contradictions Quotes

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”

“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”

“I am large, I contain multitudes”

“By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions cannot exist.”

“Tough toenails, tiger. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.”

“When your good and evil clash with your neighbor’s, fights and arguments ensue and even wars break out...if there is no reality of good that is absolute, then you have lost any basis for judging. It is just language, and one might as well exchange the word good for the word evil.”

“It is most difficult to understand the disposition of the Bible God, it is such a confusion of contradictions; of watery instabilities and iron firmness; of goody-goody abstract morals made out of words, and concreted hell-born ones made out of acts; of fleeting kindness repented of in permanent malignities.”

“Come in by the gold gates or not at all, Take of my fruit for others or forbear, For those who steal or those who climb my wall Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair. -Inscription on the Garden Gate”

“A mess of beautiful contradictions make her whole, she wears fire for skin but a storm lives in her soul.”

“Ivan Ilych never abused his power; he tried on the contrary to soften its expression, but the consciousness of it and the possibility of softening its effect, supplied the chief interest and attraction of his office.”

“Mommy’s contradictions crashed and slammed against one another like bumper cars at Coney Island. White folks, she felt, were implicitly evil toward blacks, yet she forced us to go to white schools to get the best education. Blacks could be trusted more, but anything involving blacks was probably slightly substandard. She disliked people with money yet was in constant need of it. She couldn’t stand racists of either color.”

“Where did truth stop? Where did error begin? I was all adrift among a thousand contradictory hypotheses, but I could not lay hold of one.”

“I was becoming too ‘rich’ for the kids from the neighborhood and too ‘poor’ for the kids at school. I had forgotten how to act naturally, thinking way too much in each situation and getting tangled in the contradictions between my two worlds.”

“And then of course it dawned on him that he knew plenty of Americans—he was one himself—who held apparently contradictory beliefs, such as faith in both medicine and prayer.”

“Disclaimer: While Pastafarianism is the only religion based on empirical evidence, it should also be noted that this is a faith-based book. Attentive readers will note numerous holes and contradictions throughout the text; they will even find blatant lies and exaggerations. These have been placed there to test the reader’s faith.”

“The word ‘slavery’ and ‘right’ are contradictory, they cancel each other out. Whether as between one man and another, or between one man and a whole people, it would always be absurd to say: “I hereby make a covenant with you which is wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I will respect it so long as I please and you shall respect it as long as I wish.”

“It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. ”

“Most prospects in life are marred by the shuffling worldly wisdom of men, who, forgetting that they cannot serve God and mammon, endeavor to blend contradictory things.”

“The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true.”

“If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this.”

“It’s funny how after we decide we don’t like someone, we can find reasons to support our decision, and equally the other way around.”

“The book is true, and if evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out not the book.”

“Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true.”

“It can have no bearing on the matter before us. Sam Westing manipulated people, cheated workers, bribed officials, stole ideas, but Sam Westing never smoked or drank or placed a bet. Give me a bookie any day over such a fine, upstanding, clean-living man.”

“You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it.”

″‘You must never contradict your mother,’ said Miss Serendip. ‘Every mother loves her children, and knows what is best for them.‘”

“She is constantly shaking, does not accept contradiction, and tries to subordinate everything that surrounds her.”

“I know this love, that sovereign of hearts, that soul of our souls; yet it never cost me more than a kiss and twenty kicks on the backside. How could this beautiful cause produce in you an effect so abominable?”

Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?