Contradiction Quotes

• I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.

  

  Georges Bataille
  • Truth
  • Face
  • Contradiction

• Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

  

  Blaise Pascal
  • Truth
  • Contradiction
  • Sign

• ...Erich Fromm wondered why most people did not become insane in the face of the existential contradiction between a symbolic self, that seems to give man infinite worth in a timeless scheme of things, and a body that is worth about 98¢.

  

  Ernest Becker
  • People
  • Timeless
  • Existential

• I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms.

  

  Edgar Allan Poe
  • Poem
  • Contradiction
  • Terms

• Praise is a contradiction of pride. Pride says 'looks at me,' but praise longs for people to see Jesus.

  

  Matt Redman
  • People
  • Jesus
  • Pride

• All natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it.

  

  William James
  • Happiness
  • Natural
  • Surround

• There is nothing that you can do that is worse for yourself, than to do something that you believe is inappropriate. And so, get clear and happy about whichever choice you make. Because it is your contradiction that causes the majority of the contradiction in vibration.

  

  Esther Hicks
  • Believe
  • Choices
  • Causes

• The best paradoxes raise questions about what kinds of contradictions can occur-what species of impossibilities are possible.

  

  William Poundstone
  • Questions
  • Paradox
  • Impossibility

• I would like to say that, as the protester finished his shower, I was disturbed by the contradiction between my avowed political materialism and my inexperience with this brand of making, of poeisis, but I could dodge or dampen that contradiction via my hatred of Brooklyn's boutique biopolitics, in which spending obscene sums and endless hours on stylized food preparation somehow enabled the conflation of self-care and political radicalism.

  

  Ben Lerner
  • Materialism
  • Radicalism
  • Protester

• The reflection of nature in man's thought must be understood not lifelessly but in the eternal process of movement, the arising of contradictions and their solution.

  

  Vladimir Lenin
  • Reflection
  • Solutions
  • Contradiction

• When I first met you, I felt a kind of contradiction in you. You’re seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away for all you’re worth.

  

  Haruki Murakami
  • Contradiction
  • Seeking
  • Running Away

• Moderate Islam? That's a contradiction. It's going to be a long time before we see a new Koran, an equivalent to the New Testament. Attacks don't happen in the name of Buddhism or Christianity; nor do homosexuals get beaten up, as happens daily in Amsterdam.

  

  Geert Wilders
  • Islam
  • Contradiction
  • Moderates

• To say that one need art, or politics, that incorporate ambiguity and contradiction is not to say that one then stops recognizing and condemning things as evil. However, it might stop one being so utterly convinced of the certainty of one's own solutions. There needs to be a strong understanding of fallibility and how the very act of certainty or authoritativeness can bring disasters.

  

  William Kentridge
  • Understanding
  • Disaster
  • Convinced

• what are you looking for? There is no Truth. There's only action, action obeying a million different impulses, ephemeral action, action subjected to every possible and imaginable contingency and contradiction, Life. Life is crime, theft, jealousy, hunger, lies, disgust,stupidity, sickness, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, piles of corpses. what can you do about it, my poor friend?

  

  Frederic Louis Sauser
  • Stupidity
  • Jealousy
  • Impulse

• 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
  • Separate
  • Beings
  • Hits

• A gentleman with a pug nose is a contradiction in terms.

  

  Edgar Allan Poe
  • Gentleman
  • Contradiction
  • Nose

• A church without a missions or a mission without the church are both contradictions. Such things do exist, but only as pseudostructures

  

  Carl Braaten
  • Church
  • Contradiction
  • Missions

• It is art's task to make manifest the contradictions of Being

  

  Sergei Eisenstein
  • Contradiction
  • Manifest

• Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God.

  

  Thomas Aquinas
  • God
  • Falls
  • Omnipotence

• In the theater there is often a tension, almost a contradiction, between the way real people would think and behave, and a kind of imposed dramaticness.

  

  Tom Stoppard
  • People
  • Thinking
  • Real

• The world is full of contradiction.

  

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • World
  • Contradiction

• Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction is capable of producing the last effects of heroism; which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy, in a good or bad cause, in wisdom or folly.

  

  William Hazlitt
  • Spirit
  • Capable
  • Heroism

• The stronger the identity, the more it imprisons, the more it resists expansion, interpretation, renewal, contradiction.

  

  Rem Koolhaas
  • Identity
  • Stronger
  • Expansion

• An uncritical scientist is a contradiction in terms: if you meet one, chances are that you have encountered a charlatan. By contrast, a critical clinician is a true rarity, in my experience. If you meet one, chances are that you have found a good and responsible doctor.

  

  Edzard Ernst
  • Experience
  • Scientist
  • Doctor

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