Ten Quotes on Paradoxes

A paradox is a self-contradictory statement. I blogged today about a paradox that I have observed in the present subprime turmoil which has rocked the U.S. economy and could possibly affect the rest of the world if it really worsens. It is by no means the only paradox I have seen in my lifetime. There are many, believe me. Life is full of paradoxes, if you'd only care to notice. Let me share with you what others have said about paradoxes:

The truth often sounds paradoxical. -Lao Tzu

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Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution. -Edward Teller

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Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things. -George Eliot

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The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo. -Soren Kierkegaard

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Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true. -Ram Dass

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The paradoxes of today are the prejudices of tomorrow, since the most benighted and the most deplorable prejudices have had their moment of novelty when fashion lent them its fragile grace. -Marcel Proust

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There is this paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so. -Charles Colton

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Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that there are paradoxes in mathematics. -Edward Kasner

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The best therapy for emotional blocks to math is the realization that the human race took centuries or millennia to see through the mist of difficulties and paradoxes which instructors now invite us to solve in a few minutes. -Lancelot Hogben

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Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex. -M. Scott Peck

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Quotes From "The Road Less Travelled"

"The Road Less Travelled" was a gift from my investment banking staff for my 44th birthday. I don't recall any of them asking me before about my taste for books, so I was only too delighted to receive this bestseller which, thankfully, I have not bought yet. My copy, if you'll see it, is dog-eared and highlighted in many pages. See if you'll like what I liked in these pages.

On Discipline:

"Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems."

On Problems:

"Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually."

On Delaying Gratification:

"Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live."

On Reality:

"Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost."

On Wisdom:

"The life of wisdom must be a life of contemplation combined with action."

On Human Nature..Part 1:

"The tendency to avoid challenge is so omnipresent in human beings that it can properly be considered a characteristic of human nature."

On Human Nature..Part 2:

"Another characteristic of human nature - perhaps the one that makes us most human - is our capacity to do the unnatural, to transcend and hence transform our own nature."

On Falling In Love:

"Falling in love is not an act of will. It is not a conscious choice. No matter how open to ar eager for it we may be, the experience may still elude us."

On Falling Out Of Love:

"...the experience of falling in love is invariably temporary. No matter whom we fall in love with, we sooner or later fall out of love if the relationship continues long enough."

On Serendipity:

"The paradox that we both choose grace and are chosen by grace is the essence of the phenomenon of serendipity. Serendipity was defined as 'the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for'."

--M. Scott Peck