Sri Aurobindo
Philosopher, Poet, Politician
"The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature."
Paradox quotes
Paradox
142 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
James A. Baldwin
Writer
"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."
William O'Neil
Investor
"It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower."
Brigham Young
Religious Leader
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
George Carlin
Comedian, Actor
"We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside paradox — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Paradox quotes (page 1 of 8)
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"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."
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"The most exquisite paradox; as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all."
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"I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices."
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"Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative; in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself."
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"A paradox is only a truth standing on its head to attract attention."
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"We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul."
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"The measure of your enlightenment is the degree to which you are comfortable with paradox, contradiction, and ambiguity."
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"It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are. Human understanding has vulgarly occupied itself with nothing but understanding, but if it would only take the trouble to understand itself at the same time it would simply have to posit the paradox."
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"The paradox of anti-Semitism is that it is invariably up to the Jews to explain away the charges. The anti-Semite simply has to make them."
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"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose."
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"If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly."
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"Only you can take responsibility for your happiness..but you can't do it alone. It's the great paradox of being human."
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"Even in pure mathematics they can't remove all paradox, and the rest of us should also recognize we are going to have to endure a lot of paradox, like it or not."
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"To live fully, one must be free, but to be free one must give up security. Therefore, to live one must be ready to die. How's that for a paradox?"
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"Poetry is the harnessing of the paradox of earth cradling life and then entombing it."
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"Conditions in the [movie] industry somehow propose the paradox: "We brought you here for your individuality but while you're here we insist that you do everything to conceal it."
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"The paradox of the prophet: his very success is his failure. The prophet whose time has come no longer shocks; he entertains."
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"There are many of these apparent philosophical paradoxes or contradictions which don't concern me anymore."
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"It is not paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods we may be nearest to our most practical applications."
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"What I cannot do now is the sign of what I shall do hereafter. The sense of impossibility is the beginning of all possibilities. Because this temporal universe was a paradox and an impossibility, therefore the Eternal created it out of His being."
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