Contradictory Quotes - Page 3

• Woman is the symbol to man of the uncleanness of bodily existence, of which he purifies himself by putting her to noble uses. She thus has for him a double, contradictory significance; she is the subject of his bawdry and the subject of his romance.

  Laura Riding

  Men, Romance, Noble

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• We end up with the contradictory picture of a society that appears to throw its doors wide open to women, but translates her every step towards success as having been damaging.

  Margaret Mead

  Doors, Justice, Diversity

  Margaret Mead (1975). “Male and female: a study of the sexes in a changing world”, William Morrow & Co

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• It is not that I love contradictions: life is contradictory. Existence itself is possible only through contradictions.

  Rajneesh

  Life Is, Contradiction, Existence

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• If only all the contradictory voices shouting in my head would calm down and sing a song in unison, whatever it was I wouldn't care as long as they sang without dissonance.

  Ralph Ellison

  Song, Voice, Long

  Ralph Ellison (2010). “Invisible Man”, p.270, Vintage

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• For centuries it was never discovered that education was a function of the State, and the State never attempted to educate. But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power....When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion.

  Lord Acton

  Children, Government, Opposites

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• A blush is no language; only a dubious flag - signal which may mean either of two contradictories

  George Eliot

  Mean, Two, Dubious

  George Eliot “Daniel Deronda - Volume 2 of 2”, Lulu.com

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• The contradictory remarks of politicians are forgotten; the more asinine predictions of pundits are buried with mercy.

  Norman Mailer

  Wisdom, Forgotten, Politician

  Norman Mailer (1970). “Cannibals and Christians”

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• Can theology give to the mind the ineffable boon of conceiving that which no man is in a capacity to comprehend? Can it procure to its agents the marvellous faculty of having precise ideas of a god composed of so many contradictory qualities?

  Baron d'Holbach

  Men, Ideas, Giving

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• Ruth and I don't have a perfect marriage, but we have a great one. How can I say two things that seem so contradictory? In a perfect marriage, everything is always the finest and best imaginable; like a Greek statue, the proportions are exact and the finish is unblemished. Who knows any human being lke that? For a marriage couple to expect perfection in each other is unrealistic.

  Billy Graham

  Wisdom, Couple, Two

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• As a form of government, imperialism does not seek or require the consent of the governed. It is a pure form of tyranny. The American attempt to combine domestic democracy with such tyrannical control over foreigners is hopelessly contradictory and hypocritical. A country can be democratic or it can be imperialistic, but it cannot be both.

  Chalmers Johnson

  Country, Government, Democracy

  Chalmers Johnson (2010). “Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope”, p.34, Metropolitan Books

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• Beautiful, ugly, impressive, disgusting, meaningless, grim, contradictory etc … It makes no difference, as long as it is life, vigorously pouring forth.

  Asger Jorn

  Beautiful, Differences, Long

  Asger Jorn, Per Hovdenakk, Stine Høholt, Arken museum for moderne kunst (Ishøj, Denmark), Cobra Museum voor Moderne Kunst (Amstelveen, Netherlands) (2002). “Asger Jorn”

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• If all creeds are equally true, then since they are contradictory to one another, they are all equally false, or at least equally uncertain.

  John Gresham Machen

  Creeds, Uncertain, Ifs

  John Gresham Machen (1963). “Christianity and Liberalism”, p.34, Fig

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• Designing for me is a very complex process. There are many ideas that I want to express in one object, very often contradictory. The creative process in Miu Miu is completely different from that of Prada. Miu Miu is not as complicated and thought out as Prada. Rather than being young, Miu Miu is immediate Prada is very sophisticated and considered; Miu Miu is much more naive. The solution, when I am working on Miu Miu, has to come immediately, instinctively, spontaneously with whatever is available at the moment. If I think three times, I stop.

  Miuccia Prada

  Thinking, Ideas, Design

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• America's belated embrace of government health care is going to be far more expensive and disastrous than the Euro-Canadian models. Whatever one's philosophical objection to the Canadian health system, it is, broadly, fair: Unless you're a cabinet minister or a big time hockey player, you'll enjoy the same equality of crappiness and universal lack of access that everybody else does. But, even before it's up-and-running, Pelosi-Reid-Obamacare is an impenetrable thicket of contradictory boondoggles, shameless payoffs and arbitrary shakedowns.

  Mark Steyn

  Running, Philosophical, Hockey

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• Words belong to nobody, and in themselves they evaluate nothing. But they can serve any speaker and be used for the most varied and directly contradictory evaluations on the part of the speakers.

  Mikhail Bakhtin

  Evaluation, Used, Evaluate

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• Laughter is born out of the discovery of the contradictory.

  Alfred Jarry

  Laughter, Discovery, Born

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• I must be frank in my feeling that a notable heresy has come into being throughout our evangelical Christian circles -- the widely accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need Him as Saviour and that we have the right to postpone our obedience to Him as Lord as long as we want to... The truth is that salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred scripture... Apart from obedience, there can be no salvation, for salvation without obedience is a self-contradictory impossibility.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Christian, Self, Circles

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• Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk-the curiosity that leads to creativity belongs to this set. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement or support from outside to motivate behaviour, the second can wilt if not cultivated.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Encouragement, Creativity, Self

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2009). “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and”, p.11, Harper Collins

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• I didn't believe in systems. Everything human was imperfect and ultimately absurd. What did I believe in then? In humor. In laughing at systems, at people, at one's self. In laughing even at one's need to laugh all the time. In seeing life as contradictory, many-sided, various, funny, tragic, and with moments of outrageous beauty. In seeing life as a fruitcake, including delicious plums and bad peanuts, but meant to be devoured hungrily all the same because you couldn't feast on the plums without also sometimes being poisoned by the peanuts.

  Erica Jong

  Believe, Self, Laughing

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• The typical white intellectual considers himself superior to ordinary white folks for two contradictory reasons. First, he constantly proclaims his belief in human equality, but they don’t. Second, he has a high IQ, but they don’t.

  Steve Sailer

  Two, White, People

  "Americans First". www.theamericanconservative.com. February 13, 2006.

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• I think it’s fairly common for writers to be afflicted with two simultaneous yet contradictory delusions, the burning certainty that we’re unique geniuses, and the constant fear that we’re witless frauds who are speeding toward epic failure.

  Scott Lynch

  Unique, Thinking, Epic

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• Art. Its definitions are legion, its meanings multitudinous, its importance often debated. But amid the many contradictory definitions of art, one has always stood the test of time, from the Upanishads in the East, to Michelangelo in the West: art is the perception and depiction of the sublime, the transcendent, the beautiful, the spiritual.

  Ken Wilber

  Beautiful, Spiritual, Art

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• A woman doesn't find it contradictory to complain about not having anything to wear and about not having enough closet space in the same conversation. You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul's own doing.

  Marie Stopes

  Beautiful, Space, Soul

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• A language possesses utility only insofar as it can construct conventional boundaries. A language of no boundaries is no language at all, and thus the mystic who tries to speak logically and formally of unity consciousness is doomed to sound very paradoxical or contradictory. The problem is that the structure of any language cannot grasp the nature of unity consciousness, any more than a fork could grasp the ocean.

  Ken Wilber

  Ocean, Unity, Trying

  Ken Wilber (2001). “No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth”, p.52, Shambhala Publications

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• In almost every task involving form, there are dozens, often hundreds of contradictory elements, which need to be forced to work in harmony by man's will. This harmony can be acheived only through art.

  Alvar Aalto

  Art, Men, Tasks

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