Paradox Quotes

My father told me that it is only a mad man that keeps bushy hairs. I asked him, what about the great men with bushy hairs?. He replied, education had made them mad, so study to be wise and sane.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Don't I always tell you to never listen to me?

~ Sean Kennedy

Man is the bridge of good as much as evil. He hurts and he loves. He divides and he unites. He destroys and he rebuilds. He kills and he saves lives. Yet, he denies or pretends that he does not know the other side of him. He only knows of himself as the protagonist, the righteous, and the honorable one. Others, who do not belong to his fold, are the villains, the devils, and the low-life beings. Ironically, the less he knows of his other self the more he becomes what he derides and denigrates. He is the tragic paradox of what he claims to be despite the evidence of his action that proves otherwise. (Danny Castillones Sillada, Man: The Paragon of All Paradoxes)

~ Danny Castillones Sillada

There are many, many, many worlds branching out at each moment you become aware of your environment and then make a choice.

~ Kevin Michel

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Proper process, should not hinder progress. Too much focus on process, has left many blind to measured, tangible progress.

~ Justin K. Mcfarlane Beau

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

~ Rita Mae Brown

He was the second snowman to be melting away before her eyes, only this one was different. It was a paradox. The colder he became, the more he melted.

~ Markus Zusak

The mysteries of life include the external and the internal conundrums that each person encounters in a world composed of competing ideologies and agents of change. Conflicting ideas include political, social, legal, and ethical concepts. Agents of change include environmental factors, social pressure to conform, aging, and the forces inside us that made us into whom we are as well as the forces compelling us to be a different type of person.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The paradox of indecisiveness lies in uncertainty.

~ Pearl Zhu

The paradox is the result of two opposing truths existing side by side, which can be both right.

~ Pearl Zhu

Paradoxes are conflicting choices or conditions that demand equal attention.

~ Pearl Zhu

The paradox of love is that its ultimate end is its opposite — hate. The paradox of hate is that its ultimate end is its opposite — love. Make deep hate inhabit any woman’s heart, and she can love one day. Make deep love inhabit any woman’s heart, and she can kill you one day.

~ Elmar Hussein

How do you know when it's over? Maybe when you reach a paradoxical state-hating to love someone

~ Pooja Bhatia

Those who cannot have your love, will gladly accept your hatred.

~ Justin K. Mcfarlane Beau

Yet our common moral knowledge is as real as arithmetic, and probably just as plain. Paradoxically, maddeningly, we appeal to it even to justify wrongdoing; rationalization is the homage paid by sin to guilty knowledge.

~ J. Budziszewski

If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?

~ Sam Harris

That's the news from Lake Woebegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

~ Garrison Keillor

The subtlest lie of all is the full truth.

~ Michael Moorcock

To make a statement that one knows is false is more honest than to make a statement that one knows is true.

~ Lionel Suggs

The Paradox of Sustenance: For an organism’s life to be continued, another organism’s life has to be discontinued.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

We've eaten, but he looks hungry, and experience tells me that crazy takes a lot of calories to sustain.

~ Emil Ostrovski

Sometimes I think I've figured out some order in the universe, but then I find myself in Florida, swamped by incongruity and paradox, and I have to start all over again.

~ Susan Orlean

When every fact, every present or past phenomenon of that universe, every phase of present or past life therein, has been examined, classified, and co-ordinated with the rest, then the mission of science will be completed. What is this but saying that the task of science can never end till man ceases to be, till history is no longer made, and development itself ceases?

~ Karl Pearson

The method of addition is quite charming if it involves adding to the self such things as a cat, a dog, roast pork, love of the sea or of cold showers. But the matter becomes less idyllic if a person decides to add love for communism, for the homeland, for Mussolini, for Roman Catholicism or atheism, for fascism or anti-fascism. In both cases the method remains exactly the same: a person stubbornly defending the superiority of cats over other animals is doing basically the same thing as one who maintains that Mussolini was the sole saviour of Italy: he is proud of this attribute of the self and he tries to make this attribute (a cat or Mussolini) acknowledged and loved by everyone.Here is that strange paradox to which all people cultivating the self by way of the addition method are subject: they use addition in order to create a unique, inimitable self, yet because they automatically become propagandists for the added attributes, they are actually doing everything in their power to make as many others as possible similar to themselves; as a result, their uniqueness (so painfully gained) quickly begins to disappear.

~ Milan Kundera

And he who wields white, wild magic gold is a paradoxFor he is everything and nothingHero and foolPotent, helplessAnd with one word of truth or treacheryHe will save or damn the earthBecause he is mad and saneCold and passionateLost and found

~ Stephen R. Donaldson

Human hypocrisy: When one judges humanity as a whole, people have the habit of disagreeing, saying that everyone is different - unique. Yet people turn around and say that at the end of the day, everyone is the same. Ladies and gentlemen, the joyful paradoxical nature of humanity. If you really want to dismiss the paradox, show me that your an imaginary number, rather than a real number.

~ Lionel Suggs

It is odd that the Bible says, ‘God created man,’ whereas it is the other way round: man has created God. It is odd that the Bible says, ‘The body is mortal, the soul is immortal,’ whereas even here the contrary is true: the body (its matter) is eternal; the soul (the form of the body) is transitory.

~ Béla Bartók

But that’s the paradox of expectations, they are infamous for generally never being fulfilled

~ Kudrat Dutta Chaudhary

Humility is, in a sense, admitting how egotistical you are.

~ Criss Jami

Plot twist: everything goes exactly as planned.

~ Criss Jami

A paradox is a storm that rains on itself.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Each cherry took about three seconds to eat. Three seconds to eat, but at least five years in the making. It seemed unfair to the hard-working cherry tree. The least I could do was to devote my attention to the cherry in those three seconds, really appreciate the tartness of the skin and the faint crunching sound when I bite down. I guess it's called mindfulness. Or being in the moment, or making the mundane sacred. Whatever it is, I'm doing it more. Like the ridiculously extended thank-you list for my hummus, the fruit taboo made me more aware of the whole cherry process, the seed, the soil, the five years of watering and waiting. That's the paradox: I thought religion would make me live with my head in the clouds, but as often as not, it grounds me in this world.

~ A.j. Jacobs

In the average, want overcomes reason. In the magnificent, reason is the want.

~ Justin K. Mcfarlane Beau

It was the discovery of the quantum universe that changed everything, and that universe was so small and so dynamic that it could not be observed directly. Trying to explain their insights, scientists looked at the language of mysticism. At the subatomic level, the parallels between quantum reality and mysticism were striking. For example, the behavior of light: in some contexts it acted like a wave, in others like a particle. Could it be both? Physicists had no concept for grasping this, so they dispensed with Western logic and embraced paradox. (This is important, too, for the notion of vampires being both living and dead.)

~ Katherine Ramsland

Perhaps the saddest part of coexistence is the concept of interdependence being necessary for any form of solidarity to be realized. Being encouraged to lean on the weak, does not sound like a long term viable solution to attaining strength.

~ Justin K. Mcfarlane Beau

Q: The Continuum didn't think you had it in you, Jean-Luc. But I knew you did...We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.Picard: When I realized the paradox.Q: Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebula, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.

~ Brannon Braga

Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude.

~ Anthony Burgess

Service that is purely self serving, becomes a vice.Do not serve, vice.

~ Justin K. Mcfarlane Beau

The kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. It beckons us to gamble all, to trust radically, to come and die so that we might live--to give our lives away. Giving life away is a paradox. It's losing so we can win. It's giving so we can receive. It's risking for security. It's faith. The kingdom of God means living that tension.

~ Ken Wytsma