Paradoxical Quotes - Page 9

• 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

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• Walter Benjamin has this notion of the angel of history and in a way that's paradoxical itself. We don't have angels in history anymore. We don't believe in these mythical creatures anymore.

  Steve Stern

  Believe, Angel, Mythical Creatures

  Source: therumpus.net

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• We're living history all the time, in the papers, in the news, you think about stuff and it goes into your brain and you think about it and it comes out somehow. You have an idea; you've heard a phrase, or you're angry, or something disturbs you, or something seems paradoxical to you, you explore that idea, much like a writer would explore maybe an idea through metaphor. Maybe artists use their vehicle to explore ideas, so I think the things that interest me are the kind of idea of continuous change and how nothing stays the same and it's always disintegrating into something more.

  Michael C. McMillen

  Artist, Thinking, Brain

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

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• If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

  Mother Teresa

  Selfish, People, Self Centered

  Mother Teresa (1995). “A Simple Path-Open Market”

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• What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build it anyway.

  Mother Teresa

  Years, May, Self Centered

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• I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Thinking, Supposing That

  Sceptical Essays (1928) "On the Value of Scepticism"

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• The ego says, ‘I shouldn’t have to suffer,’ and that thought makes you suffer so much more. It is a distortion of the truth, which is always paradoxical. The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Spiritual, Ego, Suffering

  Eckhart Tolle (2006). “A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life's Purpose”, p.73, Penguin

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