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Ambiguity Quotes

Browse 383 quotes about Ambiguity.

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Ambiguity Quotes

“The only deep desire is not for what I lack, nor even for the person who lacks me (though that is, itself, more subtle), but for the person who does not lack me, for what is perfectly capable of existing without me. Someone who does not lack me -- that is radical otherness. Desire is always the desire for that alien perfection, at the same time as it is the desire perhaps to shatter it, to break it down. You get aroused only for things whose perfection and impunity you want both to share and to shatter.”

DesirePerfectionAmbiguityDistant Star
Book:The Perfect Crime
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“Daydream, which is to thought as the nebula is to the star, borders on sleep, and is concerned with it as its frontier. An atmosphere inhabited by living transparencies: there's a beginning of the unknown. But beyond it the Possible opens out, immense. Other beings, other facts, are there. No supernaturalism, only the occult continuation of infinite nature. . . . Sleep is in contact with the Possible, which we also call the improbable. The world of the night is a world. Night, as night, is a universe. . . . The dark things of the unknown world become neighbors of man, whether by true communication or by a visionary enlargement of the distances of the abyss . . . and the sleeper, not quite seeing, not quite unconscious, glimpses the strange animalities, weird vegetations, terrible or radiant pallors, ghosts, masks, figures, hydras, confusions, moonless moonlights, obscure unmakings of miracle, growths and vanishings within a murky depth, shapes floating in shadow, the whole mystery which we call Dreaming, and which is nothing other than the approach of an invisible reality. The dream is the aquarium of Night.”

RealityImaginationPsychologyDreamsDiscoveryAmbiguityDaydreamsNebulous
Author:Victor Hugo
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“I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”

AmericaFaithPeaceHistoryUnited StatesFateMankindMoralityDespairRacismFree WillBrotherhoodAmbiguity
Author:Martin Luther King Jr.
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“At the present time there still exist many doctrines which choose to leave in the shadow certain troubling aspects of a too complex situation. But their attempt to lie to us is in vain. Cowardice does not pay. Those reasonable metaphysics, those consoling ethics with which they would like to entice us only accentuate the disorder from which we suffer.”

EthicsIdeologyDelusionAmbiguitySelf Deception
Book:The Ethics of Ambiguity
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“One recent example of my fear of ambiguity was the instance with the beaten slave. Completely aware I was bluffing, I insisted that Ken Lar misinterpreted the Bible verse he quoted, but again, I was bluffing. I thought that that Bible verse was ambiguous. It could have actually been used to justify slavery, but I always thought that God was a pacifist, so I tried to comfort myself with the theory that God was forced to accommodate slavery because the world had gone corrupt, but then again, that verse described slaves’ submission as a way that helps them “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior,” so there is still a possibility that God would actually approve slavery. But still, the passage describes slaves to be faithful and to not steal and argue, which have been commands for Paul’s followers, who were not slaves. The passage could have been encouraging slaves to try to follow the path of God the way free people do. Still, if I recall correctly, in Leviticus it mentioned that the Israelites, right after being released from slavery in Egypt, were allowed to buy slaves from nations surrounding them, and it even said that the slaves could be the Israelites’ PROPERTY!!!! But then, I have heard of many African American pastors who use the Bible to support equality. But could it all be a scam? Who knows? That was ambiguity in its biblical form. There was even more ambiguity associated with that incident, because after thinking about that controversial passage, I wondered whether or not I was screwing my chances in Heaven for thinking like that. The Bible says that you shouldn’t lie, and by thinking like that, I was being honest with myself, but people died for blaspheming God, and if thinking those thoughts was considered blaspheming God, then who knows?”

PhilosophyGodBibleSlaveryDebateAmbiguityBlasphemy
Book:The Reformation
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“We are now face to face with the truly Ultimate Ambiguity which is the human spirit. This is the most fascinating ambiguity of all: that as each of us grows up, the mark of our maturity is that we accept our mortality; and yet we persist in our search for immortality. We may believe it's all transient, even that it's all over; yet we believe a future. We believe. We emerge from a cinema after three hours of the most abject degeneracy in a film such as ''La Dolce Vita,'' and we emerge on wings, from the sheer creativity of it; we can fly on, to a future. And the same is true after witnessing the hopelessness of ''Godot'' in the theater, or after the aggressive violence of ''The Rite of Spring'' in the concert hall. Or even after listening to the bittersweet young cynicism of an album called ''Revolver,'' we have wings to fly on.”

