Sunday, May 2, 2021 – Obvious Absurdity
In politics, an absurdity is not a handicap. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~ Voltaire
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. ~ Voltaire
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. ~ Bertrand Russell
People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization. ~ Agnes Repplier
The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity. ~ Marcel Proust
In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion. ~ Ambrose Bierce
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble. ~ Samuel Johnson
Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. ~ Oliver Goldsmith
A prophet or an achiever must never mind an occasional absurdity, it is an occupational risk. ~ Oswald Mosley
If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. ~ Albert Einstein
Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it’s in my basement… let me go upstairs and check. ~ M. C. Escher
Life is full of infinite absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true. ~ Luigi Pirandello
At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face. ~ Albert Camus
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth. ~ Albert Camus
Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity. ~ Albert Camus
In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. ~ Oliver Goldsmith
The truth is always a compound of two half-truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say. ~ Tom Stoppard
Only by living absurdly is it possible to break out of this infinite absurdity. ~ Julio Cortazar
How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have – they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought – they demand freedom of speech. ~ Soren Kierkegaard
Imagine how asleep or utterly unperceptive and clueless you would have to be not to see yourself as absurd for the most part. ~ John Malkovich
It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion. ~ Anatole France
The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds. ~ Paul Valery
It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can be no more absurd than it can be the opposite of absurd, whatever that opposite may be. ~ Archibald MacLeish
When people conclude that all is futile, then the absurd becomes the norm. ~ Stanley Crouch
The more I learned, the more conscious did I become of the fact that I was ridiculous. So that for me my years of hard work at the university seem in the end to have existed for the sole purpose of demonstrating and proving to me, the more deeply engrossed I became in my studies, that I was an utterly absurd person. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read. ~ Groucho Marx
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose. ~ Garrison Keillor
My mother was the concertmaster of the symphony. Absurdity and eccentricity were not criticized. ~ Martin Short
The mind, placed before any kind of difficulty, can find an ideal outlet in the absurd. Accommodation to the absurd readmits adults to the mysterious realm inhabited by children. ~ André Breton
Everything in Italy that is particularly elegant and grand borders upon insanity and absurdity, or at least is reminiscent of childhood. ~ Alexander Herzen
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. ~ Oscar Wilde
To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody. ~ Quentin Crisp
I am a personal optimist but a skeptic about all else. What may sound to some like anger is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a combination of wonder and pity, and I root for its destruction. And please don’t confuse my point of view with cynicism; the real cynics are the ones who tell you everything’s gonna be all right. ~ George Carlin
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. ~ Woody Allen
Reason is a supple nymph, and slippery as a fish by nature. She had as leave to give her kiss to an absurdity any day, as to syllogistic truth. The absurdity may turn out truer. ~ D. H. Lawrence
I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen. ~ W. H. Auden
Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities. ~ Jean Cocteau
I believe because it is absurd. [Credo quia absurdum.] ~ Tertullian
Just Above Sunset 