Contradiction Quotes - Page 6

• The capacity to tolerate complexity and welcome contradiction, not the need for simplicity and certainty, is the attribute of an explorer. Centuries ago, when some people suspended their search for absolute truth and began instead to ask how things worked, modern science was born. Curiously, it was by abandoning the search for absolute truth that science began to make progress, opening the material universe to human exploration.

  Heinz Pagels

  People, Simplicity, Progress

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• When we asked Pooh what the opposite of an Introduction was, he said "The what of a what?" which didn't help us as much as we had hoped, but luckily Owl kept his head and told us that the Opposite of an Introduction, my dear Pooh, was a Contradiction; and, as he is very good at long words, I am sure that that's what it is.

  A. A. Milne

  Opposites, Long, Owl

  Milne, George, Milne, A. A. (Alan Alexander), Shepard, Ernest H. (1977). “The World of Pooh : the Complete Winnie-The-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner”, McClelland and Stewart, 1989

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• The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen-this again offers contradiction to constant succession of germs in progress.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Tree, Progress

  Charles Darwin, Thomas F. Glick, David Kohn (1996). “On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection”, p.54, Hackett Publishing

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• It is...idle to pretend, as many do, that there is no contradiction between religion and science. Science contradicts religion as surely as Judaism contradicts Islam-they are absolutely and irresolvably conflicting views. Unless, that is, science is obliged to change its fundamental nature.

  Bryan Appleyard

  Science, Views, Islam

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• If it is true, as I have tried to show, that love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence, then any society which excludes, relatively, the development of love, must in the long run perish of its own contradiction with the basic necessities of human nature.

  Erich Fromm

  Life, Running, Love Is

  "The Art of Loving". Book by Erich Fromm, 1956.

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• The common idea that scientists reject a theory as soon as it leads to a contradiction is just not so. When they get something that works at all they plunge ahead with it and ignore its weak spots... scientists are just as bad as the rest of the public in following fads and being influenced by mass enthusiasm.

  Vannevar Bush

  Science, Ideas, Weak Spots

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• People are saying, "Oh my God, Saudi Arabia has changed." It's a contradiction. Do you want us to lead, or do you want us to play a supporting role?

  Adel al-Jubeir

  Play, People, Arabia

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• I started to think more about becoming peace rather than fighting for peace, and the contradiction in terms, and the anger and violence that we were prey to and involved in to some extent in those days.

  Surya Das

  Fighting, Thinking, Violence

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

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• Anger and hatred cannot bring harmony. The noble task of arms control and disarmament cannot be accomplished by confrontation and condemnation. Hostile attitudes only serve to heat up the situation, whereas a true sense of respect gradually cools down what otherwise could become explosive. We must recognize the frequent contradictions between short-term benefit and long-term harm.

  Dalai Lama

  Respect, Attitude, Long

  His Holiness The Dalai Lama (1998). “Path To Tranquility”, p.172, Penguin Books India

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• As human beings, of course, we're all compromised and complex and contradictory and if a screenplay can express those contradictions within a character and if there's room for me to express them, that's a part I'd love to play, so much more than a character who is heroic and one-dimensional.

  Hugo Weaving

  Character, Play, Rooms

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• As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men.

  Thomas Paine

  Christian, Religious, Lying

  Thomas Paine (1854). “The Works of Thomas Paine: A Hero in the American Revolution. With an Account of His Life ...”, p.245

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• I think that Michael Jackson, just as an entertainer, as a figure who embodies the contradictions of Black identity, and the possibilities of R&B music in the '70s and '80s will continue to be one of the most recognized and formidable human beings that we've ever produced in our tradition.

  Michael Eric Dyson

  Thinking, Black, Identity

  "Georgetown University professor Dr. Michael Eric Dyson". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. June 30, 2009.

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• I realize that was becoming a contradiction in terms, especially after my friend Alison Krauss was shot and killed in Kent State in 1970 on campus by the National Guard.

  Surya Das

  Becoming, Realizing, Campus

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

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• Which path do you intend to take, Nell?' said the Constable, sounding very interested. 'Conformity or rebellion?' Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded - they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity.

  Neal Stephenson

  Simple, People, Way

  Neal Stephenson (2003). “The Diamond Age”, p.356, Spectra

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• The fact is that there is a contradiction going on but our brains don't like contradiction. So when Moe hits Curly on the head with a sledgehammer and Curly says, "ow" and Moe says, "Serves you right Numbskull", you can say that's because they're separate beings, and that's true.

  Brad Warner

  Brain, Facts

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

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• Everything about me is a contradiction, and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There's a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don't reconcile the poles. You just recognize them.

  Orson Welles

  Two, Saint, Made

  Orson Welles, Mark W. Estrin (2002). “Orson Welles: Interviews”, p.141, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Many appear full of mildness and sweetness as long as everything goes their own way; but the moment any contradiction or adversity arises, they are in a flame, and begin to rage like a burning mountain. Such people as these are like red-hot coals hidden under ashes. This is not the mildness which Our Lord undertook to teach us in order to make us like unto Himself.

  Bernard of Clairvaux

  Anger, Adversity, Flames

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• I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people who don't read can sometimes lack. I know it seems like a contradiction in terms; after all reading is such a solitary, internalizing act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day-to-day life. But reading, and particularly the reading of fiction, encourages us to view the world in new and challenging ways...It allows us to inhabit the consciousness of another which is a precursor to empathy, and empathy is, for me, one of the marks of a decent human being.

  John Connolly

  Reading, Thinking, Views

  John Connolly (2006). “The Book of Lost Things: A Novel”, p.345, Simon and Schuster

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• I maintain the importance of an absolute prohibition against torture, while acknowledging that even absolute prohibitions can sometimes be broken. If that is a contradiction, it is a contradiction that ethics has to embrace, or else it becomes like glass: hard, clear, but fatally inflexible.

  Julian Baggini

  Glasses, Broken, Ethics

  "Never saying never to torture" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. May 11, 2011.

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• It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind.

  Naguib Mahfouz

  Heart, Mind, Affliction

  FaceBook post by Naguib Mahfouz from Mar 05, 2014

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• A man walking through a wall is a miracle. A man both walking and not walking through a wall at the same time and in the same respect is a contradiction. God can perform miracles but not contradictions - not because his power is limited, but because contradictions are meaningless.

  Peter Kreeft

  Wall, Men, Miracle

  Peter Kreeft, Fr. Ronald Tacelli (2016). “Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith”, p.93, Ignatius Press

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• It is a contradiction to support increased development assistance, yet turn a blind eye to actions by multinationals anothers that undermine the tax base of a developing country.

  Trevor Manuel

  Country, Eye, Support

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• Hobbits delighted in such things, if they were accurate; they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Book, Squares, Accurate

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Lord of the Rings: One Volume”, p.20, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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