#paradox

He was a thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and outrageous, arrogant and shy, the best of me and the worst of men, the most protean, most ridiculous, and most sublime. No more baffling, exasperating soldier ever wore a uniform. Flamboyant, imperious, and apocalyptic, he carried the plumage of a flamingo, could not acknowledge errors, and tried to cover up his mistakes with sly, childish tricks. Yet he was also endowed with great personal charm, a will of iron, and a soaring intellect. Unquestionably he was the most gifted man-at arms- this nation has produced. -William Manchester on Douglas MacArthur ↗

— William Raymond Manchester

#interesting #macarthur #paradox #inspirational

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

If you are willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you are willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy. ↗

— T. Harv Eker

#wealth #life

And that was all the part of it - the way you were obliged to live. You stifled a groan, you lied about your love, you deceived your legal wife, and all in the name of honour. That was the damned paradox of it - in order to behave well, you have to behave badly. ↗

— Julian Barnes

#life #paradox #life

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

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

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#organized-religion #paradox #religion #religion

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