#dox

Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox. ↗

— George Orwell

#orthodoxy #orwell #politics #writing #censorship

The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#contradiction #doctrines #paradox #practice #rules

One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical…for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity. ↗

— Søren Kierkegaard

#paradox

Many [Tudor-era religious radicals] believed then, exactly as Christian fundamentalists do today, that they lived in the 'last days' before Armageddon and, again just as now, saw signs all around in the world that they took as certain proof that the Apocalypse was imminent. Again like fundamentalists today, they looked on the prospect of the violent destruction of mankind without turning a hair. The remarkable similarity between the first Tudor Puritans and the fanatics among today's Christian fundamentalists extends to their selective reading of the Bible, their emphasis on the Book of Revelation, their certainty of their rightness, even to their phraseology. Where the Book of Revelation is concerned, I share the view of Guy, that the early church fathers released something very dangerous on the world when, after much deliberation, they decided to include it in the Christian canon." [From the author's concluding Historical Note] ↗

— C.J. Sansom

#armageddon #book-of-revelation #cruelty #destruction #fundamentalism

The paradox of reality is that no image is as compelling as the one which exists only in the mind's eye. ↗

— Shana Alexander

#exists #eye #image #mind #only

My work is so unorthodox that from one panel to the next, the drawings are completely different... totally opposed to the way of working in something like animation, where every drawing has to look like the one before. ↗

— Sergio Aragones

#before #completely #different #drawing #drawings

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. ↗

— James Baldwin

#begins #being #conscious #educated #education

We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy. ↗

— Walter Anderson

#find #joy #love #neither #never

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. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#begins #being #conscious #educated #education

It is great good health to believe, as the Hindus do, that there are 33 million gods and goddesses in the world. It is great good health to want to understand one's dreams. It is great good health to desire the ambiguous and paradoxical. ↗

— Clive Barker

#believe #desire #dreams #goddesses #gods