Quotes About Contradiction

This is a deep and uncomfortable paradox, which will not have escaped you; we can only defend democracy by being undemocratic. Every secret service knows this paradox.

This is a deep and uncomfortable paradox, which will not have escaped you: we can only defend democracy by being undemocratic.

we can only defend democracy by being undemocratic

People say one thing, adopt a public position, and are then quite different on the inside and privately act in a totally different way. They have an expression for this: 'the shifting sands'—ramál mutaharrika

Simple is never that simple.

This Garner is an interesting guy. He's both a lawyer and a usage expert (which seems a bit like being both a narcotics wholesaler and a DEA agent).

Without consciousness of contradiction, southern masters cast their defense of slavery in libertarian terms, and demanded the freedom to enslave.

To a modern mind, hegemonic liberty is an idea at war with itself.

From where he lay on his tatami mat, he could see her in profile. Her dark hair was down, spilling around her tiny shoulders, and she was dressed only in one of the snow white yukatas or kimonos that the ryokan (a Japanese inn) supplied its guests. She was beautiful, he decided, yet she was a contradiction.

Sometimes people who adamantly assert an opinion or view don't even hold it themselves.

that was the thing about nature: make one lousy rule to describe it and it'll contradict you even if it has to transmogrify and metamorphosize and bust its ass to do it. and so what? if anybody grew wise enough to grasp the real immutable laws of nature, nature'd only rear back and strike 'em dead before they got anybody to understand them

Love is so painful, how could you ever wish it on anybody? And love is so essential, how could you ever stand in its way?

I know it was more than that. But it was also less than that, too.

vagary, n. The mistake is in thinking there can be an antidote to the uncertainty.

It's like, you know how sometimes you see a really sexy baby? Wait...

There's something wrong when there's nothing wrong.

What strange creatures we are, to find silence peaceful, when permanent silence is the thing we most dread

I had forgotten this about love: how the simple things- the turn away, the turn towards- could be so complicated, and how the complicated things- the stolen night, the right words- could be so simple.

Het is al te gemakkelijk om te zeggen dat ik me onzichtbaar voel. Dat is ook niet waar. Ik voel me pijnlijk zichtbaar en totaal genegeerd.

Plus/minus Positive/negative 1/0 I can/ I can't I will/ I won't You are/You aren't I said/I thought I said I will/I thought I can't I thought I can/I said You won't

Love is so painful,how could you ever wish it on anybody?And love is so essential,how could you ever stand in it's way?

You have to believe that the opposites reach for each other. I had to understand that when I was thinking I am lost, I was actually finding that I was lost. the two opposite things were true at the same time: found and lost.

It was an exquisite irony: Just when we stopped wanting to kill ourselves, we started to die. Just when we were feeling strenght, it was taken from us.

It was an exquisite irony: Just when we stopped wanting to kill ourselves, we started to die. Just when we were feeling strength, it was taken from us. This