Enigma Quotes

• I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.

  James Joyce

  Writing, Way, Arguing

  James Joyce, Jeri Johnson (2008). “Ulysses”, p.10, Oxford Paperbacks

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• We are caught inside a mystery, veiled in an enigma, locked inside a riddle

  Terence McKenna

  Mystery, Caught, Riddle

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• I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

  Umberto Eco

  Life, Witty, Powerful

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.104, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I'm an enigma, an unknown. You can't really figure out what I'm going to do next. I like it like that.

  Emmitt Smith

  Next, Figures

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• If we understood the enigmas of life there would be no need for art.

  Albert Camus

  Art, Would Be, Needs

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• Ma vie est une énigme dont ton nom est le mot. (My life is an enigma, of which your name is the word.)

  Victor Hugo

  Names, Life Is

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• Establish enigmas, not explanations.

  Robert Smithson

  Explanation

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.63, Univ of California Press

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• A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.

  Diane Arbus

  Inspirational, Photography, Philosophical

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• I'm a conundrum. Or an enigma. I forget which.

  James A. Owen

  Forget, Conundrums

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• Each person is an enigma. You're a puzzle not only to yourself but also to everyone else, and the great mystery of our time is how we penetrate this puzzle.

  Theodore Zeldin

  Mystery, Persons, Penetrate

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• How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Philosophy, Doe, Ephemeral

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2004). “On the Suffering of the World”, p.87, Penguin UK

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• It may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma... which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Doubt, May, Resolve

  "The Gold-Bug" (1843).

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• I have always knocked at the door of that wonderful and terrible enigma which is life.

  Eugenio Montale

  Doors, Wonderful, Terrible

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• It doesn’t matter how smart you are, Enigma is always smarter.

  Joan Clarke

  Smart, Science, Matter

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• Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.

  Honore de Balzac

  Perfect, Mazes, Looks

  Honore de Balzac (2011). “Letters of Two Brides”, p.39, The Floating Press

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• Mystique is rare now, isn't it? There aren't that many enigmas in this modern world.

  Benedict Cumberbatch

  World, Modern, Mystique

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• I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

  Winston Churchill

  Keys, Russia, Action

  Radio broadcast, 1 Oct. 1939

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• By keenly confronting the enigmas that surround us, and by considering and analyzing the observations that I had made, I ended up in the domain of mathematics. Although I am absolutely without training in the exact sciences, I often seem to have more in common with mathematicians than with my fellow artists.

  M. C. Escher

  Teaching, Math, Artist

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• He makes me laugh, Mick! He tended to turn up when we were having lunch and entertain us all. He bought an Enigma machine! I've never worked with a producer who was more famous than everyone put together.

  Saffron Burrows

  Lunch, Laughing, Together

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• Women are one of the Almighty's enigmas to prove to men that He knows more than they do.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Women, Almighty, Prove To Me

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• If knowing answers to life's questions is absolutely necessary to you, then forget the journey. You will never make it, for this is a journey of unknowables - of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensibles, and, most of all, things unfair.

  Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon

  Faith, Journey, Knowing

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• There's a lot of people who don't understand the circle crops in England. Pure enigma.

  Ken Kesey

  Circles, People, Literature

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• Guess what: God created beings not to act in a morality play but to
  experience what is unfathomable, to elicit what can become, to descend
  into the darkness of creation and reveal it to him, to mourn and celebrate
  enigma and possibility. The universe is a whirling dervish, not a hanging
  judge in robes.

  Richard Grossinger

  Play, Judging, Darkness

  Richard Grossinger (2012). “On the Integration of Nature: Post-9/11 Biopolitical Notes”, p.78, North Atlantic Books

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• We shall never resolve the enigma of the relation between the negative foundations of greatness and that greatness itself.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Greatness, Foundation, Negative

  Jean Baudrillard (1989). “America”, p.88, Verso

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• The child is an enigma… He has the highest potentialities, but we do not know what he will be.

  Maria Montessori

  Children, Knows, Highest

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