Absurd Quotes - Page 19

• It is a good plan, with a young person of a character to be much affected by ludicrous and absurd representations, to show him plainly by examples that there is nothing which may not be thus represented. He will hardly need to be told that everything is not a mere joke.

  Richard Whately

  Character, Example, Needs

  Richard Whately (1856). “Thoughts and Apophthegms: From the Writings of Archbishop Whateley”, p.152

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• Grace is in a great measure a natural gift; elegance implies cultivation; or something of more artificial character. A rustic, uneducated girl may be graceful, but an elegant woman must be accomplished and well trained. It is the same with things as with persons; we talk of a graceful tree, but of an elegant house or other building. Animals may be graceful, but they cannot be elegant. The movements of a kitten or a young fawn are full of grace; but to call them "elegant" animals would be absurd.

  Richard Whately

  Girl, Character, Animal

  Elizabeth Jane Whately, Richard Whately (1860). “A Selection of English Synonyms”, p.59

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• The material which a scientist actually has at his disposal, his laws, his experimental results, his mathematical techniques, his epistemological prejudices, his attitude towards the absurd consequences of the theories which he accepts, is indeterminate in many ways, ambiguous, and never fully separated from the historical background . This material is always contaminated by principles which he does not know and which, if known, would be extremely hard to test.

  Paul Feyerabend

  Attitude, Law, Historical

  Paul Feyerabend (1993). “Against Method”, p.51, Verso

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• It is a curious fact, but a fact it is, that your witty people are the most hard-hearted in the world. The truth is, fancy destroys feeling. The quick eye to the ridiculous turns every thing to the absurd side; and the neat sentence, the lively allusion, and the odd simile, invest what they touch with something of their own buoyant nature. Humor is of the heart, and has its tears; but wit is of the head, and has only smiles - and the majority of those are bitter.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Witty, Heart, Humor

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1854). “The Complete Works of L. E. Landon: Containing Romance and Reality, Francesca Carrara, Traits and Trials of Early Life, Ethel Church, the Book of Beauty, Improvisatrice, the Troubadour, Venetian Bracelet, Golden Violet, Vow of the Peacock, Easter Gift, &c., &c”, p.401

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• Success is an absurd, erratic thing. She arrives when one least expects her and after she has come may depart again almost because of a whim.

  Alice Foote MacDougall

  Success, Erratic, May

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• The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Want, Firsts, Causes

  Thomas Hobbes (1750). “The Moral and Political Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury: Never Before Collected Together : To which is Prefixed, the Author's Life, Extracted from that Said to be Written by Himself, ...”, p.114

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• Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

  Albert Camus

  Happiness, Mistake, Spring

  "The Myth of Sisyphus". Book by Albert Camus, 1955.

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• Most of the time it is a good job and a good honour to fight against people's values, because most of the time people's values are irrational and absurd!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Jobs, Fighting, People

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• I felt puny and absurd, a ludicrous midget. Easy enough to talk of soul and spirit and existential worth, but not when you're three feet tall.

  Richard Matheson

  Feet, Soul, Essentials

  "Fictional character: Scott Carey". "The Incredible Shrinking Man", www.imdb.com. February 22, 1957.

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• It is therefore absurd to approach the subject of health piecemeal with a departmentalized band of specialists. A medical doctor uninterested in nutrition, in agriculture, in the wholesomeness of mind and spirit is as absurd as a farmer who is uninterested in health. Our fragmentation of this subject cannot be our cure, because it is our disease. The body cannot be whole alone. Persons cannot be whole alone. It is wrong to think that bodily health is compatible with spiritual confusion or cultural disorder, or with polluted air and water or impoverished soil.

  Wendell Berry

  Spiritual, Thinking, Air

  Wendell Berry (2003). “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry”, p.99, Counterpoint

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• It strikes me as being morally repulsive and intellectually absurd that people die of want in a world of surplus.

  Bob Geldof

  People, Environmental, World

  "U2, Coldplay among bands to play in Live 8". www.today.com. May 31, 2005.

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• My objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and, I might add, infinitely absurd.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Religious, Selfish, Religion

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2591, Library of Alexandria

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• Giving government aid to a bank basically transforms it into a utility. The huge salaries in this sector are only a symptom of a more profound misalignment. The profitability of the finance industry has been excessive. [...] That was absurd.

