All 50 Uses of
rational
in
Atlas Shrugged
- She felt, at the same time, a growing respect for the adversary, for a science that was so clean, so strict, so luminously rational.†
Chpt 1.3
- At times, she almost doubted her own rationality or the existence of any rationality anywhere; but this was a doubt which she did not permit to anyone.†
Chpt 1.5
- At times, she almost doubted her own rationality or the existence of any rationality anywhere; but this was a doubt which she did not permit to anyone.†
Chpt 1.5
- And that you should have become what you are-that does not belong in a rational universe.†
Chpt 1.5
- He concentrated on the relief of the mirror's cooling touch, wondering how one went about forcing one's mind into blankness, particularly after a lifetime lived on the axiom that the constant, clearest, most ruthless function of his rational faculty was his foremost duty.†
Chpt 1.6
- Having dealt with the clean reality of metals, technology, production all his life, he had acquired the conviction that one had to concern oneself with the rational, not the insane-that one had to seek that which was right, because the right answer always won-that the senseless, the wrong, the monstrously unjust could not work, could not succeed, could do nothing but defeat itself.†
Chpt 1.6
- If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception.†
Chpt 1.6
- They cannot be reached by a rational argument.
Chpt 1.7 *rational = reasonable
- The same brilliant vision of man as a rational being.†
Chpt 1.7
- She was a girl in her late twenties, whose quietly harmonious, impenetrable face had a quality matching the best designed office equipment; she was one of his most ruthlessly competent employees; her manner of performing her duties suggested the kind of rational cleanliness that would consider any element of emotion, while at work, as an unpardonable immorality.†
Chpt 1.7
- It was a net of connections, more intricate, more crucial than all of their wires and circuits: the rational connections made by that human mind which had fashioned any one part of them for the first time.†
Chpt 1.8
- In the clean, rational world of the underground tunnels, nothing was of so urgent an importance as the task of finding the man who made the motor.†
Chpt 1.10
- The more certain you feel of your rational conclusions, the more certain you are to be wrong.†
Chpt 2.1
- If you have not yet heard it, my dear old-fashioned friends, it has now been proved that the rational is the insane.†
Chpt 2.1
- I will not help you to preserve an appearance of rationality by entering a debate in which a gun is the final argument.†
Chpt 2.4
- Instead, he said calmly, very simply-and the only note of a personal bond between them was that tone of sincerity which comes with a direct, unqualifiedly rational statement and implies the same honesty of mind in the listener-"You know, I think that the only real moral crime that one man can commit against another is the attempt to create, by his words or actions, an impression of the contradictory, the impossible, the irrational, and thus shake the concept of rationality in his…†
Chpt 2.4
- …he said calmly, very simply-and the only note of a personal bond between them was that tone of sincerity which comes with a direct, unqualifiedly rational statement and implies the same honesty of mind in the listener-"You know, I think that the only real moral crime that one man can commit against another is the attempt to create, by his words or actions, an impression of the contradictory, the impossible, the irrational, and thus shake the concept of rationality in his victim."†
Chpt 2.4
- "But this is a matter of the spirit," said Lawson; his voice had a tone, not of rational respect, but of superstitious awe.†
Chpt 2.6
- Bill Brent knew nothing about epistemology; but he knew that man must live by his own rational perception of reality, that he cannot act against it or escape it or find a substitute for it-and that there is no other way for him to live.†
Chpt 2.7
- With the single-tracked rationality of a somnambulist,, she whirled to find her handbag, as if it were the only object in existence, she seized it, she whirled to the door and ran.†
Chpt 2.8
- It was as if the life he had been about to renounce were given back to him by the two essentials he needed: by his food and by the presence of a rational being.†
Chpt 2.10
- The electric light came on and brought her back to a rational world.†
Chpt 2.10
- It is not your obedience that we seek to win, but your rational conviction.†
Chpt 3.1
- "Through all the ages," he said, "the mind has been regarded as evil, and every form of insult: from heretic to materialist to exploiterevery form of iniquity: from exile to disfranchisement to expropriation-every form of torture: from sneers to rack to firing squadhave been brought down upon those who assumed the responsibility of looking at the world through the eyes of a living consciousness and performing the crucial act of a rational connection.†
Chpt 3.1
- So we came to set aside one month a year to spend in this valley-to rest, to live in a rational world, to bring our real work out of hiding, to trade our achievements-here, where achievements meant payment, not expropriation.†
Chpt 3.1
- Your frozen trains, the gangs of raiders, the deserters, they're men who've never heard of us, and they're not part of our strike, they are acting on their own-it's the natural response of whatever rationality is still left in them-it's the same kind of protest as ours.†
Chpt 3.1
