
  • We want her to help us persuade you, Johnny said in a voice that was too calm and rational for this eerie place.†   (source)
  • Dan said, marveling at her calm rationality.†   (source)
  • His group was trying to sort things out and "eemplement some sort of rational approach."†   (source)
  • Martin swung between rationality and pure lunacy.†   (source)
  • Rationally, I knew it was a quick draw and a big leap, but emotionally, the stakes were too high to step back and think it over.†   (source)
  • His mind had turned against him, and he could not rely upon rational thought to dispel his panic.†   (source)
  • The 'sane' murderer is thought of as acting upon rational motives that can be understood, though condemned, and the 'insane' one as being driven by irrational senseless motives.†   (source)
  • I'll kill him, Alex thought rationally, calmly, after I take care of my daughter.†   (source)
  • Through the haze of his interrupted sleep and his questionable abilities of discernment, he attempted to consider the problem rationally.†   (source)
  • By tomorrow, she'll be rational —I can explain why I didn't want to turn the girls in.†   (source)
  • All he has to do is admit he was wrong, to indicate, demonstrate rational contact, and the treatment would be canceled this time.†   (source)
  • Reston was one of the first planned suburbs in America, a visible symbol of the American belief in rational design and suburban prosperity, a community of gently curved streets, making arcs through landscaped neighborhoods, where disorder and chaos were given no sign of acknowledgment and no places to hide.†   (source)
  • And, anyway, there was probably some kind of rational explanation for everything, a rational and simple explanation.†   (source)
  • His arguments are rational and coherent.†   (source)
  • The rational part of my brain finally kicked in, stomping down the chaos of panic and terror that had overtaken me.†   (source)
  • Only Johnnie, speeding down the room away from it all, was doing anything rational to avert the catastrophe.†   (source)
  • His best chance of doing so is to engage the public's emotions, for emotion is the enemy of rational argument.†   (source)
  • Even so, something that could neither be seen nor felt was invading his body, and no rational person would be happy with that.†   (source)
  • It wasn't rational to think of driving cattle over eighty waterless miles, but he had learned in his years of tracking Indians that things which seemed impossible often weren't.†   (source)
  • They were the people of superior sensibility, the ones who'd gained a rational mastery over themselves, who were not subject to moral ambivalence, to the sentimental babyshit of consequence and anguish.†   (source)
  • Social psychologists argue that all this reflects the way our consciences and ethical systems are based on individual stories and are distinct from the parts of our brains concerned with logic and rationality.†   (source)
  • Those kinds of stressors, in addition to the already crazy hormones, could easily lead to depression, anxiety, and rage, which make it harder for her to make rational decisions.†   (source)
  • This settled me somewhat, even as the more rational part of my mind reminded me that never, in the course of oh, say, fifteen relationships since junior high school, had I ever had the urge to buy a boyfriend anything more permanent than a Zip Coke.†   (source)
  • But I guess the ability to think rationally has deserted me because I don't deny it at all.†   (source)
  • The damage to the door was impossible to hide, and she realized that when her husband saw it she would have to give some rational explanation, but she consoled herself with the argument that as mistress of the house she had a right to know what was going on beneath her roof.†   (source)
  • You and I must be the only rational ones left.†   (source)
  • His voice was so calm and rational.†   (source)
  • Though part of her longed for just that, the rational side suddenly reminded her that it was Friday.†   (source)
  • The ultimate egotism, more broadly, is a belief in the existence of God … though, rationally, there is no way to get there from here.†   (source)
  • Without thinking things through with his rational mind, Vlad grabbed Eddie by the shirt collar and slammed him up against a nearby tree.†   (source)
  • What could be at the bottom of it all but a rash and not quite rational move to reject what proclaimed itself to be his weighty duty, hisEs muss sein!†   (source)
  • I switch off the TV, bury my head in my hands, and try to think calmly and rationally.†   (source)
  • It isn't rational.†   (source)
  • The ghost of rational Mia.†   (source)
  • Lanier showed genuine concern for this woman he'd never met, and poked and prodded enough to convey the message that strong painkillers taken by very sick people often cause a lapse in rational thinking.†   (source)
