Absurdity Quotes - Page 12

• I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Writing, Writing Poems

  Wislawa Szymborska, “Possibilities”

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• I feel closer ties and more intimate bonds with certain characters in books, with certain images I’ve seen in engravings, than with many supposedly real people with the metaphysical absurdity known as ‘flesh and blood’. In fact, ‘flesh and blood’ describes them very well: they resemble cuts of meat laid out on the butcher’s marble slab, dead creatures bleeding as though still alive.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Real, Book, Character

  Fernando Pessoa (2010). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.47, Profile Books

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• French intellectual life has, in my opinion, been turned into something cheap and meretricious by the 'star' system. It is like Hollywood. Thus we go from one absurdity to another - Stalinism, existentialism. Lacan, Derrida - some of them obscene ( Stalinism), some simply infantile and ridiculous ( Lacan, Derrida). What is striking, however, is the pomposity and self-importance, at each stage.

  Noam Chomsky

  Stars, Self, Intellectual

  Noam Chomsky, Jean Bricmont, Julie Franck (2010). “Chomsky Notebook”, p.72, Columbia University Press

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• Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Book, Fate, Addiction

  Jeanette Winterson (2013). “Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery”, p.80, Random House

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• When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.

  Anne Lamott

  Absurdity Of Life, Dancing, Laughing

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.237, Anchor

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• The tales of our exploits will survive as long as the human voice itself,' he said. 'And even after that, when the robots recall the human absurdities of sacrifice and compassion, they will remember us.

  John Green

  Sacrifice, Compassion, Voice

  John Green (2012). “The Fault in Our Stars”, p.202, Penguin

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• It's so freeing, it's beautiful in a way, to have a great failure, there's nowhere to go but up.

  David Lynch

  Inspirational, Motivational, Beautiful

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• Here in the trees it was much easier to believe the absurdities that embarrassed me indoors. Nothing had changed in this forest for thousands of years, and all the myths and legends of a hundred different lands seemed much more likely in this green haze than they had in my clear-cut bedroom. Bella Swan Stephenie Meyer

  Stephenie Meyer

  Believe, Cutting, Swans

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• Because you have no memory for things that happened ten or twenty years ago, you're still mouthing the same nonsense as two thousand years ago. Worse, you cling with might and main to such absurdities as 'race,' 'class,' 'nation,' and the obligation to observe a religion and repress your love.

  Wilhelm Reich

  Memories, Race, Years

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• Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death—and I refuse suicide.

  Albert Camus

  Suicide, Passion, Three

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.64, Vintage

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• Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things because to demystify supposedly 'holy text dictated by god' and show that they are man made and what you have to show [is] there internal inconsistencies and absurdities. One of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority... it is an indispensable thing people can call it blasphemy if they like, but if they call it that they have to assume there is something to be blasphemed - some divine work, well I don't accept the premise.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Men, Laughing

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• There is no absurdity in theology so great that you cannot parallel it by a greater absurdity in Nature.

  Thomas Huxley

  Nature, Science, Natural

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• Humor is our way of defending ourselves from life's absurdities by thinking absurdly about them.

  Lewis Mumford

  Inspirational, Funny, Humor

  Lewis Mumford (1979). “My works and days: a personal chronicle”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say: lines on maps are silly.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Silly, Maps, Lines

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making”, p.17, Macmillan

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• Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Writing, Play, Fearless

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.86, Shambhala Publications

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• When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.

  Adolf Hitler

  Christian, Stars, Knowledge

  Adolf Hitler (1972). “Secret conversations, 1941-1944”, Octagon Press, Limited

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• If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is an absurdity and there is absolutely no need for it. What the world needs is not "a little bit of love," but major surgery. If you think you are helping lost people with your sympathy and understanding, you are a traitor to Jesus Christ. You must have a right-standing relationship with Him yourself, and pour your life out in helping others in His way— not in a human way that ignores God.

  Oswald Chambers

  Jesus, Thinking, Helping Others

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• Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.

  Abraham Joshua Heschel

  Art, Deeds, Remember

  Abraham Joshua Heschel (1983). “I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology”, Crossroad Publishing Company

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• The words kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity.

  George Orwell

  Coming Back, Mystical, Statements

  George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.187, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The prince's official job description as king will be 'defender of the faith,' which currently means the state-financed absurdity of the Anglican Church, but he has more than once said publicly that he wants to be anointed as defender of all faiths—another indication of the amazing conceit he has developed in six decades of performing the only job allowed him by the hereditary principle: that of waiting for his mother to expire.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Mother, Atheist, Kings

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “Arguably”, p.392, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him (i.e. Jesus) by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Jesus, Ignorance

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• When a man has once brought himself to accept uncritically all the absurdities that religious doctrines put before him and even to overlook the contradictions between them, we need not be greatly suprised at the weakness of his intellect.

  Sigmund Freud

  Religious, Acceptance, Men

  Sigmund Freud, Scientific Literature Corporation (1961). “The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud”

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• I learned that just beneath the surface there's another world, and still different worlds as you dig deeper. I knew it as a kid, but I couldn't find the proof. It was just a kind of feeling. There is goodness in blue skies and flowers, but another force - a wild pain and decay - also accompanies everything.

  David Lynch

  Pain, Flower, Creativity

  "Fifty Contemporary Film Directors". Book edited by Yvonne Tasker, p. 259, 2010.

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• My space chums think reality was once a primitive method of crowd control that got out of hand. In my view, it’s absurdity dressed up in a three-piece business suit.

  Jane Wagner

  Reality, Thinking, Views

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• Atheism leads to numerous absurdities promoted by otherwise intelligent people.

  Dave Hunt

  Atheist, Intelligent, People

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