Quotes About Paradox

A Zen master once said, "To go eastward one mile is to go westward one mile." This is vital freedom. We should acquire this kind of perfect freedom.

Even though it is midnight, dawn is here; even though dawn comes, it is nighttime.

After some years we will die. If we just think that it is the end of our life, this will be the wrong understanding. But, on the other hand, if we think that we do not die, this is also wrong. We die, and we do not die. This is the right understanding.

If you have no tragedy, you have no comedy. Crying and laughing are the same emotion. If you laugh too hard, you cry. And vice versa.

What is the cause of the accident? This question is just as bizarre as asking what the cause is of not having an accident.

We are what we are, and half of what we are is what we are not.

Would you really have...?" said Julien. "Almost certainly," I said. "I have deep-seated problems with authority figures." "But you are one!" "I know! I can only assume the universe has a really mean sense of humour.

You know, sometimes I swear the whole universe runs on irony.

The Benders had died in a helicopter explosion but were otherwise in perfect health.

Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation.

Every moment is the paradox of now or never.

The proper method of philosophy consists in clearly conceiving the insoluble problems in all their insolubility and then in simply contemplating them, fixedly and tirelessly, year after year, without any hope, patiently waiting.

The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation.

Here are wonders upon wonders: the Strong One is weak; the Infinite One lies in a manger; the Prince of Life dies; the Crucified One lives; the Humiliated One is glorified. Meekness and majesty, indeed! Behold, then, your newborn King! Come and worship Him!

Tis the most certain sign, the world's accurst. That the best things corrupted are the worst.

In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.

Let us face squarely the paradox that the world which goes to war is a world, usually, genuinely desiring peace. War is the outcome, not mainly of evil intentions, but on the whole, of good intentions which miscarry or are frustrated. It is made, not usually by evil men knowing themselves to be wrong, but is the outcome of policies pursued by good men usually passionately convinced that they are right.

We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life.

Rules only make sense if they are both kept and broken. Breaking the rule is one way of observing it.

He led his regiment from behind—He found it less exciting.

Here's a pretty kettle of fish!

nonsense can also be real

Erotic pleasure, derived from the most intimate physical contact, thrives on the paradox that only by keeping alive the strangeness of that other person can eroticism last.

I probably can't stand you, but that doesn't mean I don't love you.