Absurdity Quotes - Page 13

• Leaps of innovation require a bravery that borders on absurdity.

  Astro Teller

  Bravery, Innovation, Borders

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• No men deserve the title of infidels so little as those to whom it has been usually applied; let any of those who renounce Christianity, write fairly down in a book all the absurdities that they believe instead of it, and they will find that it requires more faith to reject Christianity than to embrace it.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Believe, Book, Writing

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

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• We are living in an interminable succession of absurdities imposed by the myopic logic of short-term thinking.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Thinking, Myopic, Logic

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• When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon, than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths, or to reject absurdities, and palpable contradictions.

  Baron d'Holbach

  Men, Common Sense, Opinion

  "Good Sense without God, or, Freethoughts Opposed to Supernatural Ideas". Book by Baron d'Holbach, 1900.

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• The absurdity of public-choice theory is captured by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in the following little scenario: "Can you direct me to the railway station?" asks the stranger. "Certainly," says the local, pointing in the opposite direction, towards the post office, "and would you post this letter for me on your way?" "Certainly," says the stranger, resolving to open it to see if it contains anything worth stealing.

  Linda McQuaig

  Winning, Opposites, Office

  Linda McQuaig (2001). “All you can eat: greed, lust, and the new capitalism”, Viking

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• If one lives in a country where racism is held valid and practiced in all ways of life eventually, no matter whether one is a racist or a victim, one comes to feel the absurdity of life....Racism generated from whites is first of all absurd. Racism creates absurdity among blacks as a defense mechanism.

  Chester Himes

  Life, Country, White

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• The idea that the bumps or depressions on a man's head indicate the presence or absence of certain moral characteristics in his mental equipment is one of the absurdities developed from studies in this field that has long since been discarded by science. The ideas of the phrenologist Gall, however ridiculous they may now seem in the light of a century's progress, were nevertheless destined to become metamorphosed into the modern principles of cerebral localization.

  Edward Anthony Spitzka

  Science, Men, Light

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• Religion is a belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die. It therefore has no reality check. And it is therefore uniquely armored against criticism, questioning, and self-correction. It is uniquely armored against anything that might stop it from spinning into extreme absurdity, extreme denial of reality… and extreme, grotesque immorality.

  Greta Christina

  Reality, Voice, Self

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• Born to an age where horror has become commonplace, where tragedy has, by its monotonous repetition, become a parody of sorrow, we need to fence off a few parks where humans try to be fair, where skill has some hope of reward, where absurdity has a harder time than usual getting a ticket.

  Thomas Boswell

  Skills, Sorrow, Tragedy

  Thomas Boswell (1984). “Why Time Begins on Opening Day”, Doubleday Books

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• An opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a moral offense, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken; it may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction. It is a truth; or it is an error: it can never be a crime or a virtue.

  Frances Wright

  Errors, May, Opinion

  Frances Wright (1850). “A few days in Athens: being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum”, p.166

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• If you want to change from sex towards love, try to understand your sexuality. Watch it, watch the mechanicalness of it. See the futility, see the whole absurdity of it - it is not leading you anywhere. Become a little more refined, become a little more subtle. Look not for the body, but somebody's being. Watch, explore. Sooner or later you will find somebody who fits with you.

  Rajneesh

  Sex, Trying, Watches

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• All non-incumbent campaigns promise hope and change, but Obama took the promise to a new level of absurdity. He suggested that a vote for him would literally transform the Earth.

  John Podhoretz

  Promise, Campaigns, Levels

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• Ecstatic absurdity: it's the confrontation with meaninglessness.

  Errol Morris

  Confrontation, Ecstatic, Meaninglessness

  Interview With Werner Herzog, www.believermag.com. March/April 2008.

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• What do dancers think of Fred Astaire? It's no secret. We hate him. He gives us a complex because he's too perfect. His perfection is an absurdity. It's too hard to face.

  Mikhail Baryshnikov

  Hate, Thinking, Giving

  "Astaire, the biography". Book by Tim Satchell, 1987.

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• Manlius ... took care in his invitations, actively sought to exclude from his circle crude and vulgar men like Caius Valerius. But they were all around; it was Manlius who lived in a dream world, and his bubble of civility was becoming smaller and smaller. Caius Valerius, powerful member of a powerful family, had never even heard of Plato. A hundred, even fifty years before, such an absurdity would have been inconceivable. Now it was surprising if such a man did know anything of philosophy, and even if it was explained, he would not wish to understand.

  Iain Pears

  Dream, Powerful, Plato

  Iain Pears (2003). “Dream of Scipio”, p.18, Penguin

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• You've just got to focus on excellence and try not to be distracted by the news and the rumors and the absurdities of the stories that were coming out.

  James Daly

  Focus, Excellence, Rumor

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• I am beginning to realize that "sanity" is no longer a value or an end in itself. The "sanity" of modern man is about as useful to him as the huge bulk and muscles of the dinosaur. If he were a little less sane, a little more doubtful, a little more aware of his absurdities and contradictions, perhaps there might be a possibility of his survival.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, People, Survival

  "Raids on the Unspeakable".

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• Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.

  Thomas Paine

  Contradiction, New Testament, Blasphemy

  Thomas Paine (1826). “An examination of the passages in the New Testament quoted from the Old and called prophecies concerning Jesus Christ. To which is prefixed, An essay on dreams. Also an appendix”, p.34

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• Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Saint, Poverty, Reason

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• The apology, that is constantly put forth for the injustice of government, viz., that a man must consent to give up some of his rights, in order to have his other rights protected - involves a palpable absurdity, both legally and politically.

  Lysander Spooner

  Giving Up, Apology, Men

  Lysander Spooner (1845). “The Unconstitutionality of Slavery”, p.21

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• My poems, I think, exist in a state of tension between the love of natural beauty and the fear of natural meaninglessness or absurdity.

  Hayden Carruth

  Thinking, Natural, States

  "Hayden Carruth, Poet and Critic, Dies at 87" by William Grimes, www.nytimes.com. September 30, 2008.

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• That's part of the comedy, too, is we do have jokes throughout of hanging a lantern on the absurdity of the world. Like, when BoJack's flying over the neighborhood, you see some houses have swimming pools in the backyard, and what does that mean? Why would there be a swimming pool underwater? But we thought it was funny.

  Raphael Bob-Waksberg

  Mean, Swimming, House

  Source: www.hitfix.com

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• With a character like a Captain Jack, who can essentially set up these verbal land mines around him, and just keep passing the "absurdity ball" around and the "irreverence ball" around, and keep people guessing and keep people confused, there's great safety in that. Me, myself, personally, I learn from it. It's a real pleasure, and I do need him.

  Johnny Depp

  Confused, Real, Character

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• It is easy to see, though it scarcely needs to be pointed out, since it is involved in the fact that Reason is set aside, that faith is not a form of knowledge; for all knowledge is either a knowledge of the eternal, excluding the temporal and historical as indifferent, or it is pure historical knowledge. No knowledge can have for its object the absurdity that the eternal is the historical.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Faith, Knowledge, Historical

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• The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.

  John Adams

  Jesus, Faith Religion, Atheism

  "Fictional character: John Adams". "Spirit", Book by William Edelen, 1989.

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