quotations about rationalization
There's never been an act done since the beginning, from a kid stealing candy to a dictator committing genocide, that the person doing it didn't think he was fully justified. That's a mental trick called rationalizing, and it's done the human race more harm than anything else you can name.
LEIGH BRACKETT
The Long Tomorrow
Rationalizing is logical thought misused.
RUSS PETERSON, DON SANDERS & DAVID COX
Cut the Crap and Make the Sale
Because rationalizing is not a logical process but rather a primitive attempt to avoid anxiety, the delusions it produces make little sense, and are usually devoid of much concrete meaning.
JOHN INCE
The Politics of Lust
One kind of rationalizing is to find a respectable motive for doing something after we have done it for a much less respectable one.
W. J. SCOTT
The Uses of Persuasive Language
Mankind will persist in self-justification until all their iniquity is exposed, and their character past being redeemed, and that which is treasured up in their hearts be exposed to the gaze of mankind.
JOSEPH SMITH
letter to William W. Phelps, January 11, 1833
Rationalizing is usually not a deliberate process to distort the analysis of arguments, which makes it difficult to recognize and guard against. It is easier to recognize rationalizing when someone else is doing it. Perhaps the best you can do is realize that rationalizing does occur and to try to be especially vigilant for rationalizing when you prefer a conclusion.
DIANE F. HALPERN
Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking
To represent the ruses of rationalization as rational would be misleadingly to follow rationalization, which disguises the subterranean and supernatural authorization from which it draws much of its legitimacy.
MARTIN HARRIES
Scare Quotes from Shakespeare: Marx, Keynes, and the Language of Reenchantment
Rationalization is the use of reasoning to make sure that one comes out in the right place. Not long ago the dominant ideal within intellectual circles was to judge the conclusion by the method through which it was derived. If the method was good, you were required to accept the conclusion, at least provisionally. Now, sadly, the method is judged by whether it brings you out at the "right" conclusion, as determined by institutional consensus congealed around glittering personalities. If you don't come out to the "right" conclusion, your method is wrong, and you are probably a bad person.
DALLAS WILLARD
attributed, Is The Truth Out There?
Reasoning is man's most useful tool for making adaptations at high levels, whereas rationalizing is man's most useful tool for preventing just that.
FLORENCE LYNDON MEREDITH & WARREN H. SOUTHWORTH
Science of Health
Rationalizing is a device by means of which one protects his ego.... It consists of giving "good" reasons instead of the real ones.
BERKELEY ENTERPRISES
The Notebook on Common Sense, Elementary and Advanced
What is reason for one man is rationalization for another. The variable is the accepted vocabulary of motives, the ultimates of (justificatory) discourse, of each man's dominant group about whose opinion he cares.
C. WRIGHT MILLS
"Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive", American Sociological Review, 1940
Many of us have elected to adjust our consciences rather than our lives. Our powers of rationalization are unlimited. They allow us to live in luxury and indifference while others, whom we could help if we chose to, starve and go to hell.
RANDY ALCORN
Money, Possessions and Eternity
Sometimes, we need little lies to save our pride. And sometimes we need big lies to save our souls.
BETTIE SHARPE
Ember
The minute study of the process of rationalization is perhaps the most significant contribution of psychoanalysis to human progress.
ERICH FROMM
Psychoanalysis and Religion
Your ability to rationalize your own bad deeds makes you believe that the whole world is as amoral as you are.
DOUGLAS COUPLAND
Shampoo Planet
People have a tendency to rationalize what they can, and forget what they can't.
RICHIE TANKERSLEY CUSICK
The Harvest
Rationalizing is the self-exculpation which occurs when we feel ourselves, or our group, accused of misapprehension or error.
JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON
The Mind in the Making
Well, back to Psychology 101, rationalizing is a defense mechanism that protects the self. So what are you protecting yourself from?
JOHN DARLAND
God ... On Life: A Personal Conversation
The ego's capacity for self-deceit and rationalization is enormous and endless. It is truly a most cunning invention of the imagination.
STEVEN PAYEUR
Notes and Quotes: Steps to Spiritual Awakening
We have that wonderful dangerous trait of rationalization. It works most effectively and ingeniously when self is involved. Think about it, observe yourself and see how deceptively it works.
ROBERT B. CALLAHAN, SR.
attributed, A Treasury of Illustrations and Quotations from Walking With Jesus