Top 72 Contradicting Quotes & Sayings

The very things I used to be told off for - daydreaming, exaggerating, making mistakes, wild guessing, contradicting, spying, being obsessive, being reckless - for these, suddenly, I am being praised.

If anyone accuses me of contradicting myself, I shall reply; I have been wrong once or more often, however I do not aspire to be always wrong.

The joy is an absurd yellow tulip, popping up in my life, contradicting all the evidence that shows it should not be there.

The problem with intelligent-design theory, is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet - a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum.

The Church in the Philippines is called to acknowledge and combat the causes of the deeply rooted inequality and injustice which mar the face of Filipino society, plainly contradicting the teaching of Christ.

I should as soon think of contradicting a bishop

But me contradicting a news story is not going to make my words fact. It will just create a new news story.

The memories I can gather now of my parents are quite contradicting. My mother was the disciplinarian and my dad was the rule breaker.

I do feel the weight of being the steward of the greatest sport the world ever came up with. I grew up with a love and admiration for it, so I feel an obligation to portray it as electric and terrifying and exciting and beautiful, and all these sometimes contradicting things that make hockey what it is.

Nietzsche said that the earth has been a madhouse long enough. Without contradicting him we might perhaps soften the expression, and say that philosophy has been long enough an asylum for enthusiasts.

If the Pope were to deny that the death penalty could be an exercise of retributive justice, he would be overthrowing the tradition of two millenia of Catholic thought, denying the teaching of several previous popes, and contradicting the teaching of Scripture.

It is regrettable that, among the Rights of Man, the right of contradicting oneself has been forgotten.

Avoid singularity. There may often be less vanity in following the new modes than in adhering to the old ones. It is true that the foolish invent them, but the wise may conform to, instead of contradicting, them.

The fear of freedom is strong in us. We call it chaos or anarchy, and the words are threatening. We live in a true chaos of contradicting authorities, an age of conformism without community, of proximity without communication. We could only fear chaos if we imagined that it was unknown to us, but in fact we know it very well.

Looking back, I still can't believe how unprofessional the news media was. So much spin, so few hard facts. All those digestible sound bites from an army of 'experts' all contradicting one another, all trying to seem more 'shocking' and 'in-depth' than the last one. It was all so confusing, nobody seemed to know what to do.

We live in a true chaos of contradicting authorities, an age of conformism without community, of proximity without communication.

I think often if people don't have a lot of experience with a particular type of person or a particular type of brain, they can make dangerous assumptions. That's one of the reasons that I'm so interested in contradicting and troubling held thoughts about black women.

Humans generally get out the gist of what they need to say right at the beginning, then spend forever qualifying, contradicting, burnishing or taking important things back. Yor rareley miss anything by cutting most people off after two sentences.

The principles of logic and mathematics are true simply because we never allow them to be anything else. And the reason for this is that we cannot abandon them without contradicting ourselves, without sinning against the rules which govern the use of language, and so making our utterances self-stultifying. In other words, the truths of logic and mathematics are analytic propositions or tautologies.

In science the new is an advance; but in morals, as contradicting our inner ideals and historic idols, it is ever a retrogression.

...churchgoing is not synonymous with personal spirituality. There are some people who get so busy in church worship and projects that they become insensitive to the pressing human needs that sourround them, contradicting the very precepts they profess to believe deeply.

I took Alexey Brodovitch course at the New School. He taught me something that I've always remembered: After we did the initial assignment, he contradicted what he had said the first week, and I said, "Okay." The next week, he contradicted what he had said the second week. We went through 10 weeks of contradicting, and I thought maybe he was drunk. At the end, he said, "You may think I've contradicted myself, but there's no one way to do anything."

I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself.

I don’t have any mottoes. If I did I would forever be contradicting them.

Society tells women that you can't be a complex human being with contradicting qualities.

Creflo Dollar is compromising, confusing or outright contradicting essential Christian doctrine. Joel Osteen does exactly the same thing. Now, not necessarily the exact same doctrines, but he is compromising, confusing or contradicting essential Christian doctrine. Their view of faith is a force, words are the containers of the force, and through the force of faith, one can create his or her own reality. That's not biblical faith. That's a false faith, or faith that doesn't satisfy and ultimately will lead people into harm's way.

When death brings at last the desired forgetfulness, it abolishes life and being together, and sets the seal on the knowledge that "being" is merely a continual "has been," a thing that lives by denying and destroying and contradicting itself.

Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action.

If you are making policies through speeches that are contradicting some of the policy development your colleagues are embarked on, you are destroying collective responsibility.

As I have heard, since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you, that I have not as yet composed the latter. But by the All-Powerful Dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!

