“It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” PeopleBelieveHeartStillsCharacterSeemsMotivationHopeWonderImpossibleHavensIdealsHuman RightsDivorceChristian InspirationalAbsurdSpiteIdealismI Still Believe Author:Anne Frank
“There are many countries where you can only believe more or you can believe less. But in the United States we have this incredible smorgasbord, and it really interests me why people are drawn to one faith rather than another, especially to a system of belief that to an outsider seems absurd or dangerous.” PeopleBelieveCountryStatesSeemsBeliefInterestUnitedUnited StatesDangerousIncrediblesAbsurdOutsiders Author:Lawrence Wright
“It has been suggested that Tiptree is female, a theory that I find absurd, for there is to me something ineluctably masculine about Tiptree’s writing. I don’t think the novels of Jane Austen could have been written by a man nor the stories of Ernest Hemingway by a woman, and in the same way I believe the author of the James Tiptree stories is male.” ThinkingMenWayWritingBelieveHas BeensStoriesI BelieveNovelWrittenTheoryFemaleMalesAbsurdMasculineCould Have BeenJaneAusten Author:Robert Silverberg
“Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have, this day, done one thing because He said, Do it! or once abstained because He said, Do not do it! It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe, in Him, if you do not do anything He tells you.” IfsWantBelieveSaidDoneAsksOne ThingAskingAbsurdThis Day Book:Unspoken Sermons Series I, II, and III Source: Unspoken Sermons Series I, II, and III
“Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest.” BelieveCoursesI BelieveProcessDoubtFieldsBlindCleanI Believe InAbsurdPursueReasoningProtestInvestigationAlleysValiditySlateProclamationMethodical Book:The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt Source: The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt
“The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It isn't absurd, e.g., to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity; that the idea of great progress is delusion, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are.” WorldBelieveMeanIdeasEndsAgeHumanityFallViewsKnownTechnologyProgressMankindObviousSeekingAbsurdRepeatsDelusionTrapsDesirableScience And TechnologyApocalypticScientific KnowledgeGreat Progress Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein
“Imagism was a reductio ad absurdum of one or two tendencies of romanticism, such a beautifully and finally absurd one that it is hard to believe it existed as anything but a logical construction; and what imagist found it possible to go on writing imagist poetry? A number of poets have stopped writing entirely; others, like recurring decimals, repeat the novelties they commeced with, each time less valuably than before. And there are surrealist poetry, and political poetry, and all the othe refuges of the indigent.” WritingBelieveTwoHardPoliticalFoundNumbersPoetGoes OnAbsurdTendenciesRepeatsLogicalAdsConstructionRefugeNoveltyRomanticismHard To BelieveRecurringSurrealistDecimals Author:Randall Jarrell