Paradoxical Quotes - Page 8

• It has always seemed somewhat paradoxical to me that we must constantly have the Lord command us to do those things which are for our own good.

  Marion G. Romney

  Lord, Command

  10 Copy quote

• [W]isdom consists in following Providence step by step. And you can be sure of the truth of a maxim which seems paradoxical, namely, that he who is hasty falls back in the interests of God.

  Vincent de Paul

  Faith, Fall, Steps

  Vincent De Paul (1990). “Correspondence Conference Documents”, New City Pr

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• One can never be too rich or too thin' is an aphorism attributed to the Duchess of Windsor. Being both rich and thin is a difficult enterprise, indeed almost unprecedented as an ideal. Into the paradoxical gap between the capacity to spend money and the need to eat less steps a brilliant solution: 'light' food. In buying 'light' food we can pay more for what costs less to produce in the first place.

  Margaret Visser

  Light, Needs, Cost

  Margaret Visser (2010). “Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Mea”, p.109, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• By 'coming to terms with life' I mean: the reality of death has become a definite part of my life; my life has, so to speak, been extended by death, by my looking death in the eye and accepting it, by accepting destruction as part of life and no longer wasting my energies on fear of death or the refusal to acknowledge its inevitability. It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich it.

  Etty Hillesum

  Mean, Eye, Reality

  102 Copy quote

• The Internet is such a paradoxical space - it's limitless and totally bounded, apparently free yet corporate-controlled, apparently invisible yet surveilled, a place of disembodiment where bodies are policed and enviolenced, a place that is apparently 'nowhere'.

  Joyelle McSweeney

  Space, Body, Internet

  "'Art as a sacred event'". The Believer interview, logger.believermag.com. April 7, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is indeed paradoxical that an industry which epitomizes all that is new and up-to-date at the same time harbours some of the oldest and least desirable attributes of work in manufacturing industry.

  Peter Dicken

  Harbour, Attributes, Desirable

  Peter Dicken (1998). “Global Shift: Transforming the World Economy”, SAGE Publications Limited

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• With a few exceptions, Fellini's films have failure and despair running through them: Life continues, but I can't imagine 'Felliniesque' as an exclusively uplifting adjective. Fellini's best films are the ones that distill this essence -- the paradoxical quality of melancholic ecstasy, a surreal, bittersweet vitality -- to perfection.

  Damian Pettigrew

  Uplifting, Running, Essence

  The Los Angeles Times, April 2003.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are - hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.

  Thomas Ligotti

  Flesh, Consciousness, Bones

  "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror". Book by Thomas Ligotti, 2010.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• My worryingly paradoxical thought process could be summarized thus: Thank God I don't believe in the secret rulers of the world. Imagine what the secret rulers of the world might do to me if I did!

  Jon Ronson

  Believe, Secret, Thank God

  Jon Ronson (2012). “Jon Ronson's Adventures With Extraordinary People”, p.120, Pan Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a paradoxical statement, but it takes incredible personal discipline to play with great freedom.

  Dick Bennett

  Play, Discipline, Incredibles

  7 Copy quote

• Misanthropes have some admirable if paradoxical virtues. It is no exaggeration to say that we are among the nicest people you are likely to meet. Because good manners build sturdy walls, our distaste for intimacy makes us exceedingly cordial "ships that pass in the night." As long as you remain a stranger we will be your friend forever.

  Florence King

  Friendship, Relationship, Wall

  95 Copy quote

• Man is a paradoxical being - the constant glory and scandal of this world.

  Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

  Men, World, Scandal

  "Forbes Book of Quotations: 10,000 Thoughts on the Business of Life". Book by Ted Goodman, 2016.

  197 Copy quote

  Show source

• It might sound a paradoxical thing to say --for surely never has a generation of children occupied more sheer hours of parental time -- but the truth is that we neglected you. We allowed you a charade of trivial freedoms . . .

  Midge Decter

  Children, Sound, Generations

  Midge Decter (1975). “Liberal parents, radical children”, Coward McCann

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The truth is paradoxical to the extent of being exactly contrary to the usual perception.

  Georges Bataille

  Perception, Usual, Truth Is

  Georges Bataille (1988). “The accursed share: an essay on general economy”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I can't agree that what we're seeing is a matter of the American bourgeoisie confronting workers everywhere. It's more like the international plutocracy eliminating the American middle class while inadvertently creating a bourgeoisie in India, China, etc. I do agree that Soros's role is paradoxical, but if all billionaires (or even a few more) were like Soros, the dialectic would give us global social democracy PDQ.

  Hendrik Hertzberg

  Creating, Class, Giving

  Source: www.newyorker.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of Still Lifes many achievements is its paradoxical mix of intensity and stillness. Alexander Longs visions of landscape, identity and "History itself, a joke that no one gets" are simultaneously meditative and alert, restless and focused. This is a smart, compassionate poet. Still Life is a mesmerizing new book.

  Terrance Hayes

  Smart, Book, Achievement

  4 Copy quote

• Paradoxical as it may seem, God means not only to make us good, but to make us also happy, by sickness, disaster and disappointment.

  C. A. Bartol

  Disappointment, Mean, Hardship

  7 Copy quote

• All rituals are paradoxical and dangerous enterprises, the traditional and improvised, the sacred and the secular. Paradoxical because rituals are conspicuously artificial and theatrical, yet designed to suggest the inevitability and absolute truth of their messages. Dangerous because when we are not convinced by a ritual we may become aware of ourselves as having made them up, thence on the paralyzing realization that we have made up all our truths; our ceremonies, our most precious conceptions and convictions - all are mere inventions.

  Barbara Myerhoff

  Realization, May, Sacred

  6 Copy quote

• Some people are happy when they are at the sea; I'm happy when I'm standing in front of a shelf of books. It feels like the known place and also the beginning of a new adventure. It has that simultaneous paradoxical effect of making me feel absolutely calm and very excited.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Book, Adventure, Sea

  Source: americanlibrariesmagazine.org

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The pain that we feel when we are making love with someone is that we know it will end. It's that paradoxical response of joy and suffering.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Pain, Joy, Making Love

  Source: www.scottlondon.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't consider China a communist state, no. I know that sounds paradoxical, but it's my view.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Views, Sound, Communist

  Source: www.pbs.org

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...liberation from constraints that operate at the level of ordinary humanity---limits imposed by space and time, by the needs of the body, and by the opaqueness of the computer-like mind. All three examples [Jacob Lorber, Edgar Cayce, and Therese Neumann] illustrates the paradoxical truth that such 'higher powers' cannot be acquired by any kind of attack or conquest conducted by the human personality; only when the striving for 'power' has entirely ceased and been replaced by a certain transcendental longing, often called the love of God, may they, or may they not be 'added unto you.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Space, Personality, Humanity

  4 Copy quote

• How paradoxical it is to search reality for the pictures that are stored in one's memory.

  Marcel Proust

  Memories, Reality

  5 Copy quote

• If you start from a position of I'm a no-hoper, in a paradoxical kind of way you are not risking being vulnerable.

  Philippa Perry

  Way, Kind, Vulnerable

  Source: bigthink.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Abraham responds "Here I am" when God asks him to sacrifice his son, and he answers "Here I am" when his son asks him about what is happening. It's a paradoxical moment. He can't be fully present for his God or his son.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Son, Sacrifice, Here I Am

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source