#paradox

Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man? ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#organized-religion #paradox #religion #religion

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

— Benjamin Franklin

#contradiction #doctrines #paradox #practice #rules

The fraudulence paradox was that the more time and effort you put into trying to appear impressive or attractive to other people, the less impressive or attractive you felt inside — you were a fraud. And the more of a fraud you felt like, the harder you tried to convey an impressive or likable image of yourself so that other people wouldn’t find out what a hollow, fraudulent person you really were. Logically, you would think that the moment a supposedly intelligent nineteen-year-old became aware of this paradox, he’d stop being a fraud and just settle for being himself (whatever that was) because he’d figured out that being a fraud was a vicious infinite regress that ultimately resulted in being frightened, lonely, alienated, etc. But here was the other, higher-order paradox, which didn’t even have a form or name — I didn’t, I couldn’t. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#fraudulence #paradox #poseur #posing #intelligence

Men have two greatest fears: the first fear is the fear of being needed, and the second fear is the fear of not being needed. ↗

— C. JoyBell C.

#fears #life-and-living #men #men-s-fears #paradox

That's the news from Lake Woebegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. ↗

— Garrison Keillor

#parenting #men

This book does not exist. And even if it did, it wouldn’t be worth buying or reading.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#buy #exist #existence #money #nonexistence

Music was a chain forged half of silences and half of sound, love was nothing without longing and loss, and were time not to have at its end the absence of time, and the absence of time not to have been preceded by time, neither would be of any consequence. ↗

— Mark Helprin

#love

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