Nothing is more painful than the shock of sharp contradictions that lacerate our intelligence and our feelings.
 Joseph Conrad, Victory: An Island Tale (1915). copy citation

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Author Joseph Conrad
Source Victory: An Island Tale
Topic intelligence contradiction
Date 1915
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6378/6378-h/6378-h.htm

Context

“And though he had made up his mind to retire from the world in hermit fashion, yet he was irrationally moved by this sense of loneliness which had come to him in the hour of renunciation. It hurt him. Nothing is more painful than the shock of sharp contradictions that lacerate our intelligence and our feelings. Meantime Schomberg watched Heyst out of the corner of his eye. Towards the unconscious object of his enmity he preserved a distant lieutenant-of-the-Reserve demeanour. Nudging certain of his customers with his elbow, he begged them to observe what airs” source