paradox quotes

It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.

Truths and roses have thorns about them.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

You are doomed to make choices. This is life’s greatest paradox.

It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.

The formula ‚Two and two make five‘ is not without its attractions.

All truth is simple… is that not doubly a lie?

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.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

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

Jesters do often prove prophets.

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.

What nourishes me also destroys me.

My literature is much more the result of a paradox than that of an implacable logic, typical of police novels. The paradox is the tension that exists in my soul.

We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.

Today, all physicists know from studying Einstein and Bohr that sometimes an idea which looks completely paradoxical at first, if analyzed to completion in all detail and in experimental situations, may, in fact, not be paradoxical.

In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

All generalizations are false, including this one.