Paradox Quotes - Page 23

• It is a curious paradox of human history that a doctrine that tells human beings to regard themselves as sacrificial animals has been accepted as a doctrine representing benevolence and love for mankind.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Animal, Atheism, And Love

  Nathaniel Branden (1985). “Honoring the Self”, Bantam

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• At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about "a public debt being a public blessing"; that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Dream, Wisdom, Blessing

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private : Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the Department of State”, p.239

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• A critical discourse that had respect for the mystery of art would look to the sense of life which finds expression in paradox, metaphor, tautology, and syntax.

  Denis Donoghue

  Art, Expression, Syntax

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• In fighting a bull you're always aware of a paradox concerning your perceptions of the bull. On the one hand it's your perceptions of the bull that give you the upper hand. You read the bull, you learn to read the bull more and more accurately, and this reading of the bull is how you deploy your intelligence against the bull's intelligence. Your accuracy in reading the bull is a weapon, maybe your most important weapon, against all the bull's weapons. On the other hand, you're human, you have the human tendency to read into the bull things which may not actually be there.

  Bette Ford

  Reading, Fighting, Hands

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's a paradox here! Kierkegaard's own indirect communication proposes that we start with the experience of those who don't believe and meet them on their own ground. His success in doing this is evidenced by the fact that, at least for some periods of the 20th century, aspects of his work became a major focus for radical thinkers of various kinds, including the non-religious and, interestingly, a significant number of Jewish thinkers (Buber, Rosenzweig, Taubes, and others).

  George Pattison

  Religious, Believe, Communication

  "Towards hope". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. July 18, 2014.

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• The paradox in China is that while some things change very rapidly, others don't. The appearance of its cities may be entirely different, but the inner workings behind these changes still persist: the regulation of society, the hierarchies of power, the relationship of the individual to the majority.

  Sze Tsung Leong

  Cities, Majority, Different

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• You undergo too strict a paradox, Striving to make an ugly deed look fair.

  William Shakespeare

  Looks, Deeds, Ugly

  William Shakespeare (1859). “The Plays of Shakespeare”, p.482

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• One talks much more about the evil than about the good. That is a paradox. We should only talk about the good to lighten up our existence. Chase anxiousness/fear away for a moment before it sneaks back in again to our life.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Evil, Moments, Should

  Source: sturm-lie.be

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• For the first time in history, the rational and the good are fully armed in the battle against evil. Here we finally find the answer to our paradox; now we can understand the nature of the social power held by evil. Ultimately, the evil, the irrational, truly has no power. The evil men’s control of morality is transient; it lives on borrowed time made possible only by the errors of the good. In time, as more honest men grasp the truth, evil’s stranglehold will be easily broken.

  Andrew Bernstein

  Men, Errors, Evil

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• The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature.

  Sri Aurobindo

  World, Firsts, Chains

  Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (Pondicherry, India), Aurobindo Ghose (1988). “Bulletin Du Centre International D'éducation Sri Aurobindo”

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• This is classic when you begin thinking about what is a great founder is, you navigate what is apparent paradoxes.

  Reid Hoffman

  Thinking, Classic, Founders

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• The proposition of Mr. Ricardo, which states that a rise in the price of labour lowers the price of a large class of commodities, has undoubtedly a very paradoxical air; but it is, nevertheless, true, and the appearance of paradox would vanish, if it were stated more naturally and correctly.

  Thomas Malthus

  Class, Air, Appearance

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1836). “Principles of Political Economy: Considered with a View to Their Practical Application”, p.88

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• I think that in this globalised world, the local is going to become more and more important - it is a paradox. You see it in Western Europe more and more. Eastern Europe is still coming out of the Soviet uniform cultural era, but this kind of separation and nationalism is very obvious now in Western Europe.

  Robert Dessaix

  Thinking, Europe, Important

  Source: www.compulsivereader.com

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• The paradox is that, by children taking shortcuts through computer games, through fantasies, through movies that load on all the emotional stimulation of encountering life in a stylized way - all of this is the equivalent of mainlining of paleolithic emotions, emotions about combat, about personal success, about overcoming monsters, about making powerful friendships, about winning wars and entering new territory.

  E. O. Wilson

  Children, Powerful, War

  Source: blog.cleveland.com

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• When Pico [Iyer] talks about home being a place of isolation, I think he's right. But it's the paradox. I think that's why I so love Great Salt Lake. Every day when I look out at that lake, I think, "Ah, paradox" - a body of water than no one can drink. It's the liquid lie of the desert. But I think we have those paradoxes within us and certainly the whole idea of home is windswept with paradox.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Lying, Home, Thinking

  Source: www.scottlondon.com

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• On the one hand, we all want to be happy. On the other hand, we all know the things that make us happy. But we don't do those things. Why? Simple. We are too busy. Too busy doing what? Too busy trying to be happy. This is the paradox of happiness that has bewitched our age.

  Matthew Kelly

  Simple, Hands, Catholic

  Matthew Kelly (2015). “The Rhythm of Life: Living Everyday With Passion and Purpose”, p.22, BookBaby

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• Our family has made its livelihood from the land, digging trenches for hundreds of miles cross-country. You could say this is a real paradox, to destroy the land, yet love it at the same time. This is a typical story of Westerners, how we build community through change.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Country, Real, Land

  Interview with David Kupfer, progressive.org. February 1, 2005.

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• It's like a paradox. For one side, being popularized rap got better and the other side of it got worse. It's very pop and it's very different now. When you make it as pop and as soft as it is, it lacks its integrity. It lacks its accountability. It lacks a lot of other things that came from that dangerous time in hip hop.

  Ice T

  Integrity, Rap, Hip Hop

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• The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human.

  Tim O'Brien

  Struggle, Heart, Character

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• There's the paradox of making pop music when you're in your 50s. People weren't meant to be doing that originally and yet they are. Mick Jagger [used to say] we're not going to be doing Satisfaction when I'm in a wheelchair.

  Neil Tennant

  People, Satisfaction, Used

  "Pet Shop Boys: cab drivers ask us if we've retired". Interview with Dorian Lynskey, www.theguardian.com. September 13, 2012.

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• The second [argument about motion] is the so-called Achilles, and it amounts to this, that in a race the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.
  Statement of the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox in the relation of the discrete to the continuous.; perhaps the earliest example of the reductio ad absurdum method of proof.

  Zeno of Elea

  Science, Race, Example

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• The paradox is that by the time you get to be senior, the decisions that matter the most are the ones that would be best made made by people who are junior.

  Seth

  Senior, People, Decision

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• Perhaps the grimmest aspect of this great paradox is that the very nations that are chiefly responsible for starting and for maintaining the Disarmament Conference are also the nations that have begun a new arms race.

  Arthur Henderson

  Race, Maintaining, Arms

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• He [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] was a great thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and outrageous, arrogant and shy, the best of men and the worst of men, the most protean, most ridiculous, and most sublime.

  William Manchester

  Men, Sublime, Noble

  William Manchester (1979). “American Caesar”

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• My dad's gay experiences really had a very positive influence on me and my straight relationships - how to better accept all the weirdness and ambiguity and ups and downs and paradoxes. I knew from the beginning I was writing about love.

  Mike Mills

  Dad, Writing, Gay

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