Quotes about Paradox

In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute.

There is the "you" that people see and then there is the "rest of you". Take some time and craft a picture of the "rest of you." This could be a drawing, in words, even a song. Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions.

One of life's greatest paradoxes is that it's in the crucible of pain and suffering that we become tender.

One of life's greatest paradoxes is that it's in the crucible of pain and suffering that we become tender. Not all pain and suffering, certainly. If that were the case, the whole world would be tender, since no one escapes pain and suffering. To these elements must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love and the willingness to remain vulnerable. Together they lead to wisdom and tenderness.

That is why God is a scandal to men and women—because He cannot be comprehended by a finite mind.

The paradox of prayer is that it asks for a serious effort while it can only be received as a gift. We cannot plan, organize or manipulate God; but without a careful discipline, we cannot receive him either.

Truths and roses have thorns about them.

It's true all the time everywhere or it's not true! And that one truth is always Mystery.

Actually it seems to me that one can hardly say anything either bad enough or good enough about life.

They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour's work as for a day's. They are prepared for a mustard-seed kingdom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt but not for the great banyan it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart. They are prepared for the potluck supper at First Presbyterian but not for the marriage supper of the lamb...

The preacher speaks both the word of tragedy and the word of comedy because they are both of them the truth and because Jesus speaks them both...

It is out of the absence of God that God makes himself present.