ArtMusicOptimismMortalityHuman SpiritAmbiguity
Book:The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard
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“Ambiguity is your ally: an interpretive dance with universal truths, not an observation post. An artist enlightens; the interpreter chooses to bathe in that light. Or, fearing being 'wrong' or lacking critical thinking, they await spoon-feeding. Being Irving The Explainer is not the artist's job. You don't go to an art gallery to ask a painter what their painting means (they have wisely left the scene of the crime!). You either get it or you don't, and it should wash over you and be appreciated either way. Impose the tyranny of explanation upon it, and you may kill any meaning, if there is any to unearth. Artists may not even know their intentions when putting something out into the cosmos. Ambiguity, then, is the fertile hinterland between The Emperor's New Clothes and the Highlands of Pretentiousness.”

ArtCreativityMysteryExistentialismInterpretationAmbiguitySubjectivityMeaning Of ArtPhilosophy Of ArtArtistic Critique
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“The worst thing you can do to an artist is demand they explain themselves. Stanislavsky said a raised voice has no place in art — nor does cross-examination. An ambiguous space to breathe in is the lifeblood of all creativity. Despite the implied tag of ownership from financial benefactors, the artist must resist becoming a preserved butterfly on a pin for study.”

ArtMysteryInterpretationAmbiguitySubjectivityArtistic FreedomMeaning Of ArtPhilosophy Of ArtArt CriticismCreative Resistance
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Almost inconceivable is the power of a visible communion of numbers to give intensity to those feelings of the heart which usually retire into privacy, or only open themselves to the confidence of friendship. The faith in the validity of such emotions becomes irrefragable from its diffusion; we feel ourselves strong among so many associates, and all hearts and minds flow together in one great and irresistible stream. On this very account the privilege of influencing an assembled crowd is exposed to most dangerous abuses. As one may disinterestedly animate them, for the noblest and best of purposes, so another may entangle them in the deceitful meshes of sophistry, and dazzle them by the glare of a false magnanimity, whose vainglorious crimes may be painted as virtues and even as sacrifices. Beneath the delightful charms of oratory and poetry, the poison steals imperceptibly into ear and heart.”

Power Of WordsAmbiguityActorPower Of ArtPower Of Drama
Book:Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature
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“I overhead Jove, one day,' said Silenus, 'talking of destroying the Earth; he said it had failed; they were all rogues and vixens, who went from bad to worse, as fast as the days succeeded each other. Minerva said she hoped not, they were only ridiculous little creatures, with this odd circumstance, that they had a blur, or indeterminate aspect, seen far or seen near; if you called them bad, they would appear so; if you called them good, they would appear so; and there was no one person or action among that which would not puzzle her Owl, much more all Olympus, to know whether it was fundamentally bad or good.”

CharacterHumanityAmbiguityDuality Of ManSilenus
Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“The will to insist upon a definite, unimpeachable reading of an incident - which might well have been read in other, more generous ways - was a mark of a bewildering denial: a denial of the imagination that, liberated to do its proper work, can lead us in alternative directions.”

KindnessJudgmentEmpathyDenialAmbiguityBenefit Of The DoubtCharitable Interpretation
Book:The Tyranny of Virtue: Identity, the Academy, and the Hunt for Political Heresies
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“Whether it’s ourselves, our lovers, bosses, children, local Scrooge, or the political situation, it’s more daring and real not to shut anyone out of our hearts and not to make the other into an enemy. If we begin to live like this, we’ll find that we actually can’t make things completely right or completely wrong anymore, because things are a lot more slippery and playful than that. Everything is ambiguous; everything is always shifting and changing, and there are as many different takes on any given situation as there are people involved. Trying to find absolute rights and wrongs is a trick we play on ourselves to feel secure and comfortable.”

LifeChangeLivingOpennessAmbiguity
Book:When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
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“I used to think about Alice in Wonderland, how she just fell down that hole and she was falling and falling and she was just not grabbing for anything or anything like that. And at one point in my life, she was like a role model to me because of the fact that she—she just fell and waited to see where she was going to land, you know. So for all of us I think we—we shy away from these feelings. And in the process of that, our ability to hold them, our ability to live from that place, diminishes. And the way to become more comfortable, more at ease, in a shifting, changing world—which has always been the case actually—is to make friends with the feelings that are evoked by nothing to hold on to.”

