Absurd Quotes - Page 9

• Why do photographers start giving numbers to their prints? It’s absurd. What do you do when the 20th print has been done? Do you swallow the negative? Do you shoot yourself? It’s the gimmick of money.

  Henri Cartier-Bresson

  Numbers, Giving, Negative

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• Depression: the healthy suspicion that modern life has no meaning and that modern society is absurd and alienating.

  Neel Burton

  Healthy, Modern Life, Suspicion

  Neel Burton (2017). “Growing from Depression, second edition”, p.61, Acheron Press

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• Faeries are not fantasy, but a connection to reality. Faeries are irrational, poetic, absurd, and very, very wise. Faeries say there is nonsense in dogma, and sense in nonsense. Faeries express themselves with high seriousness and low humour. Faeries are resistant to all definitions.

  Brian Froud

  Wise, Reality, Connections

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• So the actual privilege is that you can then take time off - and if you don't, you're a fool. You're earning all this money to support children whom you then don't see, which is absurd.

  Paul Bettany

  Children, Support, Earning

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• Life is much weirder than fiction; nothing's more absurd.

  Peter Mullan

  Fiction, Life Is

  "‘NEDS’ Director Peter Mullan Almost Helmed ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ (Until He Botched The Pitch)". Interview with Christopher Bell, www.indiewire.com. April 27, 2011.

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• I find the world more absurd now than I did when I was a kid.

  Peter Mullan

  Kids, World

  "Peter Mullan: the swot who lost the plot". Interview with Cath Clarke, www.theguardian.com. January 19, 2011.

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• The idea that ballet is a white art is absurd and shocking, and it’s gone on for too long. Nothing would make me happier than having a company that reflects society, to have dancers onstage that people can relate to.

  Benjamin Millepied

  Art, Ideas, White

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• Every professional golfer has a seperate coach for his drives, for approaches, for putting. In football we have one coach for 15 players. This is absurd.

  Johan Cruijff

  Change, Football, Player

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• There is nothing so absurd as knowledge spun too fine.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Knowledge, Fine, Spun

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• It is an absurd law [Section 295A of the Indian penal code] but also extremely dangerous because it gives fanatics, whether they are Hindus, Catholics or Muslims, a licence to be offended. It also allows people who are in dispute with you to make up false accusations of blasphemy.

  Richard Dawkins

  Law, People, Giving

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• The gospel of a God found in broken flesh, humility, and measureless charity has defeated all the old lies, rendered the ancient order visibly insufficient and even slightly absurd, and instilled in us a longing for transcendent love so deep that-if once yielded to-it will never grant us rest anywhere but in Christ.

  David Bentley Hart

  Lying, Humility, Order

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• We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years-contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence-Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.

  Tony Blair

  Years, Iraq, Weapons

  "Tony Blair's Iraq War speech in full: How Labour's leader convinced MPs to vote for era-defining conflict". Article by Dan Bloom, www.mirror.co.uk. July 5, 2016.

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• It is absurd to say in respect of any intelligence that it is infallible, but if you ask me what I believe, I believe the intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an explanation.

  Tony Blair

  Believe, Thinking, Iraq

  "Powell admits weapons may not be found" by Duncan Campbell, Richard Norton-Taylor, www.theguardian.com. January 25, 2004.

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• How absurd to take the credit of doing the good act on oneself and lay the blame for the evil act on the Lord!

  Swami Vivekananda

  Evil, Credit, Blame

  Swami Vivekananda (1953). “Complete Works”

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• Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation, And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had everything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

  W. H. Auden

  Teacher, Children, War

  "The Unknown Citizen" l. 22 (1939)

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• By the time I actually recorded Bitter Tears I carried a heavy load of sadness and outrage; I felt every word of those songs... I expected there to be trouble with that album, and there was.... when it was released, many radio stations wouldn't play it.... The very idea of unconventional or even original ideas ending up on "country" radio in the late 1990s is absurd.

  Johnny Cash

  Country, Song, Sadness

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• Rise early. It is the early bird that catches the worm. Don't be fooled by this absurd law; I once knew a man who tried it. He got up at sunrise and a horse bit him.

  Mark Twain

  Horse, Men, Law

  Mark Twain (2017). “The Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated Edition): Novels, Short Stories, Memoir, Travel Books, Letters, Biography, Articles & Speeches: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, Yankee in King Arthur's Court…”, p.8122, e-artnow

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• We must keep our freedom of mind, ... and must believe that in nature what is absurd, according to our theories, is not always impossible.

  Claude Bernard

  Nature, Believe, Science

  Claude Bernard (2012). “An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine”, p.66, Courier Corporation

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• I express many absurd opinions. But I am not the first man to do it; American freedom consists largely in talking nonsense.

  E. W. Howe

  Men, Talking, America

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• Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance as the title page and Preface to a most learned volume. So they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. And when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. In each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Country, Wisdom, Mistake

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.773, Library of Alexandria

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• If you meditate long enough, deep enough, it is impossible for you to hurt anybody for food; it is impossible. It is not a question of argument, it is not a question of scriptures, it is not who says what, it is not a question of calculating that if you take vegetarian food you will become spiritual; it is automatic. It is not a question of cunningness, you simply become spiritual. The whole thing seems so absurd. Just for food, killing animals, birds, seems so absurd, it falls down.

  Rajneesh

  Spiritual, Hurt, Fall

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• . . . I do think that deep down, a lot of my work is about people trying to make reasonable accommodations of situations that are insane or absurd. . . . At first I thought the events had power in themselves, that I would just present them. I really wasn't aware of the things that finally became central issues to me - the shifting alliances, the way people hardly even know they've shifted. That part of [A QUESTION OF MERCY] is very familiar to me in terms of my other plays.

  David Rabe

  Thinking, Play, Issues

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• [Men] prefer the foolish belief and the passions of the earth [to the enlightenment of their souls]. They believe the absurd and shrink from the truth.No, they do not. They are afraid, that is all. And they must remain on earth until they come to the way of leaving it.And how do they leave? How is the ascent made? Must one learn virtue?Here she laughs. You have read too much, and learned too little. Virtue is a road, not a destination. Man cannot be virtuous. Understanding is the goal. When that is achieved, the soul can take wing.

  Iain Pears

  Believe, Passion, Men

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• It has become too easy to see that the luckless men of the past lived by mistakes, even absurd beliefs, so we may well fail in a decent respect for them, and forget that historians of the future will point out that we too lived by myths.

  Herbert J. Muller

  Mistake, Past, Men

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• The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Tired, Vanity

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1043, GENERAL PRESS

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