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Absurd Quotes

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Absurd Quotes

“People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature - the laws of physics - are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least not in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.”

PeopleIfsWorldFactsLawOrderUniverseAsksGivenExistenceCompanyAcceptingScientistBasesAcceptedPhysicsRationalAbsurdGrantedPoliteBrutesWorldviewTheologicalAtheisticLaws Of Physics
Author:Paul Davies
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“It is absurd for a man to kill an elephant. It is not brutal, it is not heroic, and certainly it is not easy; it is just one of those preposterous things that men do like putting a dam across a great river, one tenth of whose volume could engulf the whole of mankind without disturbing the domestic life of a single catfish.”

MenWholeEasyAnimalMankindRiversAbsurdJust OneHeroicBrutalVolumeElephantsDisturbingDamsDomestic LifeCatfish
Book:West with the Night
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“The piled-up dead of political violence are a generic staple of our information diet these days, and according to the generic report all massacres are created equal: the dead are innocent, the killers monstrous, the surrounding politics insane or nonexistent...The anonymous dead and their anonymous killers become their own context. The horror becomes absurd.”

PoliticalViolenceInformationHorrorEqualInnocentAbsurdInsaneThese DaysDietsReportsKillersMonstrousMassacresStaplesGenericPolitical Violence
Author:Philip Gourevitch
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“Children, by nature, are keen, passionate and curious. What was referred to as laziness is often merely an awakening of sensitivity, a psychological inability to submit to certain absurd duties, and a natural result of the distorted, unbalanced education given to them. This laziness, which leads to an insuperable reluctance to learn, is, contrary to appearances, sometimes proof of intellectual superiority and a condemnation of the teacher.”

ChildrenSometimesCertainGivenNaturalResultsTeacherDutyIntellectualPassionateAppearanceAwakeningProofContraryAbsurdPsychologicalCuriousLazinessSubmitSuperioritySensitivityInabilityCondemnationReluctanceUnbalancedIntellectual Superiority
Author:Octave Mirbeau
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“There is one great advantage to being an academic economist in France: here, economists are not highly respected in the academic and intellectual world or by political and financial elites. Hence they must set aside their contempt for other disciplines and their absurd claim to greater scientific legitimacy, despite the fact that they know almost nothing about anything.”

KnowsWorldFactsPoliticalGreaterDisciplineIntellectualAdvantageClaimsFinancialAbsurdDespiteFranceContemptAcademicElitesEconomistLegitimacy
Book:Capital in the Twenty-First Century
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“Of all the statements that have been made with respect to theories on the origin of life, the statement that the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses no problem for an evolutionary origin of life is the most absurd… The operation of natural processes on which the Second Law of Thermodynamics is based is alone sufficient, therefore, to preclude the spontaneous evolutionary origin of the immense biological order required for the origin of life.”

Has BeensMadeProblemLawLife IsOrderProcessNaturalTheoryStatementsAbsurdOperationsSufficientImmenseSpontaneousNo ProblemOrigin Of LifeThermodynamics
Author:Duane Gish
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“With an absurd oversimplification, the 'invention' of the calculus is sometimes ascribed to two men, Newton and Leibniz. In reality, the calculus is the product of a long evolution that was neither initiated nor terminated by Newton and Leibniz, but in which both played a decisive part.”

MenLongTwoSometimesRealityEducationProductsEvolutionMathematicsInventionAbsurdStatisticsNewtonCalculusOversimplification
Book:What is Mathematics?: An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods
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“Can the difficulty of an exam be measured by how many bits of information a student would need to pass it? This may not be so absurd in the encyclopedic subjects but in mathematics it doesn't make any sense since things follow from each other and, in principle, whoever knows the bases knows everything. All of the results of a mathematical theorem are in the axioms of mathematics in embryonic form, aren't they?”

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Book:A diary on information theory
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“If one lives in a country where racism is held valid and practiced in all ways of life eventually, no matter whether one is a racist or a victim, one comes to feel the absurdity of life....Racism generated from whites is first of all absurd. Racism creates absurdity among blacks as a defense mechanism.”

IfsWayLifeFeelsFirstsCountryMatterBlackWhiteRacismVictimDefenseAbsurdAfrican AmericanNovelistsRacistBlack PeopleMechanismAbsurdityDefense MechanismsAnti RacistAbsurdity Of Life
Author:Chester Himes
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“He may not see the King's antique apparel on kids in the Hall, but he does feel a tinge of nostalgia. The amount of teens wearing the Led Zeppelin '77 tour T-shirts walking around the Rock Hall is absurd. Absurd, ... I saw them on that tour and didn't even buy a shirt. It tells you what these kids feel about music. People take music very seriously.”

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Author:Howard Kremer
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“You might sit at your computer, thinking you own and control your own ideas but it doesn't take long before you realize that you're part of a bigger network. You're fully wrapped up in relationships out of which you come and in which you participate. To look at yourself as a single being is absurd. The new way to look at it is, 'I'm connected, therefore I am.'”

ThinkingWayLooksLongIdeasMightRealizingComputerBiggerConnectedAbsurdNew WaysConnectingLook At Yourself
Author:Kenneth J Gergen
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“Although as a rule the absurd culminates, and it seems impossible for the voice of the individual ever to penetrate through the chorus of foolers and fooled, still there is left to the genuine works of all times a quite peculiar, silent, slow, and powerful influence; and as if by a miracle, we see them rise at last out of the turmoil like a balloon that floats up out of the thick atmosphere of this globe into purer regions. Having once arrived there, it remains at rest, and no one can any longer draw it down again.”

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Author:Arthur Schopenhauer
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“The First Amendment reads more like a dream than a law, and no other nation, so far as I know, has been crazy enough to include such a dream among its fundamental legal documents. I defend it because it has been so successful for two centuries in preserving our freedom and increasing our vitality, knowing that all arguments in support of it are certain to sound absurd.”

KnowsFirstsHas BeensTwoEnoughDreamLawCertainNationsSoundSupportKnowingSuccessfulCrazyCenturyArgumentFundamentalsAbsurdAmendmentsDocumentsVitalityFirst Amendment
Author:Kurt Vonnegut
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“It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.”

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Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts
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