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contradiction quotes

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“Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the want of contradiction a sign of truth.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées
“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.” Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“The principle of contradiction establishes merely the agreement of concepts, but does not itself produce concepts.” Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
“Imagine all contradictions, all possible incompatibilities—you will find them in the government, in the law-courts, in the churches, in the public shows of this droll nation.” Voltaire, Candide
“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy;...” George Orwell, 1984
“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of the earth; depositary of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the...” Blaise Pascal, Pensées
“That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” George Orwell, 1984
“Practical politics consists in ignoring facts, but education and politics are two different and often contradictory things.” Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
“Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world.” JAY-Z, Decoded
“Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree. But people have always been dimly aware of the problem with the start of things. They wonder aloud how the snowplow driver gets to work, or how the makers of dictionaries look up the...” Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
“If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?” Voltaire, Candide
“Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not...” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell.” Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
“Philosophers, that give themselves airs of superior wisdom and sufficiency, have a hard task when they encounter persons of inquisitive dispositions, who push them from every corner to which they retreat, and who are sure at last to bring them to...” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Contrariwise . . . if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.” Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
“It is very fortunate that kings cannot err. Hence their contradictions never perplex us.” Victor Hugo, The Man Who Laughs
“I like talking to a brick wall—it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me!” Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
“How can I help being a humbug, . . . when all these people make me do things that everybody knows can't be done?” L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
“there is not a single one of those books which does not contradict some other book; so that by the time one has read them all one does not know what to think about anything.” Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
“Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil.” John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“I wanted everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.” Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography

Related topics

evil good truth power education books government honesty world man politics speech philosophy hypocrisy pride talking facts logic integrity theory

Related authors

Blaise Pascal (2)
David Hume (2)
George Orwell (2)
Voltaire (2)
Oscar Wilde (1)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1)
Ayn Rand (1)
John Steinbeck (1)
Victor Hugo (1)
Terry Pratchett (1)
Lewis Carroll (1)
Anatole France (1)
Charlie Chaplin (1)
L. Frank Baum (1)
Sylvia Plath (1)
Stephen Hawking (1)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1)
JAY-Z (1)
Henry Adams (1)

Related sources

Pensées (2)
1984 (2)
Candide (2)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (2)
East of Eden (1)
Decoded (1)
Self-Reliance (1)
A Brief History of Time (1)
My Autobiography (1)
Through the Looking-Glass (1)
Atlas Shrugged (1)
The World as Will and Representation (1)
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1)
Hogfather (1)
The Education of Henry Adams (1)
The Bell Jar (1)
The Man Who Laughs (1)
Lady Windermere's Fan (1)