Irony Quotes - Page 17

• But it seems an irony of creation that man's mind knows how to handle things the better the farther removed they are from the center of his existence. Thus we are cleverest where knowledge matters least.

  Hermann Weyl

  Men, Mind, Matter

  Hermann Weyl (2013). “Levels of Infinity: Selected Writings on Mathematics and Philosophy”, p.192, Courier Corporation

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• The surest sign of the estrangement of the opinions of two persons is when they both say something ironical to each other and neither of them feels the irony.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Two, Opinion, Feels

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2012). “Human, All-Too-Human: Parts One and Two”, p.160, Courier Corporation

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• It is one of the ironies of history that reformers so often misjudge the consequences of their reforms.

  John W. Gardner

  Reform, Reformers, Consequence

  Dr. John W. Gardner (2015). “Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?”, p.13, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• From the moment we are born, the world tends to have a box already built for us to fit inside. Our umbilical cord never seems to be severed; we only find new needs to fill. If we disconnected and severed our attachments, would we shatter our confinements and expand beyond our shell? Would the world look different? Would we recognize ourselves? Are we the box that we are inside, and to be authentically 'un-contained' would we still be able to exist? This is the irony of containment. As long as we don't push on the walls of our surroundings, we may never know how strong we really are.

  Paige Bradley

  Strong, Wall, Attachment

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• A man can be called ruthless if he bombs a country to oblivion. A woman can be called ruthless if she puts you on hold.

  Gloria Steinem

  Country, Men, Bombs

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• The irony of Christmas is always upon the poor in heart; the mystery of the solstice is always upon the rest of us.

  John Cheever

  Heart, Mystery, Poor

  John Cheever (2010). “Falconer”, p.163, Vintage

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• Hamlet, Kierkegaard, Kafka are ironists in the wake of Jesus. All Western irony is a repetition of Jesus' enigmas/riddles, in amalgam with the ironies of Socrates.

  Harold Bloom

  Jesus, Repetition, Riddle

  Harold Bloom (2005). “Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine”, Riverhead Books (Hardcover)

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• There were too many lemmings - that was the core of their difficulty. None wanted solitude, but a crowd of this size was a torment. Being sensitive little beasts, they became overstimulated by superfluous numbers of their own kind. They had tried to escape, but with pitiable irony, all tried to escape together.

  Sally Carrighar

  Numbers, Solitude, Together

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• To move from a discussion of the early relationship between theatre and television to an examination of the current situation of live performance is to confront the irony that whereas television initially sought to replicate and, implicitly, to replace live theatre, live performance itself has developed since that time toward the replication of the discourse of mediatization.

  Philip Auslander

  Moving, Live Theatre, Television

  Philip Auslander (2002). “Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture”, p.23, Routledge

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• Some of Mr. Gregory's poems have merely appeared in The New Yorker ; others are New Yorker poems: the inclusive topicality, the informed and casual smartness, the flat fashionable irony, meaningless because it proceeds from a frame of reference whose amorphous superiority is the most definite thing about it they are the trademark not simply of a magazine but of a class.

  Randall Jarrell

  Class, Magazines, Casual

  "Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964". Book by Randall Jarrell, "Town Mouse, Country Mouse" (p. 70), 1980.

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• Melissa Pritchard's prose, that darkly lyrical firmament, is brightened by the dizzy luminous arrangement of her stars and satellites, her great gifts to us: humor, irony, kindness, brilliance.

  Antonya Nelson

  Stars, Kindness, Dizzy

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• With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting reveals, in every lyric, its author's profound metaphorical gifts. In its ironies and intensities, it brings to mind a writer like the young Sylvia Plath, though what is startling about Harris' s work is the way it combines those gifts with a muted, deft self-awareness. Most of all, these are wonderfully shaped, powerful, and surprising poems-a startling debut.

  Meghan O'Rourke

  Powerful, Book, Self

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• The brand is lying about something, or at least misrepresenting it. When I read a bottle of shampoo or moisturizer or other beauty product, I always perceive a dark subtext. The words haunt me. It comes across as humorous to the reader/audience, but in fact the words really do make me a little bit queasy. Nothing is as easy or natural as consumer brands want us to think - no problem is as resolvable. Your hair will fall out, eventually. Yet we do have these brands, and we line our shelves with them. There's an inherent irony.

  Aaron Belz

  Lying, Fall, Humorous

  "Cartographer of Word Galaxies". Interview with Susan Lerner, logger.believermag.com. September 24, 2013.

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• ... the irony of life is not that you cannot forget but that you can.

  Gertrude Atherton

  Life Is, Forget, Irony Of Life

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• My films often have a very strong strain of irony, or even sarcasm, which is definitely related to homosexual camp. But it is by no means straightforward: quite often I am sincere when I appear to be sarcastic, and I am sarcastic when I appear to be sincere. I also try to contradict myself at least once a day, which is a camp must.

  Bruce LaBruce

  Sarcastic, Strong, Mean

  "Brucito Subversivo". Interview with Jane Harris, logger.believermag.com. May 29, 2014.

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• Rich people making their houses bigger in order to make their lives happier wind up hurting their own marriages. There's a deep irony here. Do the couples perceive that irony?

  Tucker Carlson

  Hurt, Couple, Wind

  "The Situation with" Tucker Carlson, January 12, 2006.

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• We Americans only voted for George Bush to prove to the British that Americans understand irony. Unfortunately, it kinda backfired.

  Scott Capurro

  America, British, Prove

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• We did not choose to believe that personal choice is the highest human virtue. Rather, we were taught, formed, forced to believe nothing is important in life other than that which we have personally chosen. The irony is that the belief that nothing is important in life other than that which we have personally chosen is a belief that we have not personally chosen! The supermarket and shopping mall have been our school.

  William Henry Willimon

  Believe, School, Shopping

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• The antidote to hubris, to overweening pride, is irony, that capacity to discover and systematize ideas.

  Ralph Ellison

  Pride, Ideas, Hubris

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• Our universities are so determined to impose tolerance that they'll expel you for saying what you think and never notice the irony

  John Perry Barlow

  Thinking, Tolerance, Determined

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• Advertisers like that because they want you to feel their product isn't normal - this perfume isn't normal, this set of lingerie isn't normal. The irony is that they are appealing to normal people to buy the product because they want them to identify with an exotic life that they don't lead.

  Cary Cooper

  People, Exotic, Want

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• I don't like the word ironic. I like the word absurdity, and I don't really understand the word 'irony' too much. The irony comes when you try to verbalize the absurd. When irony happens without words, it's much more exalted.

  David Lynch

  Ironic, Trying, Too Much

  "Inland Empire: the blogosphere's verdict" by Henrietta Clancy, www.theguardian.com. March 12, 2007.

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• I think of the irony that in our language [Nepali] the word for love can also mean deceit.

  Jane Wilson-Howarth

  Mean, Thinking, Deceit

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• In the modern Christian attempt to take a stand as Christ did, and maybe for others, win the approval of the world, the Christian will often think that it consists of targeting and demoralizing fellow Christians and only fellow Christians. It is one thing to stand against religious hypocrisy when one sees it, but it is another to go on snorting at anything or anyone who might seem 'too Christian' to us. The irony is that by doing this we are further advocating hypocrisy and 'half-hearted Christians'.

  Criss Jami

  Christian, Religious, Winning

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.12, Criss Jami

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• Whenever you feel like feeling like a devil's advocate, Bible-thump. That, in a worldly world, is the great irony and satire of evangelism.

  Criss Jami

  Feelings, Devil, World

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.66, Criss Jami

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