Quotes about Paradox

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.

What then is time? Provided that no one asks me, I know. If I want to explain it to an inquirer, I do not know.

Flowers often grow more beautifully on dung-hills than in gardens that look beautifully kept.

Christ is on both sides: he holdeth up, and throweth down, in one and the same act; he denieth the woman to be his, and is on her side to grace her, to believe that he is her's. Christ putteth his child away, and he desireth that his child should not be put away from him; he is for Jacob in his wrestling, and as if he were against him, saith, 'Let me alone.' Christ here doth both hold and draw, oppose and defend at once.

The thorn is one of the most cursed and angry and crabbed weeds that the earth yields, and yet out of it springs the rose, one of the sweetest smelled flowers, and most delightful to the eye.

A lot of people don't give much thought to what they believe, and it's easy for them to hold what often are two conflicting ideas in their head at the same time.

For what is time? ... Who can even in thought comprehend it, so as to utter a word about it? ... If no one asks me, I know: If I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not.

It is sometimes fortunate, that the means which are taken to produce certain effects upon the mind have a tendency directly opposite to what is expected.

Ironic that those most holy are least likely to see themselves that way.

The blood of a goat will shatter a diamond.

it seems impossible for all things to be one.

It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.