Most of us are in touch with our intuition whether we know it or not, but we're usually in the habit of doubting or contradicting it so automatically that we don't even know it has spoken

When Jesus calls his disciples 'brothers' and 'friends', he is contradicting general Jewish usage and breaking through into a new concept of brotherhood which is not tribal, but open to any person.

Theory is worth but little, unless it can explain its own phenomena, and it must effect this without contradicting itself; therefore, the facts are sometimes assimilated to the theory, rather than the theory to the facts.

Those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory, sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them.

It is a wonderful thing in the process of writing when such paper characters are first sketched, and, when one is doing good work, from a certain point in time they come alive and start contradicting the author as well.

Some devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and justifying their belief on an erroneous interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures. "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," their most likely response, overlooks the fact that this was promulgated by Moses as a limitation- a prohibition against taking both eyes or all of an offender's teeth in retribution.

It seems that the hurdle you have to jump over is everyone's informed opinion. When you're a young playwright, you're probably too precarious in your own technique to understand that when these seemingly informed opinions are contradicting each other, it becomes this paralyzing monolith.

If he exalts himself, I humble him. If he humbles himself, I exalt him. And I go on contradicting him Until he understands That he is a monster that passes all understanding.

There are comedic rules and formulae and, while these tenets should be respected, especially by a newcomer, perversely you can still succeed by openly contradicting them. Because comedy is about breaking the rules. Even its own rules. Though, as with many disciplines, it is wise to master the basics before you attempt to subvert them.

The centre of the universe and only rotates on its axis without going from east to west, is a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians but also to injure our holy faith by contradicting the Scriptures.

If you ask ten different people in the diamond industry about the diamond industry, they'll give you ten completely different answers that are opposing, contradicting each other. And maybe that's the thing about the diamond business.

Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great many minds, is always of more strength, than what is produced by the mere workings of any one mind, which, of itself, can do very little. There is not so poor a book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators.

Dear Lord, make me a better parent. Teach me to understand my children, to listen patiently to what they have to say and to answer all their questions kindly. Keep me from interrupting them, talking back to them, and contradicting them. Make me as courteous to them as I would have them to be to me.

Avoid contradicting in general, especially people you love.

Truths may clash without contradicting each other.

I have a fear of failure, letting someone down, contradicting myself.

I like films that take their time a little bit more and don't show you all of their cards right away, characters that are conflicted and contradicting and seem one way at first and then suddenly turn out to be something else.

Placed as the fossils are in their several tiers of burial-places the one over the other; we have in them true witnesses of successive existences, whilst the historian of man is constantly at fault as to dates and even the sequence of events, to say nothing of the contradicting statements which he is forced to reconcile.

Carnal reason is an enemy to faith: it is ever crossing and contradicting it. It will never be well with thee, Christian, so long as thou art swayed by carnal reason, and you rely more upon thy five senses, than upon the four Evangelists. As the body lives by breathing, so the soul lives by believing.

Twitter is about creating whatever persona you want to create and either sticking with it or changing it or evolving it or contradicting it, and I've done all that stuff.

In writing a novel, the writer must be able to identify emotionally and intellectually with two or three or four contradicting perspectives and give each of them very a convincing voice. It's like playing tennis with yourself and you have to be on both sides of the yard. You have to be on both sides, or all sides if there are more than two sides.

Mohan Raja is an interesting filmmaker. He is constantly, if I may use the word, contradicting himself. He explains a scene, and then he will try to break that and rebuild it. That, to me, is filmmaking. Every scene is constructed after a lot of discussions.

However, he also trusted me to make my own decisions. Contradicting me or telling me what to do wasn't in his nature - even though he secretly may have wanted to.

I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting yourself. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation.

God is angry with man. Unless we believe and repent we shall all be damned. It is impossible, indeed, for its advocates even to say this without instantly contradicting themselves. Their doctrine frightens them. They explain in various ways that a great many people will be saved without believing, and that eternal damnation is not eternal nor damnation.

A religion contradicting science and a science contradicting religion are equally false.

Intelligence is measured by a person's ability to see validity within both sides of contradicting arguments.

Anyway, members of the Inquisitorial Squad do have the power to dock points so, Granger, I'll have five from you for being rude about our new Headmistress. Macmillan, five for contradicting me. Five because I don't like you, Potter. Weasley, your shirt's untucked, so I'll have another five for that. Oh yeah, I forgot, you're a Mudblood, Granger, so ten off for that.

The challenge - and much of the fun - of writing in an established future history lies in incorporating new knowledge while remaining true to what has gone before. Expanding and enriching, not contradicting.

man is free, in so far as he has the power of contradicting himself and his essential nature. Man is free even from his freedom; that is, he can surrender his humanity