#absurdity

Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity. ↗

— Vaclav Havel

#birth #certainties #could #doubt #experiencing

Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it. ↗

— Vaclav Havel

#around #avoid #beyond #descend #get

Everything in Italy that is particularly elegant and grand borders upon insanity and absurdity or at least is reminiscent of childhood. ↗

— Alexander Herzen

#borders #childhood #elegant #everything #grand

Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development. ↗

— Alexander Herzen

#development #economy #entire #general #generations

[Mom] said she didn't want her youngest daughter dressed in the thrift-store clothes the rest of us wore. Mom told us we would have to go shoplifting. "Isn't that a sin?" I asked Mom. "Not exactly," Mom said. "God doesn't mind you bending the rules a little if you have good reason. It's sort of like justifiable homicide. This is justifiable pilfering. ↗

— Jeannette Walls

#family #glass-castle #jeannette-walls #family

Only by living absurdly is it possible to break out of this infinite absurdity. ↗

— Julio Cortazar

#absurdly #break #infinite #living #only

Reason is a supple nymph, and slippery as a fish by nature. She had as leave give her kiss to an absurdity any day, as to syllogistic truth. The absurdity may turn out truer. ↗

— David Herbert Lawrence

#any #day #fish #give #had

Our system is the height of absurdity, since we treat the culprit both as a child, so as to have the right to punish him, and as an adult, in order to deny him consolation. ↗

— Claude Levi-Strauss

#adult #both #child #consolation #culprit

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

#awfulness #consciousness #everywhere #existence #him

It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"! (Institutio III.2.3) ↗

— Jean Calvin

#calvin #faith #humility #ignorance #knowledge