Paradox Quotes - Page 6

• [Paradox is] truth standing on its head to gain attention.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Attention, Gains, Standing

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• And there is also the paradox that the dominating culture imbues the Indian past with great meaning and significance; it is valued more because it is seen as part of the past. And it is the romantic past, not the present, that holds meaning and spiritual significance for so many members of the dominating culture. It has seemed so strange to me that the larger culture, with its own absence of spirit and lack of attachment for the land, respects these very things about Indian traditions, without adopting those respected ways themselves.

  Linda Hogan

  Spiritual, Past, Attachment

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• Photographers are victims of paradox, tracking the impermanent to make it permanent.

  Ray Metzker

  Photographer, Victim, Tracking

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• And that was all the part of it - the way you were obliged to live. You stifled a groan, you lied about your love, you deceived your legal wife, and all in the name of honour. That was the damned paradox of it - in order to behave well, you have to behave badly.

  Julian Barnes

  Love You, Order, Names

  Julian Barnes (2010). “Arthur & George”, p.308, Random House

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• Rather than waste precious time arguing, I went up and started serving my "sentence" without delay. It was usually about an hour for epigrams; somewhat longer for a paradox.

  Peter De Vries

  Punishment, Delay, Waste

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• Dreams are self-created, but dreamers often do not understand the images that their own minds produce. Therein lays the essential paradox of dreams; dreams reveal that we all possess subconscious ability. Furthermore, our subconscious mind, as it is revealed through dreams, proves itself to be talented, artistic, insightful, perceptive and intelligent.

  Charles McPhee

  Dream, Intelligent, Self

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

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• If complexity doesn't beat you, paradox will.

  Tom Robbins

  Beats, Complexity, Ifs

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• Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to it but superior - yet in such a way, please note, that it is the single individual who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal, now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Mean, Atheism, Way

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• Art is an affirmation of life, a rebuttal of death. And here we blunder into paradox again, for during the creation of any form of art, art which affirms the value and the holiness of life, the artist must die. To serve a work of art, great or small, is to die, to die to self.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Art, Self, Holiness

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• The paradox is that exactly the reverse is true. Everything that’s really worthwhile in life came to us free; our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our intelligence, our love of family and children and friends and country. All these priceless possessions are free.
  But the things that cost us money are actually very cheap and can be replaced at any time. A good man can be completely wiped out and make another fortune. He can do that several times. Even if our home burns down, we can rebuild it. But the things we got for nothing, we can never replace.

  Earl Nightingale

  Dream, Country, Children

  Robert C. Worstell, Earl Nightingale (2015). “How to Completely Change Your Life in 30 Seconds”, p.13, Lulu.com

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• Aristotle said time is a measure of change, and this movie is about changing in time, through time, while remaining the same person. That's a philosophical paradox and a moral dilemma. But 'Casablanca' says it's possible. You can have both. That's what it means. And that's my wish for you: that you would have both.

  Robert McKee

  Philosophical, Mean, Wish

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• One of the paradoxes of writing is that when you write non-fiction everyone tries to prove that it's wrong, and when you publish fiction, everyone tries to see the truth in it.

  Scarlett Thomas

  Writing, Trying, Fiction

  Scarlett Thomas (2010). “Our Tragic Universe”, p.351, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• That's the paradox of loss: How can something that's gone weigh us down so much?

  Jodi Picoult

  Loss, Gone

  Randy Susan Meyers, M. J. Rose, Ronlyn Domingue, Sarah Pekkanen, Jodi Picoult (2013). “Atria Book Club Bites: A Free Sampling of Ten Books Guaranteed to Feed Your Discussion”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

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• Just in time for the renewal of the war debate in Congress, the University of Chicago Press has released The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. . . . It's a nifty volume, not only because it gives you a sense of what our most highly regarded military theorists are thinking but because sometimes what they're thinking is the last thing you'd expect. Especially interesting is a section called 'Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency Operations,' which tells us: 'Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction' and 'Sometimes, the more force is used, the less effective it is.'

  David L. Ulin

  Military, War, Marine

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• Humor and paradox are often the only ways to respond to life's sorrow with grace.

  Matthew Fox

  Grace, Sorrow, Way

  Matthew Fox (2004). “Creativity”, p.32, Penguin

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• Reality is contradictory. And it's paradoxical. If there's any one word -- if you had to pick one word to describe the nature of the universe -- I think that word would be paradox. That's true at the subatomic level, right through sociological, psychological, philosophical levels on up to cosmic levels.

  Tom Robbins

  Philosophical, Reality, Thinking

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• Self control is about being in charge of the direction our lives are taking. Now for the paradox: We get control of our lives, ultimately, not by will power but by surrender.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Self, Surrender, Will Power

  Lewis B. Smedes (2002). “A Life of Distinction: What It Takes to Live with Courage, Honesty, and Gratitude”, Shaw

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• It's the good old paradox of democracy. We are individually pretty small drops in the bucket, but collectively we are all powerful.

  Damian Kulash

  Powerful, Democracy, Buckets

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• One of the paradoxes of our time is that the War on Terror has served mainly to reinforce a collective belief that maintaining the right amount of fear and suspicion will earn one safety. Fear is promoted by the government as a kind of policy. Fear is accepted, even among the best-educated people in this country, even among the professors with whom I work, as a kind of intelligence. And inspiring fear in others is often seen as neighborly and kindly, instead of being regarded as what my cousin recognized it for - a violence.

  Eula Biss

  Country, Cousin, Fear

  "No-man’s-land". www.believermag.com. February, 2008.

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• If we have dwelled on Godel's work at some length, is it because we see it in the mathematical analogy of what we would call the the ultimate paradox of man's existence. Man is ultimately subject and object of his quest. While the question whether the mind can be considered to be anything like a formalized system, as defined in the preceding paragraph, is probably unanswerable, his quest for an understanding of the meaning of his existence is an attempt at formalization.

  Paul Watzlawick

  Men, Understanding, Mind

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• The psychedelic viewpoint is becoming more and more legitimate, but psychedelic drugs are not. That's the odd paradox of it.

  Terence McKenna

  Drug, Viewpoints, Becoming

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• And remember: Everything in business is a paradox. To be excellent, you have to be consistent. When you're consistent, you're vulnerable to attack. Yes, it's a paradox. Now deal with it!

  Tom Peters

  Business, Remembers Everything, Vulnerable

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• Hackman's paradox: Groups have natural advantages: they have more resources than individuals; greater diversity of resources; more flexibility in deploying the resources; many opportunities for collective learning; and, the potential for synergy. Yet studies show that their actual performance often is subpar relative to "nominal" groups (i.e. individuals given the same task but their results are pooled.) The two most common reasons: groups are assigned work that is better done by individuals or are structured in ways that cap their full potential.

  J. Richard Hackman

  Opportunity, Often Is, Two

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• Active management strategies demand uninstitutional behavior from institutions, creating a paradox that few can unravel. Establishing and maintaining an unconventional investment profile requires acceptance of uncomfortably idiosyncratic portfolios, which frequently appear downright imprudent in the eyes of conventional wisdom.

  David F. Swensen

  Independent, Eye, Acceptance

  David F. Swensen (2009). “Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment, Fully Revised and Updated”, p.8, Simon and Schuster

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• It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.

  William O'Neil

  Lows, Higher, Seems

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