Absurd Quotes - Page 24

• There is nothing so absurd as knowledge spun too fine.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Knowledge, Fine, Spun

  4 Copy quote

• It is an absurd law [Section 295A of the Indian penal code] but also extremely dangerous because it gives fanatics, whether they are Hindus, Catholics or Muslims, a licence to be offended. It also allows people who are in dispute with you to make up false accusations of blasphemy.

  Richard Dawkins

  Law, People, Giving

  5 Copy quote

• The gospel of a God found in broken flesh, humility, and measureless charity has defeated all the old lies, rendered the ancient order visibly insufficient and even slightly absurd, and instilled in us a longing for transcendent love so deep that-if once yielded to-it will never grant us rest anywhere but in Christ.

  David Bentley Hart

  Lying, Humility, Order

  25 Copy quote

• We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years-contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence-Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.

  Tony Blair

  Years, Iraq, Weapons

  "Tony Blair's Iraq War speech in full: How Labour's leader convinced MPs to vote for era-defining conflict". Article by Dan Bloom, www.mirror.co.uk. July 5, 2016.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is absurd to say in respect of any intelligence that it is infallible, but if you ask me what I believe, I believe the intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an explanation.

  Tony Blair

  Believe, Thinking, Iraq

  "Powell admits weapons may not be found" by Duncan Campbell, Richard Norton-Taylor, www.theguardian.com. January 25, 2004.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• How absurd to take the credit of doing the good act on oneself and lay the blame for the evil act on the Lord!

  Swami Vivekananda

  Evil, Credit, Blame

  Swami Vivekananda (1953). “Complete Works”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation, And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had everything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

  W. H. Auden

  Teacher, Children, War

  "The Unknown Citizen" l. 22 (1939)

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• By the time I actually recorded Bitter Tears I carried a heavy load of sadness and outrage; I felt every word of those songs... I expected there to be trouble with that album, and there was.... when it was released, many radio stations wouldn't play it.... The very idea of unconventional or even original ideas ending up on "country" radio in the late 1990s is absurd.

  Johnny Cash

  Country, Song, Sadness

  4 Copy quote

• Rise early. It is the early bird that catches the worm. Don't be fooled by this absurd law; I once knew a man who tried it. He got up at sunrise and a horse bit him.

  Mark Twain

  Horse, Men, Law

  Mark Twain (2017). “The Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated Edition): Novels, Short Stories, Memoir, Travel Books, Letters, Biography, Articles & Speeches: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, Yankee in King Arthur's Court…”, p.8122, e-artnow

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• We must keep our freedom of mind, ... and must believe that in nature what is absurd, according to our theories, is not always impossible.

  Claude Bernard

  Nature, Believe, Science

  Claude Bernard (2012). “An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine”, p.66, Courier Corporation

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I express many absurd opinions. But I am not the first man to do it; American freedom consists largely in talking nonsense.

  E. W. Howe

  Men, Talking, America

  10 Copy quote

• Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance as the title page and Preface to a most learned volume. So they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. And when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. In each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Country, Wisdom, Mistake

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.773, Library of Alexandria

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you meditate long enough, deep enough, it is impossible for you to hurt anybody for food; it is impossible. It is not a question of argument, it is not a question of scriptures, it is not who says what, it is not a question of calculating that if you take vegetarian food you will become spiritual; it is automatic. It is not a question of cunningness, you simply become spiritual. The whole thing seems so absurd. Just for food, killing animals, birds, seems so absurd, it falls down.

  Rajneesh

  Spiritual, Hurt, Fall

  16 Copy quote

• . . . I do think that deep down, a lot of my work is about people trying to make reasonable accommodations of situations that are insane or absurd. . . . At first I thought the events had power in themselves, that I would just present them. I really wasn't aware of the things that finally became central issues to me - the shifting alliances, the way people hardly even know they've shifted. That part of [A QUESTION OF MERCY] is very familiar to me in terms of my other plays.

  David Rabe

  Thinking, Play, Issues

  4 Copy quote

• [Men] prefer the foolish belief and the passions of the earth [to the enlightenment of their souls]. They believe the absurd and shrink from the truth.No, they do not. They are afraid, that is all. And they must remain on earth until they come to the way of leaving it.And how do they leave? How is the ascent made? Must one learn virtue?Here she laughs. You have read too much, and learned too little. Virtue is a road, not a destination. Man cannot be virtuous. Understanding is the goal. When that is achieved, the soul can take wing.

  Iain Pears

  Believe, Passion, Men

  4 Copy quote

• It has become too easy to see that the luckless men of the past lived by mistakes, even absurd beliefs, so we may well fail in a decent respect for them, and forget that historians of the future will point out that we too lived by myths.

  Herbert J. Muller

  Mistake, Past, Men

  8 Copy quote

• The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Tired, Vanity

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1043, GENERAL PRESS

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• W. Kamau Bell is in the vanguard of a new era of American comedy for an unsettling, troubling, and strangely hopeful time. Firmly in the fearless tradition of Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, & Chris Rock. Comedy as common sense purged of the absurd hypocrisy that is Our America.

  Vernon Reid

  America, Rocks, Hypocrisy

  4 Copy quote

• The absurd, with its rupture of rationality-of conventional ways of seeing the world-is in fact an accurate and a productive way of understanding the world.

  William Kentridge

  Understanding, World, Rupture

  64 Copy quote

• The wish to talk to God is absurd. We cannot talk to one we cannot comprehend — and we cannot comprehend God; we can only believe in Him.

  Immanuel Kant

  Believe, Wish

  "A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources" by H. L. Mencken, (p. 955), 1946.

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life is not an orderly progression, self-contained like a musical scale or a quadratic equation... If one is to record one's life truthfully, one must aim at getting into the record of it something of the disorderly discontinuity which makes it so absurd, unpredictable, bearable.

  Leonard Woolf

  Self, Musical, Records

  22 Copy quote

• There is such an overvaluation of technology stocks that it is absurd. I would include our stock in that category. It is bad for the long-term worth of the economy.

  Steve Ballmer

  Technology, Long, Economy

  4 Copy quote

• I like to imagine a person's psyche to be like a boardinghouse full of characters. The ones who show up regularly and who habitually follow the house rules may not have met other long-term residents who stay behind closed doors, or who only appear at night. An adequate theory of character must make room for character actors, for the stuntmen and animal handlers, for all the figures who play bit parts and produce unexpected acts. They often make the show fateful, or tragic, or farcically absurd.

  James Hillman

  Character, Night, Animal

  31 Copy quote

• The earlier, more analytic impulse was to use very rational but kind of absurd techniques or tendencies—mapping, charting, and architecture—to try and make sense of who I was in my time and space and political environment. But there’s only so much truth to a theoretical understanding of something.

  Julie Mehretu

  Space, Political, Understanding

  11 Copy quote

• Deep, dark unearthly black. I hadn't told anyone yet, but the color kept streaking across my mind at the oddest moments. When it did, my skin shivered pleasantly, and it was as if I could feel the color tracing a finger tenderly along my jaw, tipping my chin up to face it directly. I knew it was absurd to think a color would come to life, but once or twice, I was sure I'd caught a flash of something more substantial behind the color. A pair of eyes. The way they studied me cut to the heart.

  Becca Fitzpatrick

  Eye, Heart, Cutting

  Becca Fitzpatrick (2013). “The Complete Hush, Hush Saga: includes Hush, Hush; Crescendo; Silence and Finale”, p.578, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source