Contradiction Quotes - Page 12

• The fact throughout history is that whenever government dominates the economic affairs of its citizenry, a free society is eroded, then destroyed, and a minority government ensues. Personal liberty without economic liberty is an absolute contradiction; the one cannot exist without the other.

  William E. Simon

  Government, Liberty, Minorities

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• But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men.

  Francis Bacon

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  Francis Bacon (1765). “The works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England, in five volumes”, p.81

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• If I go out into nature, into the unknown, to the fringes of knowledge, everything seems mixed up and contradictory, illogical, and incoherent. This is what research does; it smooths out contradictions and makes things simple, logical, and coherent.

  Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

  Knowledge, Science, Simple

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• Our confused wish finds expression in the confused question as to the nature of force and electricity. But the answer which we want is not really an answer to this question. It is not by finding out more and fresh relations and connections that it can be answered; but by removing the contradictions existing between those already known, and thus perhaps by reducing their number. When these painful contradictions are removed, the question as to the nature of force will not have been answered; but our minds, no longer vexed, will cease to ask illegitimate questions.

  Heinrich Hertz

  Nature, Confused, Knowledge

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• It is madness and a contradiction to expect that things which were never yet performed should be effected, except by means hitherto untried.

  Francis Bacon

  Mean, Science, Madness

  Francis Bacon (1813). “The Novum Organum Scientiarum: In Two Parts”, p.2

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• I like first class, but I don't like first class people - I prefer the people in coach. I like fine restaurants, but prefer the taste of McDonalds. I like to be perfect, but I don't like perfection - I think it's dangerous. There is nothing after perfection. I know, I am a walking contradiction.

  Alber Elbaz

  Fashion, Thinking, Class

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• Both the physicist and the mystic want to communicate their knowledge, and when they do so with words their statements are paradoxical and full of logical contradictions.

  Fritjof Capra

  Communication, Knowledge, Science

  "The Tao of Physics". Book by Fritjof Capra, 1975.

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• Tears throw a veil over our faults and allow us to accuse fate without fear or contradiction.

  Italo Svevo

  Fear, Fate, Tears

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• If you were dealing with the accumulated repressions of only one lifetime, it would be different. But these are the repressions of numerous lives. Nobody knows how many times you have been born, and how many societies have crushed you. And each time a different society, and all these societies destroying you in different ways... this is why you carry so many inner contradictions.

  Rajneesh

  Meditation, Different, Would Be

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• Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism, confirmed by the work of population genetics, and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record.

  Ernst Mayr

  Long, Population, Different

  Ernst Mayr (1991). “One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought”, p.138, Harvard University Press

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• There are urges and urges; you are exploding with urges, desires. You don`t have one desire, you have many desires. Not only that you have many desires, you have contradictory desires. If one is fulfilled, the other, which is its contradiction, remains unfulfilled and you are in misery. If the other is fulfilled, then something else remains unfulfilled.

  Rajneesh

  Desire, Misery, Contradictory

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• ...Choice in every form is conflict. Contradiction is inevitable in choice; this contradiction, inner and outer breeds confusion and misery.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Confusion, Choices, Misery

  Jiddu Krishnamurti (2016). “Krishnamurti's Notebook”, p.162, Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd

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• Effortlessness means not doing anything, inactivity - AKARMA. Effort means doing much, activity - KARMA. Both have to be there. Do much, but don`t be a doer - then you achieve both. Move in the world, but don`t be a part of it. Live in the world, but don`t let the world live in you. Then the contradiction has been absorbed. Then you are not rejecting anything, not denying anything. Then the whole God has been accepted.

  Rajneesh

  Karma, Moving, Mean

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• Mind is dual, it always divides things into polar opposites: the conqueror and the conquered, the observer and the observed, the object and the subject, the day and the night. It goes on dividing things which are not divided. Neither is the day divided from the night, nor is birth divided from death. They are one energy. But mind goes on dividing everything into polarities, opposites. Nothing is opposite in existence; every contradiction is only apparent. Deep down all contradictions are meeting together.

  Rajneesh

  Night, Opposites, Mind

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• And I'm not a student of religion, but I don't find anything in what the principal teachings of Islam that put us in contradiction at all. In fact, the principles are the same as what-we have a diverse religious culture. But it's kindness, it's be good to your neighbor, it's love, and it's take care of children. It's all these things that-so there's no anti-Islam.

  George H. W. Bush

  Religious, Children, Kindness

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• The Koran was assembled from a variety of prior Hagarene texts (hence the contradictions re Jesus' death) in order to provide the Moses-like Muhammad with a Torah of his own.

  Robert M. Price

  Jesus, Order, Islam

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• The will is a product of integrity, not a child of contradictions.

  Nilakanta Sri Ram

  Spiritual, Children, Integrity

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• Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only in contradiction to what we know of nature.

  Sylvia Fraser

  Nature, Miracle, Spirituality

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• I am convinced that an important stage of human thought will have been reached when the physiological and the psychological, the objective and the subjective, are actually united, when the tormenting conflicts or contradictions between my consciousness and my body will have been factually resolved or discarded.

  Ivan Pavlov

  Science, Psychology, Important

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• If you would have a clear evidence that little love, that little faith, that little zeal, you have is true? Then live up to that love, live up to that faith, live up to that zeal that you have; and this will be evidence beyond all contradiction.

  Thomas Brooks

  Faith, Littles, Christianity

  Thomas Brooks (1866). “The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks. Ed”, p.82

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• [We need not think] that there is any Contradiction, when Philosophy teaches that to be done by Nature; which Religion, and the Sacred Scriptures, teach us to be done by God: no more, than to say, That the balance of a Watch is moved by the next Wheel, is to deny that Wheel, and the rest, to be moved by the Spring; and that both the Spring, and all the other Parts, are caused to move together by the Maker of them. So God may be truly the Cause of This Effect, although a Thousand other Causes should be supposed to intervene: For all Nature is as one Great Engine, made by, and held in His Hand.

  Nehemiah Grew

  God, Philosophy, Spring

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• I always feel that there are two choices for women. Either be totally confident about your non-size-zero body and say, 'I love what I look like and this is who I am,' or be the person who is obsessed with diet and exercise and keeping toned. What feels more realistic to me is that some days I wake up and think I love how I look. On other days I say, 'If I had real self-control, I would be 10 pounds lighter.' That contradiction is, to me, what being a girl actually feels like.

  Lena Dunham

  Girl, Zero, Real

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• Sport is something that does not matter, but is performed as if it did. In that contradiction lies its beauty

  Simon Barnes

  Sports, Lying, Doe

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• Yoga and Vipassana are the two most time tested ancient techniques for keeping the body, mind and spirit in harmony and in sync. There is no contradiction between yoga and vipassana. They are complementary to each other.

  Amit Ray

  Yoga, Two, Mind

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• Age helps one to acquire some of the perspectives necessary to create harmony among apparent contradictions.

  Roberto Assagioli

  Perspective, Age, Helping

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