  • "You found our baseball," Enrique said rationally.†   (source)
  • He sounded pretty rational, after all.†   (source)
  • By graduation, I had learned the process of being rational.†   (source)
  • Or because they believed that, emotions out of the way, supreme rationality would result, utter logic, true enlightenment.†   (source)
  • There is, by the way, an area in which a man's feelings are more rational than his mind, and it is precisely in that area that his will is pulled in several directions at the same time.†   (source)
  • He believed in rational thinking and scientific inquiry, which was why he never won an argument with his mother, who believed in people doing what she told them, and believed it with a rock-hard certainty that dismissed all opposition.†   (source)
  • A Connecticut chaplain, Benjamin Trumbull, who only a short while before had delivered a rousing sermon calling for courage and heroism in battle, wrote in his diary : The men were blamed for retreating and even flying …. but I imag[in]e the fault was principally in the general officers …. to give the men [a] rational prospect of defense and a safe retreat, should they engage the enemy.†   (source)
  • A fine young man from a rational family but not trained for what he was put through.†   (source)
  • She watched the candlelight dance on his face while he concentrated, scrutinizing every move of Joe's fingers, searching as he always did for the rational solution.†   (source)
  • He had a hunch that eventually he would arrive at a rational explanation derived from this consideration of the supernatural, a provable theory that would be as logical as the meticulously structured prose of Henry James.†   (source)
  • No reason can be given for the nature of God, because that nature is the ground of rationality.†   (source)
  • "It isn't rational, is it?†   (source)
  • I don't think my prayers were particularly rational and well thought out, but more like: if You let us win this game, I will do as much as I can to honor You.†   (source)
  • But reason—or at least a willingness to conquer rational terror—prevailed and Max crept back down the stairs.†   (source)
  • After that, I did a better job of listening and, eventually, the concept of rational functions started to make a little sense.†   (source)
  • Whatever rational part that had been holding her back from diving into the darkness simply dissolved.†   (source)
  • "Tell me what you did, Pig," I said, trying to remain rational.†   (source)
  • Then my sister, the debutante, who is supposedly away at school learning to curtsy and embroider and order mussels in French, unleashed a force the likes of which I've never seen and which cannot be explained by any rational mind or laws of science.†   (source)
  • Is that reason rational?†   (source)
  • All that rational, sensible stuff.†   (source)
  • Presented Rational Arguments†   (source)
  • The night of the summer solstice, when magic tingled in the air, exciting all but the rational beings who had rejected such base instinctual urges, had begun.†   (source)
  • To be calm and rational, she had to think like a cop, not like a woman.†   (source)
  • And as much as you want to think we should be civilized right now, as much as you want to deal with this rationally, there comes a time, Caroline.†   (source)
  • All rational thought shut down and the nightmarish doubt replayed itself again and again in my mind.†   (source)
  • I'm a rational anarchist.†   (source)
  • Being as coldly rational as a human calculator …. it is.†   (source)
  • Uncontrollable floods of fear washed my normally rational mind clean of reason.†   (source)
  • Confucius, the rational man.†   (source)
  • It was scarcely surprising that he could not give a very rational account of what had happened.†   (source)
  • In order to collect my senses I decided to stay there at the Maple Court for a while, during which time I hoped to lay out a bright and rational plan of action.†   (source)
  • This one, I knew, left you rational, unable to lie, and somewhat literal-minded.†   (source)
  • Love is a madness that masquerades under a hundred rational disguises, and at first I mistook it for healthy lust.†   (source)
  • With the body definitely not being the self, and not the spectacle of the senses, so it also was not the thought, not the rational mind, not the learned wisdom, not the learned ability to draw conclusions and to develop previous thoughts in to new ones.†   (source)
  • I'm no prude, mind, just rational.†   (source)
  • He hurried on as though his pace might hasten the time when everything on earth would be as rational and harmonious as it was now inside his feverish head.†   (source)
