Contradiction Quotes - Page 25

• Human nature is full of riddles and contradictions; its very complexity engenders art-and by art I mean the search for something more than simple linear formulations, flat solutions, oversimplified explanations.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Art, Mean, Simple

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• Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Voice, Secret, Heroism

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1362, Delphi Classics

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• One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us and whereto our passions transport us. But those which by long habit are rooted in a strong and anchored in a powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies, which diverts us here and there.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Forgiveness, Strong, Powerful

  "Shakespeare's Montaigne: The Florio Translation of the Essays, A Selection".

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• Love not pleasure; love God. This is the Everlasting Yea, wherein all contradiction is solved.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Love, Pleasure, Everlasting

  Thomas Carlyle (2016). “Sartor Resartus: The Historian”, p.141, 北戴河出版

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• We have never been more detached from one another, or lonelier. In a world consumed by ever more novel modes of socializing, we have less and less actual society. We live in an accelerating contradiction: The more connected we become, the lonelier we are.

  Stephen Marche

  World, Novel, Connected

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• The Christian idea of a perfect heaven that is something other than a non-existence is a contradiction in terms.

  Aldous Huxley

  Christian, Ideas, Perfect

  Aldous Huxley (1969). “Great Short Works of Aldous Huxley”

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• Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the field of battle.

  James A. Baldwin

  America, Society, Battle

  "Notes of a Native Son". Book by James Baldwin, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 21, 1955.

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• A quiet city is a contradiction in terms. It is a thing uncanny, spectral.

  Max Beerbohm

  Cities, Quiet, Uncanny

  Sir Max Beerbohm (1958). “Selected essays”

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• If there were no contradictions and no struggle, there would be no world, no process, no life, and there would be nothing at all.

  Mao Zedong

  Struggle, Would Be, World

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• I don't think that the contradictions between capitalism and socialism can be resolved by war. This is no longer the age of the bow and arrow. It's the nuclear age, and war can annihilate us all. The only way to achieve solutions seems to be for the different social systems to coexist.

  Fidel Castro

  War, Thinking, Arrows

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• To believe fully and at the same moment to have doubts is not at all a contradiction: it presupposes a greater respect for truth, an awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment.

  Rollo May

  Truth, Believe, Doubt

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.21, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The state is based on this contradiction. It is based on the contradiction between public and private life, between universal and particular interests. For this reason, the state must confine itself to formal, negative activities.

  Karl Marx

  Life, Negative, Reason

  Karl Marx (1975). “Early writings”, Vintage

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• My biography of Frank Sinatra is not paean to his music but rather an illumination of the man behind the music, who once described himself as 'an 18-karat manic-depressive who lived a life of violent emotional contradictions with an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as happiness.

  Kitty Kelley

  Happiness, Sadness, Men

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• Remote control. Ingenious contradiction of terms. Fits like a handshake. Aims like a gun.

  Roger Rosenblatt

  Gun, Weapons, Fit

  Roger Rosenblatt (1994). “The Man in the Water: Essays and Stories”, Random House

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• I oppose any belief that contradicts experimental evidence as determined by the methods of science. All beliefs not in such contradiction may be considered as faith. Whether faith in a particular belief is beneficial or not is another matter.

  Alan Lightman

  May, Matter, Determined

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• We are caught in the contradiction of finding life a rather perplexing puzzle which causes us a lot of misery, and at the same time being dimly aware of the boundless, limitless nature of life. So we begin looking for an answer to the puzzle.

  Joko Beck

  Answers, Causes, Misery

  "Everyday Zen: Love and Work" by Charlotte J. Beck, HarperCollins, (p. 12), October 6, 2009.

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• I fall in love with contradictions without understanding. I can't really portray them unless I do. So in a roundabout way I have to fall in love, it's my duty. If love is about understanding and understanding is compassion and compassion is love, I have to have compassion towards the world.

  Joseph Fiennes

  Falling In Love, Love Is, Compassion

  "No ordinary Joe" by Chrissy Iley, www.theguardian.com. January 13, 2007.

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• I think many people have contradictions to them and I love characters that deal with those contradictions.

  Giancarlo Esposito

  Character, Thinking, People

  "Giancarlo Esposito talks ‘Breaking Bad,’ ‘Revolution’ and Emmys". Interview with Alan Sepinwall, uproxx.com. July 31, 2012.

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• Our reasonings are grounded upon two great principles, that of contradiction, in virtue of which we judge false that which involves a contradiction, and true that which is opposed or contradictory to the false.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Science, Two, Judging

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• This (functional - E.W.) language controls by reducing the linguistic forms and symbols of reflection, abstraction, development, contradiction; by substituting images for concepts. It denies or absorbs the transcendent vocabulary; it does not search for but establishes and imposes truth and falsehood.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Reflection, Vocabulary, Doe

  Herbert Marcuse (2013). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.106, Routledge

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• We live fragmented, compartmentalized lives in which contradictions are carefully sealed off from each other. We have been taught to think linearly rather than comprehensively, and we do this not through conscious design or because we are not intelligent or capable, but because of the way in which deep cultural undercurrents structure life in subtle but highly consistent ways that are not consciously formulated.

  Edward T. Hall

  Life, Thinking, Intelligent

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• I always look for contradiction in a character.

  Rebecca Hall

  Character, Looks

  "Rebecca Hall Talks PARADE’S END, Her Extreme Character, How Invigorating the Role Was, Working with Benedict Cumberbatch and IRON MAN 3". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. February 24, 2013.

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• There's a constant contradiction between what feels good and what feels right. But you live with decisions that you make in your life.

  Randy Travis

  Philosophy, Feel Good, Decision

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• I was listening to a lot of hip hop, music like Public Enemy that was about raising consciousness, and I realised I could feed that directly into my work, using images in a way that was a bit like sampling - taking images from diverse places, exploring the contradictions without trying to hide the seams.

  Chris Ofili

  Hip Hop, Enemy, Listening

  "Chris Ofili: 'I wander deep into the forest - where it's scary'" by Mark Hudson, www.telegraph.co.uk. January 25, 2010.

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• Well, Freddie Mercury is a really huge rock star in my head. I've always thought he was just so tough and such an amazing entertainer, really a contradiction in many ways as well. So he was incredible.

  Karen O

  Stars, Rocks, Way

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

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