Contradiction Quotes - Page 14

• An anguish of longing would boil up inside me; a hysterical thirst for contradictions and contrasts would appear, and I would embark on dissipations.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Longing, Reason, Hysterical

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• I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure. I think there is a contradiction in an art of total despair, because the very fact that the art is made seems to contradict despair.

  David Hockney

  Art, Thinking, Despair

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• Life involves maintaining oneself between contradictions that can't be solved by analysis.

  William Empson

  Analysis, Maintaining, Oneself

  William Empson (2000). “The complete poems”, Lane, Allen

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• The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind's flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality - without exploiting them for fun and profit

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Fun, Loser, Flaws

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.15, Random House

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• Art can contradict Science.

  Austin Osman Spare

  Art

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• I am convinced of the validity of contradiction. There are many worlds. Each is true, at its time, in its own fashion

  Errol Flynn

  Wisdom, Fashion, Australia

  Errol Flynn, Jeffrey Meyers (2002). “My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Autobiography of Errol Flynn”, p.418, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The ability to break a loved one's heart is the essential contradiction in human relationships.

  Amy Dickinson

  Women, Heart, Essentials

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• At a bare minimum, understanding entails being able to detect an internal contradiction: a paradox.

  William Poundstone

  Understanding, Able, Paradox

  "Labyrinths of Reason: Paradox, Puzzles, and the Frailty of Knowledge". Book by William Poundstone, 1988.

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• Knowledge is a continuous fabric, in which ideas are connected to other ideas. Reason-free zones, in which people can assert arbitrary beliefs safe from ordinary standards of evaluation, can only corrupt this fabric, just as a contradiction can corrupt a system of logic, allowing falsehoods to proliferate through it.

  Steven Pinker

  Ideas, People, Ordinary

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• Architecture is a rare collective profession: it's always exercised by groups. There is an essential modesty, which is a complete contradiction to the notion of a star.

  Rem Koolhaas

  Stars, Groups, Essentials

  "The NS Interview: Rem Koolhaas, architect". Interview with Samira Shackle, www.newstatesman.com. May 16, 2012.

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• I say this with no fear of contradiction. Jonas Barnes is absolutely, positively the funniest stand-up comic I have ever seen. Of course, I almost never leave my home. Jonas is a great guy and was a big help to me.

  Danny Bonaduce

  Home, Guy, Helping

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• In the contradiction lies the hope.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Lying

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• Autumn is the very soul of metamorphosis, a time when the world is poised at the door of winter - which is the door of death - but has not yet fallen. It is a world of contradictions: a time of harvest and plenty but also of cold and hardship. Here we dwell in the midst of life, but we know most keenly that all things must pass away and shrivel. Autumn turns the world from one thing into another. The year is seasoned and wise but not yet decrepit or senile.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Wise, Autumn, Winter

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making”, p.141, Macmillan

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• I hope when people ask what you're going to do with your English degree and/or creative writing degree you'll say: Continue my bookish examination of the contradictions and complexities of human motivation and desire; or maybe just: Carry it with me, as I do everything that matters. And then smile very serenely until they say, Oh.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Motivation, Writing, People

  Cheryl Strayed (2013). “Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Someone Who’s Been There”, p.98, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Christianity - An old metaphysical romance, filled with marvels, contradictions, and absurdity, born in the ardent imagination of Orientals, has spread into our Europe. Enthusiasts have purveyed it, careerists have pretended to accept it, imbeciles have believed it.

  Frederick The Great

  Europe, Imagination, Romance

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• To exist (in mathematics), said Henri Poincaré, is to be free from contradiction. But mere existence does not guarantee survival. To survive in mathematics requires a kind of vitality that cannot be described in purely logical terms.

  Mark Kac

  Survival, Vitality, Doe

  Mark Kac, Stanislaw M. Ulam (1968). “Mathematics and Logic”, p.8, Courier Corporation

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• Marriage is - among other things - a study in contradiction and disappointment, and inside that reality there is space for us to truly learn how to love.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Disappointment, Reality, Space

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• There is only one essential difference between consciousness and dreaming, and that is sensory input. Your experience is a dream, so is my experience. This stuff about how the frontal cortext is repressed during dreaming. Lucid dreaming presents an obvious contradiction to it. The only difference is sensory input.

  Stephen LaBerge

  Dream, Differences, Essentials

  "Live Chat with Filmmaker and Dream Experts". Live Chat, www.pbs.org.

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• There is no contradiction between technology and spirit. There is no contradiction between the search for intellectual integration and understanding and the psychedelic experience. There is no contradiction between ultra-advanced hyperspacial cyber culture and Paleolithic archaic culture. We have come to the end of our sojourn in matter. We have come to the end of our separateness.

  Terence McKenna

  Technology, Understanding, Intellectual

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• Our world is one of terrible contradictions. Plenty of food, but one billion people go hungry. Lavish lifestyles for a few, but poverty for too many others. Huge advances in medicine while mothers die every day in childbirth, and children die every day from drinking dirty water. Billions spent on weapons to kill people instead of keeping them safe.

  Ban Ki-moon

  Mother, Children, Dirty

  Opening Remarks at Press Event on Day of Seven Billion, www.un.org. October 31, 2011.

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• To a Buddhist, contradictions only exist in a mind that has been forced to cultivate them.

  John Burdett

  Buddhist, Mind, Has Beens

  "HiSo society". www.theguardian.com. June 25, 2005.

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• The most innocent man, pressed by the awful solemnities of public accusation and trial, many be incapable of supporting his own cause. He may be utterly unfit to cross-examine the witnesses against him, to point out the contradictions or defects of their testimony. And to counteract it by properly introducing it and applying his own.

  William Rawle

  Men, Innocent Man, Trials

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• Sameness leaves us in peace but it is contradiction that makes us productive.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Sameness, Productivity, Productive

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• I'm a Christian. I believe that greatness has to do with the quality of love shown to the least of thy brethren and the quality of service to those who are catching hell. When you look at it in that sense, I'd say America has had great moments, but I wouldn't call it a great nation. I don't think there have been any great nations in the history of the world, because in every nation you find poor people being subjugated. So, I see the term "great nation" as a contradiction, as an oxymoron.

  Cornel West

  Christian, Believe, Greatness

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• Ethical and cultural desegregation. It is a contradiction in terms to scream race pride and equality while at the same time spurning Negro teachers and self-association.

  Zora Neale Hurston

  Teacher, Pride, Race

  Zora Neale Hurston (2002). “Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters”, Doubleday Books

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