[I am a] contradictory and paradoxical man.

The inner defenses are unconscious. They consist of a kind of magic aura which the mind builds around cherished belief. Arguments which penetrate into…

— Arthur Koestler

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

— Anonymous

It is also plausible that those movements with the greatest inner contradiction and between profession and practice - that is to say with a…

— Eric Hoffer

Contradictions in human character are one of its most consistent notes.

— Muriel Spark

“The tiny features below, taken together with the gentle mass of Montblanc towering above them, the Vanoise glacier almost invisible in the shimmering distance,…

— W.G. Sebald

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.

— Michael Shermer

There are evidently limits to the achievements of science; and there are irresolvable contradictions both between prosperity and virtue, and between happiness and ''the…

— Reinhold Niebuhr

To exist (in mathematics), said Henri Poincaré, is to be free from contradiction. But mere existence does not guarantee survival. To survive in mathematics…

— Mark Kac

“In these creations, life and symbolic value are not in contradiction: they intensify each other.”

— Victor Hugo

I have never agreed with my other self wholly. The truth of the matter seems to lie between us.

— Khalil Gibran

“A truth is not necessary, because we negatively are not able to conceive the actual existence of the opposite thereof;but a truth is necessary…

— R.L. Dabney

The pictures that were coming from Vietnam were showing us what was really happening on the ground level. It was in contradiction to what…

— James Nachtwey

Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the…

— Frederic Bastiat

That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will…

— David Hume

The reflection of nature in man's thought must be understood not lifelessly but in the eternal process of movement, the arising of contradictions and…

— Vladimir Lenin