Absurdity Quotes - Page 13

• Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but obscurity.

  John Locke

  Men, Mind, Obscurity

  John Locke (1824). “Of human understanding. A defence of Mr. Locke's opinion concerning personal identity. Of the conduct of the understanding. Some thoughts concerning reading and study for a gentleman. Elements of natural philosophy. A new method of common-place-book”, p.29

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• Since natural law was thought to be accessible to the ordinary man, the theory invited each juror to inquire for himself whether a particular rule of law was consonant with principles of higher law. This view is reflected in John Adams' statement that it would be an 'absurdity' for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, 'against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.'

  John Adams

  Men, Views, Law

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• He who can lead you to believe an absurdity can lead you to commit an atrocity.

  Voltaire

  Believe, Atrocities, Commit

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• I've always been interested in the form itself, so I always feel like I've never been good at going ahead with the artifice and not acknowledging the self in the artistic process, and not acknowledging the absurdity of pretending that's required in fiction.

  Dave Eggers

  Self, Fiction, Artistic

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. February 23, 2005.

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• There is a metaphysical honour in ending the world's absurdity. Conquest or play-acting, multiple loves, absurd revolt are tributes that man pays to his dignity in a campaign in which he is defeated in advance.... War cannot be negated. One must live it or die of it. So it is with the absurd: it is a question of breathing with it, of recognizing its lessons and recovering their flesh. In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. "Art and nothing but art", said Nietzsche, "we have art in order not to die of the truth."

  Albert Camus

  Art, War, Men

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• The strife of politics tends to unsettle the calmest understanding, and ulcerate the most benevolent heart. There are no bigotries or absurdities too gross for parties to create or adopt under the stimulus of political passions.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Party, Passion, Heart

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1866). “Character and Characteristic Men”, p.49

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• A sphere is made up of not one, but an infinite number of circles; women have diverse gifts, and to say that women's sphere is the family circle is a mathematical absurdity.

  Maria Mitchell

  Circles, Numbers, Spheres

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• What is the benefit of fasting in our body while filling our souls with innumerable evils? He who does not play at dice, but spends his leisure otherwise, what nonsense does he not utter? What absurdities does he not listen to? Leisure without the fear of God is, for those who do not know how to use time, the teacher of wickedness.

  Saint Basil

  Teacher, Play, Evil

  Saint Basil (2010). “Exegetic Homilies (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 46)”, p.133, CUA Press

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• Old Zen was the reduction of concepts to absurdity.

  Frederick Lenz

  Reduction, Introduction, Concepts

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• Time is an absurdity. An abstraction. The only thing that matters is this moment.

  Jonathan Nolan

  Matter, Moments, Memento Mori

  "Memento Mori". Book by Jonathan Nolan, www.esquire.com. 2000.

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• It's absurd. We would all like to see Cuba move toward civil society and free markets and greater respect for human rights. But the U.S. policy is exactly the wrong way to go about it.

  Wayne Smith

  Moving, Rights, Cuba

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• Learning, like traveling and all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more insufferable by supplying variety of matter to his impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding in absurdities.

  Joseph Addison

  Silly, Opportunity, Men

  Joseph Addison (2010). “Addison's Essays”, p.133, Wildside Press LLC

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• As for democracy, the men of sense among us knew what it was, and I perhaps as well as any, as I have more cause to complain of it; but there is nothing new to be said of a patent absurdity-meanwhile we did not think it safe to alter it under the pressure of your hostility.

  Thucydides

  Men, Thinking, Democracy

  Thucydides, Victor Davis Hanson, Robert B. Strassler (2008). “The Landmark Thucydides”, p.413, Simon and Schuster

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• Jazz music celebrates life! Human life; the range of it, the absurdity of it, the ignorance of it, the greatness of it, the intelligence of it, the sexuality of it, the profundity of it. And it deals with it. In all of its... It deals with it!

  Wynton Marsalis

  Ignorance, Greatness, Jazz

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• That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of any thing else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a compentent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.

  Isaac Newton

  Distance, Fall, Philosophical

  Sir Isaac Newton, Florian Cajori (1946). “Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World”, p.636, Univ of California Press

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• Most expositions of Aristotle's doctrines, when they have not been dictated by a spirit of virulent detraction, or unsympathetic indifference, have carefully suppressed all, or nearly all, the absurdities, and only retained what seemed plausible and consistent. But in this procedure their historical significance disappears.

  George Henry Lewes

  Historical, Doctrine, Spirit

  George Henry Lewes (1864). “Aristotle: a chapter from the history of science including analyses of Aristotle's scientific writings”, p.9, London : Smith, Elder and Company

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• There are directors who desire to be artistic. It is pathetic to compare the seriousness of their aim with the absurdity of their attainment.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Desire, Directors, Artistic

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• So the absurdity of happiness is that it is embarrassing to discuss or even mention, impossible to define or measure, may not be achievable at all - or, at best, only intermittently and unconsciously - and may even turn into its opposite if directly pursued, but that it frequently turns up unexpectedly in the course of pursuing something else. There is no tease more infuriating...It is tempting to forget the whole thing and simply fall back on the couch with a remote control in one hand and a beer in the other.

  Michael Foley

  Fall, Beer, Hands

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• I can never be an atheist, because God is our celestial hope for our existential worries, our cosmic chance against absurdity!" MMI

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Atheist, Worry, Chance

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• Certainly in each social period, youth must be made to venerate the dominant absurdities.

  Charles Fourier

  Youth, Social, Made

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• Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to be positive or dogmatical on any subject; and even if excessive scepticism could be maintained it would not be more destructive to all just reasoning and inquiry. When men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have there given reins to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities.

  David Hume

  Passion, Men, Being Positive

  David Hume (2016). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Revision of Great Book”, p.213, VM eBooks

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• Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret.

  Jane Austen

  Regret, Littles, Bears

  Jane Austen (2005). “Pride and Prejudice”, p.204, Prestwick House Inc

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• I know not whether it would be too bold an assertion to say that candor makes capacity.... But in order to try the truth of any observation relating to the mind, the easiest method is to illustrate it by outward objects. If, for instance, a man was to sweat and labor all the days of his life to fill a chest which was already full, the absurdity of his vain endeavor would be glaring. In the same manner, when the human mind is filled and stuffed with notions brought thither by fallacious inclinations, there is no room for truth to enter: candor being banished, passions alone bear the sway.

  Sarah Fielding

  Education, Passion, Men

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• What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!

  Agnes Repplier

  Laughter, Dust, Laughing

  Agnes Repplier (1891). “Points of View”, Boston Houghton, Mifflin 1893.

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• The vested interests-if we explain the situation by their influence-can only get the public to act as they wish by manipulating public opinion, by playing either upon the public's indifference, confusions, prejudices, pugnacities or fears. And the only way in which the power of the interests can be undermined and their maneuvers defeated is by bringing home to the public the danger of its indifference, the absurdity of its prejudices, or the hollowness of its fears; by showing that it is indifferent to danger where real danger exists; frightened by dangers which are nonexistent.

  Norman Angell

  Real, Hate, Home

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