  • But while you're being so rational, why at least please be rational enough to realize that we experienced what we experienced.†   (source)
  • Surely there must be some rational explanation of all these mysterious things.   (source)
    rational = based on scientifically accepted truths
  • When I reflected on the work I had completed, no less a one than the creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I could not rank myself with the herd of common projectors.   (source)
    rational = capable of reasoning
  • Langdon's head ached, and he felt like he was skirting the edges of rationality.†   (source)
  • You lose any chance of being rational, having common sense, having compassion.†   (source)
  • " Peeta's fairly rational about our suggestion.†   (source)
  • In the dark, rationality seemed stupid and logic a dream.†   (source)
  • Then again, some small rational part of me realized she might be right.†   (source)
  • Capitalism is an economic system which is self-destructive because it lacks rational control.†   (source)
  • There was no point in fighting if he was going to be rational; I dropped my arms.†   (source)
  • Some small rational part of me realized I was in deep shock.†   (source)
  • But he and all the Gladers were far too rational and intelligent to conclude such a thing.†   (source)
  • I call, but I know he won't turn back and wait for me to give a rational explanation.†   (source)
  • In any case, this was the birth of rational religion.†   (source)
  • Ye's rational consideration of humanity's evil side began the day she read Silent Spring.†   (source)
  • Hegel's Absolute was completely classical, completely rational and completely orderly.†   (source)
  • Calling it murder is just a way to ignite the issue; get emotions in the way of rational decisions.†   (source)
  • It was a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational.†   (source)
  • "Finally, a rational response!" he murmured.†   (source)
  • As time passed, however, even sober men and women began to think of him in less-than-rational terms.†   (source)
  • It's not fair, not rational, for me to be this angry with him, but I can't help it.†   (source)
  • He is kind, rational. lie talks about coping strategies, he reminds me that youth is on my side.†   (source)
  • Maybe it wasn't rational, but the world I lived in wasn't rational anymore.†   (source)
  • He said, 'Love is the only rational act.'†   (source)
  • Sometimes he's almost rational, and then, for no reason, he goes off again.†   (source)
  • I think they're a little more gone than we are, starting to lose their rational sides.†   (source)
  • But once I reached the boiling point, I lost all rational control.†   (source)
  • Rather, she looked with a rational gaze on the madness and hatred that had harmed her.†   (source)
  • You also said that the French have always been more rational than the British.†   (source)
  • It wasn't just another interesting idea to be tested by existing rational methods.†   (source)
  • Before the altar of this most rational of churches.†   (source)
  • I took a breath to calm myself, and tried to sound rational.†   (source)
  • And she used it to make a rational argument look silly.†   (source)
  • But he knew it to be true—it was the only explanation his rational mind could accept.†   (source)
  • It was not entirely rational — Jacob was hardly in need of any physical protection I could offer.†   (source)
  • There was no rational explanation for how I was alive at this moment.†   (source)
  • I have no idea what I was going to say to her nothing rational, I'm sure.†   (source)
  • In the face of madness, rationality was powerless.†   (source)
  • If you can't define something you have no formal rational way of knowing that it exists.†   (source)
  • To me, at least, it seems more rational than prom does.†   (source)
  • But it is a striking example of how people's views of what is rational change all the time.†   (source)
  • Some distant, rational part of my mind thought: of course, to make it volatile.†   (source)
  • Rhetoric is an art, Aristotle began, because it can be reduced to a rational system of order.†   (source)
  • It was also considered rational to believe in the immortality of the soul.†   (source)
  • Man is not really such a rational creature as the eighteenth-century rationalists liked to think.†   (source)
  • I'm just as happy to be thinking about the rational, analytical, classical world of Phaedrus.†   (source)
  • There's no rational reason I can think of for saying it's not good.†   (source)
  • It can't be solved by rational means because the rationality itself is the source of the problem.†   (source)
  • It was a modification of the existing rational methods themselves.†   (source)
  • It's the understanding of this rational intellectual idea that's fundamental.†   (source)
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