Quotes About Ambiguity

There is not a single line in this diary that does not call for a correction or a denial...Yes: throughout these pages I meant what I was writing and I meant the opposite; reading them again I feel completely lost...I was lying to myself. How I lied to myself!

As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.

Man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it.

The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; so to say it is ambiguous is to assert that it's meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won. Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure & outrageousness, to save his existence.

Some men, instead of building their existence upon the indefinite unfolding of time, propose to assert it in its eternal aspect & to achieve it as an absolute. They hope, thereby, to surmount the ambiguity of their condition. Thus, many intellectuals seek their salvation in either in critical thought or creative activity.

One has no right to make up one's mind about the future in advance.

Since we do not succeed in fleeing it, let us therefore try to look the truth in the face. Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting.

What stops them is that as soon as they give the word "end" its double meaning of goal and fulfillment they clearly perceive this ambiguity of their condition, which is the most fundamental of all: that every living movement is a sliding toward death. But if they are willing to look it in the face they also discover that every movement toward death is life.

Existence asserts itself as an absolute which must seek its justification within itself and not suppress itself. To attain this truth, man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it.

Vous êtes tellement jeune! a-t-elle ajouté. On me dit ça souvent, et me sens flattée. Soudain, le mot m'a agacée. C'est un compliment ambigu qui annonce de pénibles lendemains. Garder de la vitalité, de la gaieté, de la présence d'esprit, c'est rester jeune. Donc, le lot de la vieillesse c'est de la routine, la morosité, le gâtisme. Je ne suis pas jeune, je suis bien conservée. C'est different.

I know nothing, nothing. I not only have no answer to give, but I haven't even found a satisfactory way of propounding the questions.

Perché le parole, questa precisione brutale che maltratta le nostre complicazioni?

En la Naturaleza, nada está nunca completamente claro: los tipos, macho y hembra, no siempre se distinguen con nitidez.

En tout cas le plus grand malheur pour nous serait de périr impuissants à la fois à réussir et à comprendre.

he saw no one clear path to Truth but a thousand paths to a thousand truths far-off and doubtful.

They never learned whether she was in trade, living on alimony, or possessed of a family income. Sam suspected that she was an international spy. She was a pleasant woman, and very clever. She talked about herself constantly, and never told anything whatever about herself

Some things are best left a blur. Births and Visa Bills.

You never know how things are going to turn out, however much you plan.

If you ask me, the system is majorly flawed. It should be clearer. People should have engaged signs, like toilets. Taken. Not-Taken. There should be no ambiguity about these things.

His dark, steady gaze is impossible to read. I don't know what he's thinking. Except that he was thinking about me. And that he still has feelings about me. Of some sort. Essentially the same way.

I know not, but strained silence, so I deem, IS no less ominous than excessive grief.

Thou lov'st to speak in riddles and dark words.

Last night was a night of bad dreams and ambiguous visions.

no skill in the world, nothing human can penetrate the future.