ChangeComfortLetting GoReleaseAmbiguityAlice In WonderlandNonattachmentComfort With AmbiguityComfort With Change
Author:Pema Chödrön
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“We might not be able to know what reality is about, but we can’t but be aware of the explicitness of facts. To get a better grip on the intricate nature of the truth and its ambiguity, we have got to scrutinize facts and find out about their codes. But, yet, we can’t ignore that reality is a very intriguing place, since facts may be construed, receive variant contexts and create alternate outcomes, which, in turn, might spark new realities, over again. ("Imbroglio" )”

FactsRealityTruthAmbiguityIntriguingCodesConstrueContextsExplicitness
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“…I’ve come to realize that the only truths that matter to me are the ones I don’t, and can’t, understand. What’s mysterious, ambiguous, inexplicable. What doesn’t fit into a story, what doesn’t have a story. Glint of brightness on a barely-there chain. Patch of sunlight on a yellow wall. The loneliness that separates every living creature from every other living creature. Sorrow inseparable from joy.”

MysteryLonelinessAmbiguity
Book:The Goldfinch
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“It is still cheating, even if nobody comes.”

HumorFunnyLanguageSexSecretHumourJokesHumorousAffairCaughtSatireAphorismUncertainCheatInfidelityVagueObscureJokeHilariousAdulteryAmbiguityAphorismsAmourDoubtfulAmbiguousFlingUnfaithfulPunOrgasmDubiousCarrying OnAphoristAphoristsCheaterUnclearDisloyaltyComeAmbivalentCheatersPunsPlaying AroundSexual IntercourseFooling AroundUnfaithfulnessComingOrgasmsFalsenessCatchPlay On WordsStraySpermLiaisonCuckoldryCameSemenExtramaritalExtramarital SexSpermsTwo TimingWalk OnDebatableFool AroundHanky PankyTwo TimeAbstruseArguableBe UnfaithfulCommit AdulteryEquivocalPlay AroundA Bit On The SideA Play On WordsCatch Read HandedCaught Red HandedImpreciseOpen To ArgumentOpen To DebateRed HandedSpermatozoaSpermatozoonWalked On
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“A one-liner is the highest form of poetry. It must be tight, concise, and precise, with exactly the right words in exactly the right places. And maybe the best reply is also the shortest: Quack. When a duck says quack, does it mean something specific, or does it mean nothing? That ambiguity makes it hilarious.”

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Book:Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.
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“There's a certain amount of ambiguity in my background, what with intermarriages and conversions, but under various readings of three codes which I don’t much respect (Mosaic Law, the Nuremberg Laws, and the Israeli Law of Return) I do qualify as a member of the tribe, and any denial of that in my family has ceased with me. But I would not remove myself to Israel if it meant the continuing expropriation of another people, and if anti-Jewish fascism comes again to the Christian world—or more probably comes at us via the Muslim world—I already consider it an obligation to resist it wherever I live. I would detest myself if I fled from it in any direction. Leo Strauss was right. The Jews will not be 'saved' or 'redeemed.' (Cheer up: neither will anyone else.) They/we will always be in exile whether they are in the greater Jerusalem area or not, and this in some ways is as it should be. They are, or we are, as a friend of Victor Klemperer's once put it to him in a very dark time, condemned and privileged to be 'a seismic people.' A critical register of the general health of civilization is the status of 'the Jewish question.' No insurance policy has ever been devised that can or will cover this risk.”

