#incomprehensible

Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible. ↗

— Eugene Ionesco

#explanation #gateway #incomprehensible #only #separates

Today we often think that before we start living a religious life we have first to accept the creedal doctrines and that before one can have any comprehension of the loyalty and trust of faith, one must first force one's mind to accept a host of incomprehensible doctrines. But this is to put the cart before the horse. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#any #before #cart #comprehension #doctrines

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist. ↗

— Blaise Pascal

#god #incomprehensible #should

The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages. ↗

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

#being #especially #incomprehensible #languages #method

A tree is an incomprehensible mystery. ↗

— Jim Woodring

#mystery #tree

One of the monks was doing something incomprehensible at the altar, and the others would occasionally chant a few phrases of mumbo jumbo. ↗

— Ken Follett

#religion #religion

... While much recent historicist criticism has assumed early nineteenth-century readers attuned to subtle ideological nuances in poetry, actual responses from readers often come closer to clulessness. ... It is no surprise that no one understood Blake, but other poets fared not much better. ... Coleridge's 'Christabel' was 'the standing enigma which puzzles the curiosity of literary circles. What is it all about?', while another reviewer asked about Shelley, 'What, in the name of wonder on one side, and of common sense on the other, is the meaning of this metaphysical rhapsody about the unbinding of Prometheus?'. Even Keats was condemned for 'his frequent obscurity and confusion of language' and his 'unintelligible quaintness'. Byron, never to be outdone, boasted in 'Don Juan' that not only did he not understand many of his fellow poets, he did not understand himself either: 'I don't pretend that I quite understand / My own meaning when I would be very fine.' ... ↗

— Andrew Elfenbein

#incomprehensible #poetry #romantic-poets #romantic

Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent. ↗

— John Maynard Keynes

#incompetent #incomprehensible #indifferent #into

In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death. ↗

— Alfred Russel Wallace

#eternity #i #incomprehensible #life #life and death

The function of Theology? The recitation of the incomprehensible by the unspeakable to pick the pockets of the unthinking. ↗

— Robert Anton Wilson

#incomprehensible #pick #pockets #recitation #theology