Absurd Quotes

• The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

  Bertrand Russell

  Education, Truth, Religion

  Marriage and Morals ch. 5 (1929)

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• It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

  Anne Frank

  Hope, Motivation, Believe

  FaceBook post by Anne Frank from Jun 25, 2013

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• Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible.

  Robin Morgan

  Inspirational, Peace, Ubuntu

  Robin Morgan (2016). “Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology”, p.21, Open Road Media

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• Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.

  Thomas Mann

  Beauty, Opposites, Giving

  Thomas Mann (2010). “Death in Venice: And Seven Other Stories”, p.24, Vintage

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• When people conclude that all is futile, then the absurd becomes the norm.

  Stanley Crouch

  People, Norm

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• The absurd and legendary devil is the enigma of the Church.

  L. Frank Baum

  Church, Devil, Legendary

  "The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer" Newspaper, October 18, 1890.

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• The absolute has moved into the fortress of the absurd.

  Mason Cooley

  Reality, Fortresses, Realism

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  It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

  Oscar Wilde

  People, Luck, Enemy

  LadyWindermere's Fan act 1 (1892)

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• The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but theconsequences and rules of action drawn from it.

  Albert Camus

  Life, Taken, Discovery

  Review of "Nausea" by Jean-Paul Sartre in "Alger Républicain", (p. 5), October 20, 1938.

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• At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Feelings, Faces

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.10, Vintage

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• It is absurd to look for perfection.

  Camille Pissarro

  Perfection, Looks

  Joachim Pissarro, Camille Pissarro, Musée d'Orsay (2005). “Pioneering modern painting: Cézanne & Pissarro 1865-1885”

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• There have been no sects in the Christian world, however absurd, which have not endeavoured to support their opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture.

  Laurence Sterne

  Christian, Support, World

  Laurence Sterne (1860). “The Works of Laurence Sterne: Containing The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, Sermons, Letters, Etc”, p.705

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• Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it's in my basement... let me go upstairs and check.

  M. C. Escher

  Art, Thinking, Impossible

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• What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.

  Aldous Huxley

  Peace, War, Men

  Aldous Huxley (2001). “Complete Essays: 1936-1938”, Ivan R Dee

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• My turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then.

  Lord Byron

  Views, Mind, Break Out

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• It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Psychology, Study, Prison

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• Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Time, Maturity, Insightful

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• The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.

  Denis Diderot

  People, Lovers, Sexuality

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• I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.

  Georges Duhamel

  God, Ideas, World

  Le d‚sert de BiŠvres (1937) in Chronique des Pasquier (1948) vol. 5, p. 249

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• In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Fire, Separation Of Church And State, Separation Between Church And State

  James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay (2016). “The Federalist Papers: The Making of the US Constitution”, p.18, Arcturus Publishing

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• Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Truth, Sound, Hearing

  Elizabeth Goudge (1944). “Green Dolphin Street”

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• It is human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion.

  Anatole France

  Fashion, Thinking, Fools Day

  "Le Petit Pierre". Book by Anatole France, 1885.

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• The entrance into Jerusalem has all the elements of the theatre of the absurd: the poor king; truth comes riding on a donkey; symbolic actions - even parading without a permit!

  David Edward Kirk

  Kings, Theatre, Riding

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• The popularisation of scientific doctrines is producing as great an alteration in the mental state of society as the material applications of science are effecting in its outward life. Such indeed is the respect paid to science, that the most absurd opinions may become current, provided they are expressed in language, the sound of which recals [sic] some well-known scientific phrase.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Mind, Sound

  James Clerk Maxwell, Elizabeth Garber, Stephen G. Brush, C. W. Francis Everitt (1986). “Maxwell on Molecules and Gases”, p.112, MIT Press

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• How absurd and delicious it is to be in love with somebody younger than yourself. Everybody should try it.

  Barbara Pym

  Love, Trying, Should

  Barbara Pym (2013). “A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Diaries and Letters”, p.108, Pan Macmillan

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