Quotes About Paradox

It was a strange thing about people-they could look the same but be different.

c'est (...) l'un des paradoxes de cette guerre : le côté irréprochable du gouvernement de Colombo qui, dans les zones qu'il a perdues, et ne serait-ce que pour ne pas s'avouer vaincu et avoir à prendre acte de la sécession, continue d'assurer les services publics, de payer les fonctionnaires, fussent-ils désignés par les Tigres et à leur botte.

I wanted to pose myself both tasks - understanding and condemnation. But it was impossible to do both

A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats.

this juxtaposition of callousness and extreme sensitivity...

My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at, because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

Among those who are rich enough to choose their way of life, the particular brand of unendurable boredom from which they suffer is due, paradoxical as this may seem, to their fear of boredom. In flying from the fructifying kind of boredom, they fall a prey to the other far worse kind. A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.

Intelligibility or precision: to combine the two is impossible.

Good and ill are one." "To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right." "The way up and the way down is one and the same." "God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger; but he takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savour of each.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

This seems plainly absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

Some great goods are logically bound up with certain evils. To take a trivial illustration, a drink of cold water when you are very thirsty on a hot day may give you such great pleasure that you think the previous thirst, though painful, was worth enduring, because without it the subsequent enjoyment could not have been so great.

We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

Beauty, it would seem, was both a blessing and a curse.

If the Word of God is about anything at all, it is about God's will rather than ours. Our liberty is paradoxically discovered through the will of God rather than our own.

If God chooses for you never to have physical children, He's calling you to a far bigger family! God purposely placed the dream of fruitful lives in our hearts. Oh, how I love the paradoxical ways our glorious heavenly Father works. Only He can bring gain from loss. Only He can make us more fruitful in barrenness!

Embrace the tension.

He often uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise (see 1 Cor. 1:28).

My aim is to be as open and as incomprehensible as possible. There has to be a perfect balance between open and shut.

Telling writers to shut up is a sure way to keep them talking.

I'm very shy. I know it's weird for a person who models lingerie and swimsuits, but I don't like to be the center of attention!

Exuberant health is always, as such, sickness also.

There's a dark side to everything.

One thing I learned from my older brothers is there's two sides to everything.