Top 193 Paradoxical Quotes & Sayings

Paradoxical as it may at first appear, the fact is that, as W. H. George has said, scientific research is an art, not a science.

It might seem paradoxical given my profession, but I'm not someone who likes to be in the limelight.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

The paradoxical and tragic situation of man is that his conscience is weakest when he needs it most.

The truth is paradoxical to the extent of being exactly contrary to the usual perception.

All rituals are paradoxical and dangerous enterprises, the traditional and improvised, the sacred and the secular. Paradoxical because rituals are conspicuously artificial and theatrical, yet designed to suggest the inevitability and absolute truth of their messages. Dangerous because when we are not convinced by a ritual we may become aware of ourselves as having made them up, thence on the paralyzing realization that we have made up all our truths; our ceremonies, our most precious conceptions and convictions - all are mere inventions.

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

[I am a] contradictory and paradoxical man.

The most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic.

Masks are wonderfully paradoxical in this way: while they may hide the physical reality, they can show us how a person wants to be seen.

God is a freaking character, with enough foibles, tantrums, and paradoxical behaviors to supply a thousand screenplays. But who do you cast?

The truth often sounds paradoxical.

It might otherwise appear paradoxical that money can be replaced by worthless paper; but that the slightest alloying of its metallic content depreciates it.

It's paradoxical, that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.

To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial.

How paradoxical it is to search reality for the pictures that are stored in one's memory.

Things that appear unlikely, impossible, or paradoxical from one point of view often make perfectly good sense from another.

Human beings do not wish to be modest; they want to be as expressive - that is, as immodest - as fear allows; fashion helps them solve that paradoxical problem.

Recognition of the reality of evil necessarily relativizes the good, and the evil likewise, converting both into halves of a paradoxical whole.

He who confronts the paradoxical exposes himself to reality.

It seems a little paradoxical to construct a configuration space with the coordinates of points which do not exist.

I think the sheer fact of women talking, being, paradoxical, inexplicable, flip, self-destructiv e but above all else public is the most revolutionary thing in the world.

Truth is always paradoxical.

Reality is contradictory. And it's paradoxical.

Human experience is usually paradoxical.

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.

The sociability of artists is a paradoxical and precarious thing, and ceases the instant they begin their actual artistic work.

Education is paradoxical in that it is largely composed of things that cannot be learned

Man is a paradoxical being - the constant glory and scandal of this world.

There is something paradoxical in the fact that by establishing an export market we subject our entire domestic production to the vagaries of that market.

I don't consider China a communist state, no. I know that sounds paradoxical, but it's my view.

The words of truth are always paradoxical. To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

Paradoxical as it may seem, men and women who are free to pursue individualism and material wealth turn out to be the most compassionate of all.

The imputation to Brodsky of Russian nationalist views is, of course, paradoxical and worth considering.

It is a paradoxical statement, but it takes incredible personal discipline to play with great freedom.

In True Meditation, we're in the body as a means to transcend it. It is paradoxical that the greatest doorway to the transcendence of form is through form itself.

The pain that we feel when we are making love with someone is that we know it will end. It's that paradoxical response of joy and suffering.

Your typical Six-year-old is a paradoxical little person, and bipolarity is the name of his game

It has always seemed somewhat paradoxical to me that we must constantly have the Lord command us to do those things which are for our own good.

Both the physicist and the mystic want to communicate their knowledge, and when they do so with words their statements are paradoxical and full of logical contradictions.

It sounds paradoxical to say the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific errors.

The new formula in physics describes humans as paradoxical beings who have two complementary aspects: They can show properties of Newtonian objects and also infinite fields of consciousness.

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.

Power is paradoxical.

Truth sounds paradoxical!

The truest sayings are paradoxical.

If you start from a position of I'm a no-hoper, in a paradoxical kind of way you are not risking being vulnerable.

The Sophists' paradoxical talk pieces and their public debates were entertainment in 5th century Greece. And in that world, Socrates was an entertainer.

It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,--but, in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation.

My free will is a paradoxical partner of the power of intention.

As an actor, there's a bit of you that's decided you want to be looked at and watched, but there's a paradoxical bit that wants to run away.

Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are - hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.

The paradoxical virtue of reading lies in distancing ourselves from the world so that we may make sense of it.

The easiest thing I can say is simple, but paradoxical in this era of total sampling: Be original.

But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.

America is such a paradoxical society, hypocritically paradoxical, that if you don't have some humor, you'll crack up.

Loss is so paradoxical: It is at once enormous and tiny.

Childhood is a fundamental part of all human lives, parents or not, since that's how we all start out. And yet babies and young children are so mysterious and puzzling and even paradoxical.

The mind begins to boggle at unnatural substances as things paradoxical and incomprehensible.

Mankind, the spirit of the earth, the synthesis of individuals and peoples, the paradoxical conciliation of the element with the whole, and of unity with multitude - all these are called Utopian, and yet they are biologically necessary.