Popular quotes about Contradiction! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Reality is the apparent absence of contradiction. The marvelous is the eruption of contradiction within the real.
Louis AragonThe free-trade idea, logically applied, will abolish usury; and with usury will disappear the chief bone of contention between labor and capital. But, just at this point, free-traders go over to the enemy; and many writers on political economy, in flat contradiction of the essential principles of that science, have made elaborate arguments to prove self-government in finance, impossible! What shall we think of men who, having dethroned kings, demolished popes, destroyed slave oligarchies and assailed tariff monopoly, advise submission to the most oppressive and dishonest of despotisms, Usury?
Ezra HeywoodAn infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession, and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction, that no man, one should think, whose judgement is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit of it.
David HumeReason is man's faculty for grasping the world by thought, in contradiction to intelligence, which is man's ability to manipulate the world with the help of thought. Reason is man's instrument for arriving at the truth, intelligence is man's instrument for manipulating the world more successfully; the former is essentially human, the latter belongs to the animal part of man.
Erich FrommAutocratic governments are masters of self-contradiction. They say one thing, do another.
Alastair ReynoldsThe only society that works today is also one founded on mutual respect, on a recognition that we have a responsibility collectively and individually, to help each other on the basis of each other's equal worth. A selfish society is a contradiction in terms.
Tony BlairOnce we have found our passion, we feel a strange contradiction: On one hand, we could die today and life would have been worth it, and at the same time, we want to live forever to continue our connection to our passion.
Janet HagbergThe 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 DarwinThere's a constant contradiction between what feels good and what feels right. But you live with decisions that you make in your life.
Randy TravisHumanity is a crazy contradiction. I accept us for who we are. We're not that great. Every time we take a step forward we go back to the same primitive behavior. We're meant to be this way. It's not our fault, it's just who we are.
Colin QuinnI studied the Bible seriously until I was young teenager. It was always part of our home education: talking about the Bible, arguing about the Bible, interpreting it. So I don't connect prayer or scriptures with any particular religion so it's not a contradiction in my life.
Patti SmithSameness leaves us in peace but it is contradiction that makes us productive.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheHindu fundamentalism is a contradiction in terms, since Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals; there is no such thing as a Hindu heresy. How dare a bunch of goondas shrink the soaring majesty of the Vedas and the Upanishads to the petty bigotry of their brand of identity politics?
Shashi TharoorBut Russians, in their very nature, it seems, pass quickly from the highest enthusiam to complete dejection and distrust. They yield to their moods quite sincerely and go the whole way, entirely forgetting all moods preceding and opposite. They do not see any contradiction in such behaviour; or, if they do, they readily find excuses for it.
Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of RussiaThere stands no contradiction between giving voice to legitimate anxiety and at the same time, as and when exchange of fire commences, looking to the rest of the country, as well as all of us in the House, to give full moral support to our forces.
Charles Kennedy... the primitve Christians, by laying so much stress upon a future life in contradiction to this life, and placing the lower creatures out of the pale of sympathy, and thus had the foundation for this utter disregard of animals in the light of our fellow creatures.
Anna Brownell JamesonWe can speak very much to the purpose and yet in such a way that the whole world cries out in contradiction: namely, when we are not speaking to the whole world.
Friedrich NietzscheThe human qualities of the raw materials show through. Naivety, error, contradiction, even (as in the cursing Psalms) wickedness are not removed. The total result is not "the Word of God" in the sense that every passage in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the Word of God.
C. S. LewisWe might miss the sign or we may be unable to read the expression, but it is almost a contradiction in terms to say that a dog feels something but does not show it. What a dog feels, a dog shows, and, conversely, what a dog shows, a dog actually does feel.
Jeffrey Moussaieff MassonAfter all, what would be "beautiful" if the contradiction had not first become conscious of itself, if the ugly had not first said to itself: "I am ugly"?.
Friedrich NietzscheLove not pleasure; love God. This is the Everlasting Yea, wherein all contradiction is solved.
Thomas CarlyleThere is scarcely a page of the Bible on which an open mind does not perceive a contradiction, an unlikely story, an obvious error, an historical impossibility of one sort or another.
Steve AllenThere will never be a perfectly good or bad world, because the very idea is a contradiction in terms.
Swami VivekanandaThe same chemicals were used in the cooking as were used on the composition of her own being: only those which caused the most violent reaction, contradiction, and teasing, the refusal to answer questions but the love of putting them, and all the strong spices of human relationship which bore a relation to black pepper, paprika, soybean sauce, ketchup and red peppers.
Anais NinThe thing that [the Senate and the House] don't realize is that everyone wants them to come from beyond that contradiction so that we can all fix it. Nobody is saying, "We don't have a problem." Nobody is saying that, "9/11 didn't happen." What they're saying is, "We're not a fragile country, trust us to have this conversation, so that we can do this in the right way, in a more effective way."
Jon StewartYou are not supposed to get it. It's a paradox. All of mathematics is built on paradoxes. That's the biggest paradox of all-all this orderliness, and at the heart, impossibility. Contradiction. Heaven built on the foundations of hell.
David LeavittWe in the United States are very often - since we are a democracy and we have national interests, we've often made the mistake that a democracy has to adopt America's interests, and that is a contradiction because a democracy basically is people deciding what their interests are.
George SorosI'd love to do some comedy. Particularly French comedy, which I know sounds like a contradiction in terms.
Kristin Scott ThomasBut it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere.
Garrett HardinHe who died for us, and Whom we ought to copy, did more for us than we can do for any one else. He endured the contradiction of sinners. We should have grace to follow in His steps.
David LivingstoneThere were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms.
Eliezer YudkowskyI believe that it is our human right to be parents and women. And there's no contradiction between feminism, which means women should have all that they are entitled to, all that they can do, all the opportunities that they can take advantage of they should have.
Anne RoipheThere are several states where you can get married. But I think I can say without fear of contradiction, 'Paradise awaits.' We'll be happy to welcome you. And if you do get married in another state, think about honeymooning in Hawaii.
Neil AbercrombieYou get a sense that it's okay to have good stuff and still claim a relationship with God. So enslaved Africans rethought their predicament in a way that entailed getting good stuff, material stuff, and having a deep relationship with God. There was no contradiction. And the idea just moves forward from there.
Anthony B PinnIndividual character is in the right that is in strict consistence with itself. Self-contradiction is the only wrong.
Friedrich SchillerThere is a song of Gainsbourg that Jane Birkin sang, and the words are beautiful in French. It says, "Le jeu et les moi." It's impossible to translate, because it has a very nice sound. It sounds so lovely in French. So I took that because it was the subject: I and myself and myself and I. Which is, in a way, boring, because it is a contradiction.
Agnes VardaTo say we love God as unseen and at the same time exercise cruelty toward the least creature moving by His life or by life derived from Him, was a contradiction in itself.
John WoolmanGod is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. But at the same time all three are essential parts of most theological positions: the theologian it seems, at once must adhere and cannot consistently adhere to all three.
J. L. MackieOptimism, then, is a fact within my own heart. But as I look out upon life, my heart meets no contradiction. The outward world justifies my inward universe of good.
Helen KellerI see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.
Thomas Merton