ChristianityAtheismIslamIsraelRedemptionHonourFascismExileAmbiguityCivilisationAncestryJerusalemChristiansChristendomMuslimsAntisemitismIsraeli Palestinian ConflictJewish QuestionMosaic LawLeo StraussReligious ConversionsLaw Of ReturnNuremberg LawsIntermarriagesVictor Klemperer
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“In the presence of Esch, values have hidden their faces. Order, loyalty, sacrifice—he cherishes all these words, but exactly what do they represent? Sacrifice for what? Demand what sort of order? He doesn't know. If a value has lost its concrete content, what is left of it? A mere empty form; an imperative that goes unheeded and, all the more furious, demands to be heard and obeyed. The less Esch knows what he wants, the more furiously he wants it. Esch: the fanaticism of the era with no God. Because all values have hidden their faces, anything can be considered a value. Justice, order—Esch seeks them now in the trade union struggle, then in religion; today in police power, tomorrow in the mirage of America, where he dreams of emigrating. He could be a terrorist or a repentant terrorist turning in his comrades, or a party militant or a cult member a kamikaze prepared to sacrifice his life. All the passions rampaging through the bloody history of our time are taken up, unmasked, and terrifyingly displayed in Esch's modest adventure.”

ValuesOrderNovelSacrificeModernLoyaltyCertaintyExistentialismPurpose Of LifeCultAmbiguitySymbolicFanaticismImperativePost ModernSleepwalkersBrochEsch
Book:The Art of the Novel
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“The woman hangs from the 13th floor window crying for the lost beauty of her own life. She sees the sun falling west over the grey plane of Chicago. She thinks she remembers listening to her own life break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor window on the east side of Chicago, or as she climbs back up to claim herself again.”

LossAmbiguityShe Had Some HorsesJoy HarjoFinding OneselfPoetry Claiming Identity
Book:She Had Some Horses
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“I think that the most important thing we can do as cultural institutions, as learning institutions, is really help the public become more comfortable with ambiguity. As a nation, we really look for simple answers to complex questions, and you see where that's gotten us. I think that what you want to do is help people understand the shades of gray, the nuance, the debates. I think if we could do that, regardless of what history, what culture we're teaching people, what's important is if you can get people to grapple with complexity, then we'd be a better nation.”

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Author:Lonnie G. Bunch III
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“Well, I think that this is just a question for linguists and lexicographers. Although, as previously mentioned, a person needs to sense another person and needs to think about the person to behave in a certain way, which requires conscious thought, is it possible for a programmed reaction, or a programmed way of behaving, to be defined as behavior? Let me elaborate: if a normal human being is slapped in the face, the person would sense the slap and reflexively think of things such as how painful, unexpected, or annoying it was. Then, the person would say “ow” or maybe try to slap the person back. However, a p-zombie would react by saying “ow,” or by slapping the person back, but it is not doing any of this out of its own will, because without conscious thought, it doesn’t have a will. Something in the p-zombie could cause it to react without having to think, like with a robot; if I were to say “hi” to a robot, it could be programmed to say “hi” back, but it would only do it because it was programmed to do it, not because it senses that a person is saying “hi” and thinks of it as a friendly greeting. If it is possible for a being to be programmed like that, it could do such things, but determining whether or not actions like this are forms of behavior still depends on how society defines behavior. When a person behaves a certain way, he/she provides a reaction for a person. When a robot says “hi” to a person who just said “hi”, it is reacting to that person, so this could be viewed as a behavior, but the dictionary definition is a bit ambiguous, because it doesn’t specify whether the way one acts has to be conscious (like with a normal human being) or unconscious (like with a robot), so linguists and lexicographers need to establish that parameter to define behavior. If linguists and lexicographers were to say that behavior, by definition, does not have to be conscious, then a p-zombie could be conceivable.”

ConsciousnessPsychologyBehaviorAmbiguityLinguisticsP Zombie
Book:The Reformation
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“Kitabu cha KOLONIA SANTITA kinaweza kusomwa na watu wenye umri wa kuanzia miaka 13 na kuendelea. Katika umri wa miaka 13 fikra za mtoto huanza kuwa na maono na utambuzi wa vitu mbalimbali. Watoto katika umri huu wanao uwezo wa kuchambua dhana kadha wa kadha za kinadharia, na hali kadhalika wanao uwezo wa kuchambua nadharia tata zisizokuwa na uhakika, kama nadharia ya KOLONIA SANTITA.”

PeopleThinkingChildrenBookAgeAbilityPerceptionInsightConfusionTeenHypothesisAmbiguityThingsConceptHypotheticalWatuKolonia SantitaWatotoUwezoTataMtoto13KitabuMaonoDhanaUmriUtambuziVituFikraKinadhariaNadhariaUtata
Author:Enock Maregesi
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