Absurd Quotes - Page 32

• Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."

  H. L. Mencken

  Atheist, Religion, Atheism

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• How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason.

  Charles Darwin

  Religious, Men, Essence

  Charles Darwin (1871). “The Descent of man”, p.95

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• The theist must present an intelligible description of god. Until he does so, god makes no more sense than unie; both are cognitively empty, and any attempt at proof is logically absurd.

  George H. Smith

  Religion, Atheism, Doe

  George H. Smith (2010). “Atheism: The Case Against God”, p.30, Prometheus Books

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• The idea that nations should love one another, or that business concerns or marketing boards should love one another, or that a man in Portugal should love a man in Peru of whom he has never heard -it is absurd, unreal, dangerous. The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much.

  E. M. Forster

  Love, Men, Ideas

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• Geological facts being of an historical nature, all attempts to deduce a complete knowledge of them merely from their still, subsisting consequences, to the exclusion of unexceptionable testimony, must be deemed as absurd as that of deducing the history of ancient Rome solely from the medals or other monuments of antiquity it still exhibits, or the scattered ruins of its empire, to the exclusion of a Livy, a Sallust, or a Tacitus.

  Richard Kirwan

  Knowledge, Science, Rome

  Richard Kirwan (1799). “Geological essays”, p.5

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• Though it sounds absurd, it is true to say I felt younger at sixty than I felt at twenty.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Retirement, Age, Twenties

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• That henceforth the absurd game of chemical noughts and crosses be tabu within the Society's precincts and that, following the practice of the Press in ending a correspondence, it be an instruction to the officers to give notice "That no further contributions to the mysteries of Polarity will be received, considered or printed by the Society." His challenge was not accepted.

  Henry Edward Armstrong

  Science, Practice, Games

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• Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics, on which life depends, are in every respect deliberate.... It is, therefore, almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect higher intelligence -even to the limit of God.

  Fred Hoyle

  Thinking, Origin Of Life, Limits

  "Big enough to bury Darwin", www.theguardian.com. August 23, 2001.

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• ...it is absurd to try to confine our knowledge and belief to matters which are conclusively established by sound deductive arguments. The demand for certainty will inevitably be disappointed, leaving skepticism in command of almost every issue.

  J. L. Mackie

  Philosophical, Issues, Leaving

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• There are two sorts of truth: trivialities, where opposites are clearly absurd, and profound truths, recognised by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth

  Niels Bohr

  Spiritual, Opposites, Two

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• World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, War, Believe

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• It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound-that he will never get over it.

  Robert Frost

  Reading, Taken, Writing

  Recalled on his death, 29 Jan 1963.

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• The thing that keeps you scrambling over the rocks, risking snakes, and swatting at the flies is the view. It is only your enjoyment of and commitment to what you see, not to what you rationally understand, that balances the otherwise absurd investment of labor.

  Robert Adams

  Photography, Commitment, Rocks

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• The laws of nature may be operative up to a certain limit, beyond which they turn against themselves to give birth to the absurd.

  Albert Camus

  Nature, Law, Giving

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.36, Vintage

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• The idea that each individual has intrinsic, God-given value and is of infinite worth quite apart from any social contribution - an idea most pagans would have rejected as absurd - persists today as the ethical basis of western law and politics. Our secularized western idea of democratic society owes much to that early Christian vision of a new society - a society no longer formed by the natural bonds of family, tribe, or nation but by the voluntary choice of its members.

  Elaine Pagels

  Christian, Women, Law

  Elaine Pagels (2011). “Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity”, p.81, Vintage

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• There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Men, Opinion, Global Warming

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “The Art of Controversy”, p.56, Arthur Schopenhauer

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• In my view, our approach to global warming exemplifies everything that is wrong with our approach to the environment. We are basing our decisions on speculation, not evidence. Proponents are pressing their views with more PR than scientific data. Indeed, we have allowed the whole issue to be politicized-red vs blue, Republican vs Democrat. This is in my view absurd. Data aren't political. Data are data. Politics leads you in the direction of a belief. Data, if you follow them, lead you to truth.

  Michael Crichton

  Issues, Blue, Views

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• It is absurd to think that a man can believe in Christ, with his heart, and it not have a radical affect on the rest of his life.

  Paul Washer

  Believe, Heart, Men

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• According to the International Institute for Environment and Development, the annual amount spent globally on advertising aimed at increasing consumption topped $430 billion in 1998.Consumer capitalism is dedicated to the proposition that production is good in itself, no matter what is produced. The net effect is the massive production of absurd, empty and useless items which are nevertheless utterly serious since we earn our living from them, and dedicate our leisure time to them.

  Jacques Ellul

  Development, Useless, Matter

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• The deepest poverty is the inability of joy, the tediousness of a life considered absurd and contradictory. This poverty is widespread today, in very different forms in the materially rich as well as the poor countries. The inability of joy presupposes and produces the inability to love, produces jealousy, avarice - all defects that devastate the life of individuals and of the world. This is why we are in need of a new evangelization - if the art of living remains an unknown, nothing else works... this art can only be communicated by [one] who has life - he who is the Gospel personified.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Faith, Country, Art

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• This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Views, Confusion

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• There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance between independent nations for certain defined purposes precisely stated in a treaty regulating all the details of time, place, circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future discretion; and depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Party, Independent, Ideas

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist, on the new constitution, written in 1788, with an appendix, containing the letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the proclamation of neutrality of 1793, also the original articles of confederation and the constitution of the United States”, p.68

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• You know how easily and suddenly these things happen, beginning in playful teasing and ending in something a little warmer than friendship. You squeeze the slender arm which is passed through yours, you venture to take the little gloved hand, you say good night at absurd length in the shadow of the door. It is innocent and very interesting, love trying his wings in a first little flutter.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Love, Good Night, Hands

  Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir (2008). “The Stark Munro Letters: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.73, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter, wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action: and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Men, Vanity, People

  Benjamin Franklin, William-Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of (the Same), Continued to the Time of His Death by William Temple Franklin. - London, H. Colburn 1818”, p.2

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• Fear is a distorting mirror in which anything can appear as a caricature of itself, stretched to terrible proportions; once inflamed, the imagination pursues the craziest and most unlikely possibilities. What is most absurd suddenly seems the most probable.

  Stefan Zweig

  Fear, Mirrors, Imagination

  Stefan Zweig (2009). “The Post Office Girl”, Sort of

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