- This country was the only country in history born, not of chance and blind tribal warfare, but as a rational product of man's mind.†
Chpt 3.2
- Whether it's a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through one's own eyes-which means: the capacity to perform a rational identification —which means: the capacity to sew, to connect and to make what had not been seen, connected and made before.†
Chpt 3.2
- It does take an exceptional mind and a still more exceptional integrity to remain untouched by the brain-destroying influences of the world's doctrines, the accumulated evil of centuries-to remain human, since the human is the rational.†
Chpt 3.2
- Would that have been a future which Robert Stadler would have considered rational?†
Chpt 3.2
- …numbed indifference of her mind: Jim had always managed to switch the weight of his failures upon the strongest plants around him and to survive by destroying them to pay for his errors, as he had done with Dan Conway, as he had done with the industries of Colorado; but this did not have even the rationality of a looter-this pouncing upon the drained carcass of a weaker, a half bankrupt competitor for a moment's delay, with nothing but a cracking bone between the pouncer and the abyss.†
Chpt 3.3
- She felt suddenly certain that it came from something deeper than his fear of bureaucratic reprisal, that the reprisal was the only identification of it which he would permit himself to know, a reassuring identification which had a semblance of rationality and hid his true motive.†
Chpt 3.3
- She said, as if she were naming her thoughts for the benefit of the rational being who was not present, but whose presence she had to assume, since no other could be addressed, "That night …. those headlines …. that glory …. it was not you at all …. it was Dagny."†
Chpt 3.4
- "Miss Taggart," said a politely rational, faintly anxious voice-and jerking her head up, she saw the courteous figure of a waiter, "the assistant manager of the Taggart Terminal is on the telephone, requesting permission to speak to you at once.†
Chpt 3.5
- He had never loved his mills as he did in that moment, for-seeing them by an act of his own vision, cleared of all but his own code of values, in a luminous reality that held no contradictions-he was seeing the reason of his love: the mills were an achievement of his mind, devoted to his enjoyment of existence, erected in a rational world to deal with rational men.†
Chpt 3.6
- He had never loved his mills as he did in that moment, for-seeing them by an act of his own vision, cleared of all but his own code of values, in a luminous reality that held no contradictions-he was seeing the reason of his love: the mills were an achievement of his mind, devoted to his enjoyment of existence, erected in a rational world to deal with rational men.†
Chpt 3.6
- Both sides agreed that no rational morality is possible, that there is no right or wrong in reason-that in reason there's no reason to be moral.†
Chpt 3.7
- Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal, Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice.†
Chpt 3.7
- Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal, Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice.†
Chpt 3.7
- Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal, Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice.†
Chpt 3.7
- AH that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.†
Chpt 3.7
- A rational process is a moral process.†
Chpt 3.7
- To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions.†
Chpt 3.7
- The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.†
Chpt 3.7
- These three values imply and require all of man's virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.†
Chpt 3.7
- Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking-that the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action-that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise-that a concession to the irrational invalidates one's consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality-that the alleged short-cut to knowledge,…†
Chpt 3.7
- …to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee-that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in…†
Chpt 3.7
- …cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification-that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly, that just as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, so you do not value a rotter above…†
Chpt 3.7
- …is a being of self-made soul-that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of Man, the rational being he is born able to create, but must create by choice-that the first precondition of self-esteem is that radiant selfishness of soul which desires the best in all things, in values of matter and spirit, a soul that seeks above all…†
Chpt 3.7
- Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.†
Chpt 3.7
Definition:
-
(rational as in: rational behavior) reasonablein various senses, including:
- "It's not rational to treat 2+2 as 5." -- logical as contrasted to illogical
- "I know you're upset, but please think about this in a rational manner." -- based on reason as contrasted to emotion
- "When I was 10-years-old, I wasn't very smart, but I was still rational." -- capable of using reason as contrasted to being insane or lacking the ability to reason
- "In matters of the heart, I trust my intuition more than my rational analysis." -- based on a logical analysis as contrasted to intuition, instinct, custom, tarot-card reading, or some other system of decision making