Riddle Quotes - Page 3

• Every great literature has always been allegorical - allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The 'Iliad' is only great because all life is a battle, the 'Odyssey' because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Jobs, Book, Journey

  "A Defense of Nonsense". "The Defendant" by G. K. Chesterton, 1901.

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• Children are the proof we've been here . . . they're where we go to when we die. They're the best thing and the most impossible thing, but there's nothing else . . . Life is a riddle and they are the answer. If there's any answer, it has to be them.

  Allison Pearson

  Children, Impossible Things, Answers

  Allison Pearson (2010). “I Don't Know How She Does It”, p.165, Random House

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• To become rich is easy. Much harder is to solve the riddles of of the heart.

  Publilius Syrus

  Heart, Rich, Easy

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• 'It only put me in Gryffindor,' said Harry in a defeated voice, 'because I asked not to go in Slytherin...' 'Exactly' said Dumbledore, beaming once more. 'Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.'

  J. K. Rowling

  Life Lesson, Voice, Choices

  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ch. 18 (1999)

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• I'd once heard a spiritual "riddle" that went like this: "What's the only thingin heaven that's the same as it was on earth?"The answer: the wounds in Jesus' hands and feet.

  Todd Burpo

  Spiritual, Jesus, Feet

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• There are wonders in true affection. It is a body of enigmas, mysteries, and riddles, wherein two so become one, as they both become two.

  Thomas Browne

  Love, Two, Body

  "Miscellaneous Works of Sir Thomas Browne: With Some Account of the Author and His Writings".

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• Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has a single solution: that is, pregnancy

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Pregnancy, Solutions

  Friedrich Nietzsche, Graham Parkes (2008). “Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and Nobody”, p.57, Oxford University Press

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• Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the purpose for which it has always been intended. Or is some riddle solved by my surviving forever? Is not this eternal life itself as much of a riddle as our present life?

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Life, Forever, Soul

  "Tractatus Logico Philosophicus".

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• Physically the Celts are terrifying in appearance, with deep sounding and very harsh voices. In conversation they use few words and speak in riddles, for the most part hinting at things and leaving a great deal to be understood. They frequently exaggerate with the aim of extolling themselves and diminishing the status of others. They are boasters and threateners and given to bombastic self-dramatization, and yet they are quick of mind and with good natural ability for learning.

  Diodorus Siculus

  Self, Voice, Leaving

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• Finally, two days ago, I succeeded - not on account of my hard efforts, but by the grace of the Lord. Like a sudden flash of lightning, the riddle was solved. I am unable to say what was the conducting thread that connected what I previously knew with what made my success possible.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Success, Math, Two

  "Mathematical Circles Squared". Book by Howard W. Eves, 1972.

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• ...Never tell a ticket agent, "As a matter of fact, I DID accept items from persons unknown to me! A nice man in a chadar gave me this awesome luggage freshener with a clock attached!" Federal regulations require them to have no idea you're joking as they riddle your body with bullets.

  Seanbaby

  Sarcastic, Nice, Men

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• There is no neatness in any life- great or small. It is only an illusion men foolishly pursue.
  All lived lives are a mess.
  The neatness in my life had begun to crumble some time before, but now it disintegrated completely as I vanished into a world of endlessly opening doors, teasing riddles and lives without boundaries.
  For the first time I began to understand how shallow neatness is.
  How cramping, how limiting.
  For the first time I understood neat lives are comatose lives. (the Alchemy of Desire 304)

  Tarun J. Tejpal

  Men, Doors, Desire

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• A major difficulty is that the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx is partly a product of the answers that we already have given to the riddle in its various forms.

  Gregory Bateson

  Sphinx, Answers, Form

  Gregory Bateson, Mary Catherine Bateson (1987). “Angels fear: towards an epistemology of the sacred”, MacMillan Publishing Company

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• Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Beautiful, Awful, Sides

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2017). “The Brothers Karamazov (English Russian Edition illustrated): Братья Карамазовы (англо-русская редакция иллюстрированная)”, p.251, Clap Publishing, LLC.

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• Molecular genetics, our latest wonder, has taught us to spell out the connectivity of the tree of life in such palpable detail that we may say in plain words, "This riddle of life has been solved."

  Max Delbruck

  Taught Us, Tree, Details

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• The causes of life's history [cannot] resolve the riddle of life's meaning.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Causes, Resolve

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• I could say I believe in every drop of rain that . . . Well, I believe life is a Zen koan, that is, an unsolvable riddle. But the contemplation of that riddle--even though it cannot be solved--is, in itself, transformative. And if the contemplation is of high enough quality, you can merge with the divine.

  Tom Robbins

  Rain, Believe, Quality

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• The scientist should treasure the riddles he can't solve, not explain them away at the outset.

  Roberto Unger

  Treasure, Scientist, Should

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• Of course the sands of Present Time are running out from under our feet. And why not? The Great Conundrum: 'What are we here for?' is all that ever held us here in the first place. Fear. The answer to the Riddle of the Ages has actually been out in the street since the First Step in Space. Who runs may read but few people run fast enough. What are we here for? Does the great metaphysical nut revolve around that? Well, I'll crack it for you, right now. What are we here for? We are here to go!

  Brion Gysin

  Running, Nuts, Feet

  Brion Gysin (2015). “Back in No Time: The Brion Gysin Reader”, p.174, Wesleyan University Press

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• And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hands, staring down at his enemy's shell.

  J. K. Rowling

  Eye, Hands, Skills

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• There!" Mars finished writing and threw the scroll at Octavian. "A prophecy. You can add it to your books, engrave it on the floor, whatever." Octavian read the scroll. "This says, 'Go to Alaska. Find Thanatos and free him. Come back by sundown on June twenty-fourth or die'." "Yes," Mars said. "Is that not clear?" "Well, my lord...usually prophecies are unclear. They're wrapped in riddles. They rhyme, and..." Mars casually popped another grenade off his belt. "Yes?" "The prophecy is clear!" Octavian announced. "A quest!

  Rick Riordan

  Book, Writing, Alaska

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• It wasn’t like in the storybooks. No witches lurked at crossroads disguised as crones, waiting to reward travelers who shared their bread. Genies didn’t burst from lamps, and talking fish didn’t bargain for their lives. In all the world, there was only one place humans could get wishes: Brimstone’s shop. And there was only one currency he accepted. It wasn’t gold, or riddles, or kindness, or any other fairy-tale nonsense, and no, it wasn’t souls, either. It was weirder than any of that. It was teeth.

  Laini Taylor

  Kindness, Talking, Waiting

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• The truth beyond the fetish's glimmering mirage is the relationship of laborer to product; it is the social account of how that object came to be. In this view every commodity, beneath the mantle of its pricetag, is a hieroglyph ripe for deciphering, a riddle whose solution lies in the story of the worker who made it and the conditions under which it was made.

  Leah Hager Cohen

  Lying, Views, Stories

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• On what can we now place our hopes of solving the many riddles which still exist as to the origin and composition of cosmic rays?

  Victor Francis Hess

  Rays, Cosmic, Stills

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• Richard was a riddle with no answer, and I was tired of playing a game I couldn't win.

  Laurell K. Hamilton

  Tired, Winning, Games

  Laurell K. Hamilton (2011). “Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 6-10”, p.2970, Penguin

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