  George Soros

  Government, Giving, Profound

  "Mathias Müller von Blumencron, Gregor Peter Schmitz and Gabor Steingart". Interview with Mathias Müller von Blumencron, Gregor Peter Schmitz and Gabor Steingart, www.spiegel.de. November 24, 2008.

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• In Russia no one is surprised when an official accepts a bribe while at the same time portraying the state as some sacred entity to which the bourgeois should pay homage. This all sounds absurd. But for Russians it is completely normal.

  Vladimir Sorokin

  Russia, Normal, Sound

  "Russia Is Slipping Back into an Authoritarian Empire". Interview with Martin Doerry and Matthias Schepp, www.spiegel.de. February 2, 2007.

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• I always feel bad for people getting married and spending upwards of a hundred thousand dollars. It just seems so absurd to me.

  Jack Black

  People, Dollars, Married

  Interview with Daniel Handler, www.believermag.com.

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• I don't take so-called "vacations" often. In fact vacations are more stressful than the lives my wife and I worked hard to set up for ourselves in New York. It seems like being on vacation is like normal living, which is not very satisfying. It means we're figuring out what to make for lunch today, and that seems like such an absurd way to live. The issue of dealing with that doesn't seem to be so prominent back home. It sounds so silly and ridiculous, but it's really the way it is. We love what we do, so I prefer being in the studio; that's really living for me.

  Ryan McGinness

  New York, Silly, Home

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• It's absurd and quite tragic the way people have managed to pit science against faith. They aren't in conflict at all - they're long lost dance partners. I don't divide the world up into Christians and other people - we are all human beings, brothers and sisters, and we embrace truth wherever we find it, whether that's in a lab, a field or a cathedral. Because sometimes you need a scientist and sometimes you need a poet.

  Rob Bell

  Christian, Brother, Long

  Source: missionaryrenegade2013.blogspot.com

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• The climate, financial and national security crises are all connected. They share the same cause: Our [the USA's] absurd dependency on foreign oil. As long as we need to spend billions of dollars each year to buy foreign oil from state-run oil companies in the Persian Gulf, our problems of a trade deficit, a budget deficit and a climate crisis will persist.

  Al Gore

  Running, Years, Usa

  "'I Am Optimistic'". Interview with Philip Bethge, Gregor Peter Schmitz and Gabor Steingart, www.spiegel.de. November 02, 2009.

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• Jay-Z's a guy that wears the Che Guevara t-shirt and he doesn't realize Che Guevara was a racist. Che Guevara was a murderer and a killer. So look, he's an entertainer, obviously. He's not in the middle of any public discourse here. But I think it's important to point out when people take stances like this that are absurd.

  Marco Rubio

  Thinking, People, Guy

  Source: alter.newsweek.msnbc.com

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• To the extent that we consume, in our present circumstances, we are guilty. To the extent that we guilty consumers are conservationists, we are absurd. But what can we do? Must we go on writing letters to politicians and donating to conservation organizations until the majority of our fellow citizens agree with us? Or can we do something directly to solve our share of the problem? I am a conservationist. I believe wholeheartedly in putting pressure on the politicians and in maintaining the conservation organizations.

  Wendell Berry

  Believe, Writing, Organization

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• Last House offended a lot of people. The results in the theaters, even in Boston, reminded me a bit of things from when I was studying theater of the absurd, and the rise and the appearance of Ionesco plays, and things like that. Thinking, "My God, people actually are getting into fistfights. People are having heart attacks. People are actually trying to get into the projection booth to destroy the print."

  Wes Craven

  Heart, Thinking, Boston

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

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• People write a lot of similar material. That's why I try to come up with the most absurd jokes.

  Daniel Tosh

  Writing, People, Trying

  Source: titlesarestupid.blogspot.com

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• You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation.

  Octave Mirbeau

  Fashion, Anger, Thinking

  Octave Mirbeau (1989). “The Torture Garden”, Re-Search Publications

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• Once you do lose a job, there are not a lot of social supports for you. You lose health insurance because we have this absurd system in America where health insurance is usually tied to employment. Your income dips. And that's when you get into selling the house.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Jobs, America, House

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• I did extensive research on media and anorexia and found out that the fashion magazines are to blame in a way. They project an image of a woman that is completely absurd, but girls and women believe they should be very skinny. They don't look like real woman anymore.

  Oliviero Toscani

  Girl, Fashion, Real

  Source: valuet.wordpress.com

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