164 Quotes About Contradiction

Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable indifferentism which to outward appearance differed but little from the indifferentism …

Mystics seem to have no shame about contradicting themselves left and right. They blithely proclaim that the cure for pain is in the pain itself and that the cry of longing is the sigh of merging. That's because the path of the mystic reconciles contradictory propositions (such as harrowing sorrow and radical amazement) and blesses us with an extended capacity to sit with ambiguity, to treasure vulnerability, to celebrate paradox as the highest truth.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

So I shut up and hold out a one-pound note, but he throws it on the ground, snatches back both pieces of bread, and shouts at me, 'We don't have any bread! And don't come back!

What is life without incompatible realities?

If a man never contradicts himself, the reason must be that he virtually never says anything at all.

I have never agreed with my other self wholly. The truth of the matter seems to lie between us.

What we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.

It was impossible to imagine the aloof, dignified, powerful High Lord living as, of all things, a slave.