Contradiction Quotes - Page 20

• But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men.

  Francis Bacon

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  Francis Bacon (1765). “The works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England, in five volumes”, p.81

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• But the most valuable lesson he taught me was this: Every day we get older, and some of us get wiser, but there's no end to our evolution. We are all a mess of contradictions; some of our traits work for us, some against us.

  Lisa Lutz

  Dental Floss, Lessons, Taught

  Lisa Lutz (2011). “The Spellmans Strike Again: Document #4”, p.379, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash. They should stand up.

  David Brin

  Smart, Men, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• If your life is Christ, then your death will be only more of Christ, forever. If your life is only Christlessness, then your death will be only more Christlessness, forever. That's not fundamentalism, that's the law of non-contradiction.

  Peter Kreeft

  Jesus, Law, Forever

  7 Copy quote

• Yet this is trash that the Church imposes upon the world as the Word of God; this is the collection of lies and contradictions called the Holy Bible! This is the rubbish called Revealed Religion!

  Thomas Paine

  Lying, Religion, Church

  Thomas Paine (2015). “The Thomas Paine Collection: Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, An Essay on Dream, Biblical Blasphemy, Examination Of The Prophecies”, p.298, Ravenio Books

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• we would understand much more about life’s complexities if we applied ourselves to an assiduous study of its contradictions, instead of wasting time on identities and coherences, seeing as these have a duty to provide their own explanations.

  Jose Saramago

  Identity, Coherence, Wasting Time

  5 Copy quote

• He resented such questions as people do who have thought a great deal about them. The superficial and slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization. The vanity (if not outrage) of trying to cage this dance of atoms in a single definition may give the weariness of age with the cry of youth for answers the appearance of boredom.

  Peter De Vries

  Eye, Vanity, People

  7 Copy quote

• We both wondered whether these contradictions that one can't avoid if one begins to think of time and space may not really be proofs that the whole of life is a dream, and the moon and stars bits of nightmare.

  Arthur Machen

  Dream, Stars, Moon

  Arthur Machen (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of Arthur Machen (Illustrated)”, p.212, Delphi Classics

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Home, Heart, Night

  5 Copy quote

• If we return to the two faces of individualism - individualism as the spur of energy, initiative, and imagination; and individualism as the limitless struggle of all against all - it can be seen how the two practices emerge from and limit the extend of the disequilibrating impact of the contradiction involved in the geocultural agenda.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Struggle, Impact, Practice

  6 Copy quote

• Take the road to contradiction, it'll lead you, I promise, to the palace of wisdom.

  Frank Lentricchia

  Promise, Palaces, I Promise

  4 Copy quote

• Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father's love - difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul's miseries, her burdens, her needs - everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness. Everything is a grace because everything is God's gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events - to the heart that loves, all is well.

  Therese of Lisieux

  Faith, Father, Inspiration

  189 Copy quote

• It’s important not to be embarrassed by your past. The contradictions are part of what we are.

  Richey Edwards

  Past, Important, Embarrassed

  33 Copy quote

• A perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Life itself is a state of continuous struggle between ourselves and everything outside. Every moment we are fighting actually with external nature, and if we are defeated, our life has to go. It is, for instance, a continuous struggle for food and air. If food or air fails, we die. Life is not a simple and smoothly flowing thing, but it is a compound effect. This complex struggle between something inside and the external world is what we call life. So it is clear that when this struggle ceases, there will be an end of life.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Struggle, Fighting, Simple

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Karma Yoga”, p.97, Swami Vivekananda

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• What I hear about the book does not sound like the Scott McClellan I knew for two years. I can say, without fear of contradiction, that I knew Scott better than any other White House correspondent or Washington reporter.

  Jeff Gannon

  Book, Years, Two

  "Jeff Gannon weighs in on McClellan" by Michael Calderone, www.politico.com. May 29, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Yes. The way people behave, the paradoxes, the contradictions. All these things we have to live with and still pretend that everything is only black or white. That, I think, is the most interesting thing in human nature. The fact that we have to do one thing and pretend something else. That’s when it becomes very interesting. If you can literally speak the way you feel, then it’s not interesting anymore. It’s when you have to lie that it becomes interesting.

  Vincent Cassel

  Lying, Thinking, White

  6 Copy quote

• The Patriot Act was used against me in total contradiction to its stated purpose. Or perhaps it was the most logical use of the law, since it establishes a legal framework to crush free thinking and interrupt individual questioning of the government. It is the beginning of all dictatorship in America.

  Susan Lindauer

  Crush, Thinking, Government

  "Susan Lindauer: Secret Charges and The Patriot Act". Interview with Michael Collins, www.scoop.co.nz. March 10, 2009.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions - none more so than the most capable.

  Theodore Dreiser

  Honesty, Character, World

  Theodore Dreiser (2015). “The Financier: Top American Novels”, p.78, 谷月社

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Impossible, Truth Is, Tautology

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (2016). “Tractatus Logico Philosophicus”, p.15, Clube de Autores

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• It seems like a contradiction, but the shy person who is a performer actually does make sense, because in a way, when you're young and shy, making people laugh is a good way to make friends. It's an instant connection.

  Paul Merton

  People, Laughing, Connections

  12 Copy quote

• Perhaps the most valuable thing he taught me (his father) was that there is no contradiction between devotion to work and enjoyment of life and people

  Ahmed H. Zewail

  Father, People, Taught

  Ahmed Zewail (2004). “Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize”, p.17, American Univ in Cairo Press

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• [We need not think] that there is any Contradiction, when Philosophy teaches that to be done by Nature; which Religion, and the Sacred Scriptures, teach us to be done by God: no more, than to say, That the balance of a Watch is moved by the next Wheel, is to deny that Wheel, and the rest, to be moved by the Spring; and that both the Spring, and all the other Parts, are caused to move together by the Maker of them. So God may be truly the Cause of This Effect, although a Thousand other Causes should be supposed to intervene: For all Nature is as one Great Engine, made by, and held in His Hand.

  Nehemiah Grew

  God, Philosophy, Spring

  4 Copy quote

• ...I felt that photography ought to start with and remain faithful to the appearance of the world, and in so doing record contradictions. The greatest pictures would then... find wholeness in the torn world.

  Robert Adams

  Photography, Faithful, Records

  4 Copy quote

• Effortlessness means not doing anything, inactivity - AKARMA. Effort means doing much, activity - KARMA. Both have to be there. Do much, but don`t be a doer - then you achieve both. Move in the world, but don`t be a part of it. Live in the world, but don`t let the world live in you. Then the contradiction has been absorbed. Then you are not rejecting anything, not denying anything. Then the whole God has been accepted.

  Rajneesh

  Karma, Moving, Mean

  5 Copy quote

• We needed time to figure out what all of this meant, how we were going to come to terms and redefine what our love was called. I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth.

  Patti Smith

  Our Love, Way, Figures

  Patti Smith (2010). “Just Kids”, p.200, A&C Black

  4 Copy quote

  Show source