Ambiguity Quotes

• There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.

  Thomas Reid

  Advancement, Speech Impediment, Greater

  Thomas Reid, Ronald E. Beanblossom, Keith Lehrer (1983). “Thomas Reid's Inquiry and Essays”, p.129, Hackett Publishing

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• Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.

  Theodor Adorno

  Personality, Tolerance, Mark

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• Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.

  Sigmund Freud

  Creativity, Ideas, Innovation

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• Take advantage of the ambiguity in the world. Look at something and think what else it might be.

  Roger von Oech

  Thinking, Looks, World

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• A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

  Herman Melville

  Happiness, Smile, Laughter

  Herman Melville (1963). “Works”

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• The character of human life, like the character of the human condition, like the character of all life, is "ambiguity": the inseparable mixture of good and evil, the true and false, the creative and destructive forces-both individual and social.

  Paul Tillich

  Character, Evil, Creative

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• As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Men, Long, Philosopher

  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.61, Open Road Media

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• People are concrescences of ambiguity.

  Terence McKenna

  People

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• What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers.

  Matina Horner

  Education, Women, Challenges

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• The goal is to live a full, productive life even with all that ambiguity. No matter what happens, whether the cancer never flares up again or whether you die, the important thing is that the days that you have had you will have lived.

  Gilda Radner

  Inspirational, Encouraging, Cancer

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  Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.

  Gilda Radner

  Life, Change, Goodbye

  Gilda Radner (2015). “It's Always Something”, p.254, Simon and Schuster

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• I fear explanations explanatory of things explained.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Fear, Explanation

  Abraham Lincoln (1992). “The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln”, Plume

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• I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end.

  Gilda Radner

  Goodbye, Farewell, Perfect

  Gilda Radner (2015). “It's Always Something”, p.254, Simon and Schuster

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• A blur of great magic is still just a blur.

  Ken Weber

  Magic, Hazy, Blur

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• My path to wisdom began when I stopped pretending to know things I didn't know. When I explicitly admitted to the limits of my knowledge, stopped building on ambiguity and ignorance, and instead realized that I knew nothing, not even the things I thought I knew.

  Tucker Max

  Ignorance, Limits, Path

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• The ambiguities of language, both in terms of vocabulary and syntax, are fascinating: how important connotation is, what is lost and what is gained in the linguistic transition.

  Marilyn Hacker

  Vocabulary, Important, Transition

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• If I take refuge in ambiguity, I assure you that it's quite conscious.

  Kingman Brewster, Jr.

  Conscious, Refuge, Ifs

  The New York Tribune, October 14, 1963.

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• Ambiguity is the devil's volleyball.

  Emo Philips

  Volleyball, Devil

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• Despite elections and the experience of post-Soviet personal freedoms by the Russian people, the fate of democracy in Russia is perhaps more ambiguous now than at any time since the collapse of the Communist system.

  Richard Lugar

  Fate, Russia, People

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• Ambiguity in directors is a hard thing to deal with.

  Skeet Ulrich

  Directors, Deals, Hard

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• On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.

  Adam Smith

  Cities, Progress, Valleys

  Adam Smith (1978). “Powers of Mind”

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• I have always felt that a woman has the right to treat the subject of her age with ambiguity until, perhaps, she passes into the realm of over ninety. Then it is better she be candid with herself and with the world.

  Carl Sandburg

  Age, World, Aging

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• In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.

  Bertrand Russell

  Realist, Results, Idealism

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Theory of Knowledge: The 1913 Manuscript”, p.6, Routledge

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• The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements, as well as one's deepest failures is a definite symptom of maturity.

  Paul Tillich

  Success, Maturity, Achievement

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• The purpose of narrative is to present us with complexity and ambiguity.

  Scott Turow

  Purpose, Narrative, Complexity

  "'To hell with Perry Mason'". Interview with Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. November 24, 2002.

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