Absurd Quotes - Page 11

• There is nothing more explosive than a skilled population condemned to inaction. Such a population is likely to become a hotbed of extremism and intolerance, and be receptive to any proselytizing ideology, however absurd and vicious, which promises vast action.

  Eric Hoffer

  Promise, Population, Action

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Ridicule often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble.

  Walter Scott

  Thinking, Noble, Checks

  Sir Walter Scott (1850). “The Novels of Walter Scott: With All His Introd. and Notes”, p.115

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• There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. Fontenelle says he would undertake to persuade the whole public of readers to believe that the sun was neither the cause of light or heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Philosophy, Believe, Science

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• The idealist's program of political or economic reform may be impracticable, absurd, demonstrably ridiculous; but it can never be successfully opposed merely by pointing out that this is the case. A negative opposition cannot be wholly effectual: there must be a competing idealism; something must be offered that is not only less objectionable but more desirable.

  Charles Horton Cooley

  Political, Reform, Negative

  Charles Horton Cooley (1909). “Two Major Works: Social Organization. Human Nature and the Social Order”, Glencoe, Ill., Free P

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• You must realize that it is the ordinary way of God's dealings with us that our ideas do not work out speedily and efficiently as we would like them to. The reason for this is not only the loving wisdom of God, but also the fact that our acts have to fit into a great complex pattern that we cannot possibly understand. I have learned over the years that Providence is always a whole lot wiser than any of us, and that there are always not only good reasons, but the very best reasons for the delays and blocks that often seem to us so frustrating and absurd.

  Thomas Merton

  Block, Years, Ideas

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.862, Macmillan

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• For some high-profile men in trouble, women, especially feminist women, became the all-purpose scapegoats-charged with crimes that often descended into the absurd.

  Susan Faludi

  Men, Feminist, Purpose

  Susan Faludi (1991). “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women”

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• I remember when the idea of living to be 40 seemed absurd.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Ideas, Remember, Remember When

  "Gavin's Woodpile". www.brucecockburn.org. December 15, 2012.

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• Don Juan assured me that in order to accomplish the feat of making myself miserable I had to work in the most intense fashion, and that it was absurd. I had now realized I could work just the same in making myself complete and strong. "The trick is in what one emphasizes," he said. "We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

  Carlos Castaneda

  Fashion, Strong, Order

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• I have never heard enough classical music to be able to enjoy it; & the simple truth is, I detest it. Not mildly, but will all my heart. To me an opera is the very climax & cap-stone of the absurd, the fantastic the unjustifiable. I hate the very name of opera - partly because of the nights of suffering I have endured in its presence, & partly because I want to love it and can't.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Hate, Humorous

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• I esteem his understanding and subtlety highly, but I consider that they have been put to ill use in the greater part of his work, where the author studies things of little use or when he builds on the improbable principle of attraction. Writing about Newton's Principia. Huygens had some time earlier indicated he did not believe the theory of universal gravitation, saying it 'appears to me absurd.'

  Christiaan Huygens

  Believe, Writing, Science

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• We have now got what seems to be definite proof that an X ray which spreads out in a spherical form from a source as a wave through the aether can when it meets an atom collect up all its energy from all round and concentrate it on the atom. It is as if when a circular wave on water met an obstacle, the wave were all suddenly to travel round the circle and disappear all round and concentrate its energy on attacking the obstacle. Mechanically of course this is absurd, but mechanics have in this direction been for some time a broken reed.

  Henry Moseley

  Science, Circles, Broken

  Henry Moseley's letter to Margery Moseley (February 2, 1913), as quoted in "H. G. J. Moseley: The Life and Letters of an English Physicist 1887-1915" edited by J. L. Heilbron (p. 201), 1974.

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• Beauty is that little something that fills the whole world, and is contained neither in a single straight nose, a long eyelash, nor a blue mountain. Some see it in a leg of mutton, others in a compound fracture; and to expect others to accept one's own definition of it is as absurd as to expect all humanity to use the same toilet-brush.

  William Morris Hunt

  Blue, Eyelashes, Long

  William Morris Hunt (1878). “W.M. Hunt's Talks about Art: With a Letter from J.E. Millais”

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• I have seen the day, when, if a man made himself ridiculous, the world would laugh at him. But now, everything that is mean, disgusting, and absurd, pleases them but so much the better!

  Joanna Baillie

  Mean, Men, Laughing

  Joanna Baillie (1806). “A Series of Plays: The election. Ethwald. The second marriage. 3d ed”, p.9

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• Witchcraft is one of the most baseless, absurd, disgusting and silly of all the humbugs.

  P. T. Barnum

  Silly, Witchcraft, Disgusting

  P.T. BARNUM (1866). “THE HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD”, p.307

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• On Being John Malkovich and the cinema of the absurd, I do enjoy it. I wish there were more like it. The very fact that there can't be more like it is one of the reasons it's admirable.

  Carter Burwell

  Wish, Cinema, Facts

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• I still kind of believe this absurd line that if you have to write it down, it's not worth remembering.

  Andrew Bird

  Believe, Writing, Lines

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• I don't believe any person looking for work is fearful of political judgment. Government is a large institution, and if they believe that people are going to get rid of good employees for political reasons, that's absurd.

  Jan Brewer

  Believe, Government, People

  "Q&A: Gov. Jan Brewer reflects on session's lessons". Interview with Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, www.azcentral.com. May 26, 2012.

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• I think coming to work and being absurd and neurotic and thoughtful at the same time is far more interesting.

  Lake Bell

  Thoughtful, Thinking, Interesting

  "Lake Bell Dives Right In". Interview with Jillary Busis, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 29, 2011.

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• It was an absurd theory that by cutting taxes you would increase government revenues, because the growth of the economy would create an overflow of taxes that would fall into the government coffers.

  Sidney Blumenthal

  Fall, Cutting, Government

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• I got to play with ZZ Top and introduce Bryan Adams and George Michael. And to have it all topped off by me winning 'American Idol?!' It's pretty absurd.

  David Cook

  Winning, Idols, Play

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• I think it's very important to feed the body what it craves and not be in your head about it, panicking, carrying around some calorie-counting wheel in your bag or something equally absurd. I'm really not a fan of that at all.

  Tracy Anderson

  Thinking, Important, Fans

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• I've always thought things were absurd. It would take a lot more effort for me to see things as reasonable.

  Joshua Ferris

  Effort, Reasonable

  "This much I know: Joshua Ferris" by Gaby Wood, www.theguardian.com. February 13, 2010.

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• All tastes have the quality of being in some way artificial and invented. The secret of life is to have enough detachment from your tastes and your values to see that they are a little bit absurd.

  Adam Gopnik

  Secret, Quality, Littles

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• I told [Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted "Mary had a little lamb," etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. On first words spoken on a phonograph.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Science, Talking, Machines

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• The central ideas of Christianity, an angry God and vicarious atonement, are contrary to every fact in nature, as also to the better aspirations of the human heart; they are, in our present stage of enlightenment, absurd, preposterous, and blasphemous propositions.

  Virchand Gandhi

  Heart, Ideas, Enlightenment

  "Christian Missions: A Triangular Debate, Before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York". The Monist: A Quarterly Magazine 5 (2), pp. 268-273, 1895.

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