Absurd Quotes - Page 7

• To me the world seems grotesque, absurd, ridiculous, painful.

  Eugene Ionesco

  World, Ridiculous, Painful

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• Being Christian without the Church doesn't make sense. That's why the great Paul VI, said that the most absurd dichotomy is loving Christ without the Church. To listen to Christ, but not the Church. To be with Christ, but stay at the margins of the Church. It's not possible. It's an absurd dichotomy.

  Pope Francis

  Christian, Church, Said

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• The kingdom that Jesus preached and lived was all about a glorious, uproarious, absurd generosity.

  N. T. Wright

  Jesus, Generosity, Kingdoms

  N. T. Wright (2004). “Luke for Everyone”, p.80, Westminster John Knox Press

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• When a person’s tongue is extensively wrong, it is absurd, no less than unscriptural, to say that their heart is right.

  J. C. Ryle

  Heart, Tongue, Persons

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• If you do not make it a matter of study, how you may successfully act in building up the kingdom of Christ, you are acting a very wicked and absurd part as a Christian.

  Charles Grandison Finney

  Christian, Building Up, Acting

  Charles Grandison Finney (1835). “Lectures on revivals of religion”, p.159

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• Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Atheist, Law, Atheism

  Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (2015). “The Spirit of Laws”, p.15, Library of Alexandria

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• That soul-destroying, meaningless, mechanical, moronic work is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and that no amount of 'bread and circuses' can compensate for the damage done-these are facts which are neither denied nor acknowledged but are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence-because to deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society as a crime against humanity.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Silence, Soul, Humanity

  E.F. Schumacher (1975). “Small is Beautiful”

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• To talk of comparing the Bible with other "sacred books" so called, such as the Koran...or the book of Mormon, is positively absurd. You might as well compare the sun with a rushlight, or Skiddaw with a molehill, or St. Paul's with an Irish hovel, or the Portland vase with a garden pot, or the Kohinoor diamond with a bit of glass. God seems to have allowed the existence of these pretended revelations, in order to prove the immeasurable superiority of His own Word.

  J. C. Ryle

  Bible, Book, Garden

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• It’s absolutely absurd to say you are a disciple of Jesus Christ yet not bear the fruit of Jesus Christ.

  Paul Washer

  Jesus, Fruit, Bears

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• The absurd has meaning only in so far as it is not agreed to.

  Albert Camus

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.31, Vintage

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• Broken people say awful things and do incredibly absurd things.

  Kevin Costner

  People, Broken, Awful

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• Why do photographers start giving numbers to their prints? It’s absurd. What do you do when the 20th print has been done? Do you swallow the negative? Do you shoot yourself? It’s the gimmick of money.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Numbers, Giving, Negative

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• Depression: the healthy suspicion that modern life has no meaning and that modern society is absurd and alienating.

  Neel Burton

  Healthy, Modern Life, Suspicion

  Neel Burton (2017). “Growing from Depression, second edition”, p.61, Acheron Press

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• Faeries are not fantasy, but a connection to reality. Faeries are irrational, poetic, absurd, and very, very wise. Faeries say there is nonsense in dogma, and sense in nonsense. Faeries express themselves with high seriousness and low humour. Faeries are resistant to all definitions.

  Brian Froud

  Wise, Reality, Connections

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• I find the world more absurd now than I did when I was a kid.

  Peter Mullan

  Kids, World

  "Peter Mullan: the swot who lost the plot". Interview with Cath Clarke, www.theguardian.com. January 19, 2011.

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• The idea that ballet is a white art is absurd and shocking, and it’s gone on for too long. Nothing would make me happier than having a company that reflects society, to have dancers onstage that people can relate to.

  Benjamin Millepied

  Art, Ideas, White

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• Every professional golfer has a seperate coach for his drives, for approaches, for putting. In football we have one coach for 15 players. This is absurd.

  Johan Cruijff

  Change, Football, Player

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

  Benjamin Franklin

  Knowledge, Fine, Spun

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• Life might just be an absurd, even crude, chain of events and nothing more.

  Haruki Murakami

  Events, Might, Existentialism

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “1Q84:”, p.272, Random House

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• The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won. Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Confused, Real, Men

  Martin Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre (2016). “The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism”, p.120, Open Road Media

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• The absurd . . . the fact that with God all things are possible. The absurd is not one of the factors which can be discriminated within the proper compass of the understanding: it is not identical with the improbable, the unexpected, the unforeseen.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Understanding, Facts, Unexpected

  Fear and Trembling "Problemata: Preliminary Expectoration" (1843)

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• In this world that God (or Mother Nature) created, it is always hazard and novelty-hazard and novelty-which assert themselves, thereby rendering notions of fixity absurd. Incongruously enough, however, when we allow ourselves to fully accept uncertainty, to embrace and cultivate it even, then we actually can begin to feel within ourselves the presence of an Absolute. The person who cannot welcome ambiguity cannot welcome God.

  Tom Robbins

  Mother, Hazards, World

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