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Incoherence Quotes

Browse 46 quotes about Incoherence.

Incoherence Quotes

“Suicidal pain includes the feeling that one has lost all capacity to effect emotional change. The agony is excruciating and looks as if it will never end. There is the feeling of having been beaten down for a very long time. There are feelings of agitation, emptiness, and incoherence. 'Snap out of it and get on with your life,' sounds like a demand to high jump ten feet.”

SufferingDepressionSuicideEmptinessHopelessnessAgitationIncoherenceSuicidal PainSnap Out Of It
Book:Out of the Nightmare: Recovery from Depression and Suicidal Pain
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“People being incoherent might get on our nerves sometimes. We like coherence in actions and thoughts since we value clarity and structure in our lives. But at times, we are alarmed because we cannot help being incoherent when we want to challenge established norms and explore unconventional paths that lead to unexpected connections or new insights. Allowing ourselves some incoherence might open the door to new perspectives and surprising outcomes. ("Drunken sailor”)”

ClarityCoherenceIncoherenceNew PerspectivesNew InsightsEstablished NormsSurprising OutcomesUnconventional Paths
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“It seemed a ruse that fear of death should be the sole motivation for living and, yet, to quell this fear made the prospect of living itself seem all the more absurd; to extend this further, the notion of living one’s life for the purposes of pondering the absurdity of living was an even greater absurdity in and of itself, which thus, by reductio ad absurdum, rendered the fear of death a necessary function of life and any lack thereof, a trifling matter rooted in self-inflicted incoherence.”

ParadoxAbsurdityFear Of DeathAbsurdismReductionismIncoherenceFear Of UnknownReason For LivingCircular Reasoning
Book:Only the Deplorable
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“At the time, there would only be incoherence. As though meaning had slunk out of things and left them fragmented. Disconnected. The glint of Ammu’s needle. The color of a ribbon. The weave of the cross-stitch counterpane. A door slowly breaking. Isolated things that didn’t mean anything. As though the intelligence that decodes life’s hidden patterns -that connects reflections to images, glints to light, weaves to fabrics, needles to thread, walls to rooms, love to fear to anger to remorse- was suddenly lost. (215)”

Incoherence
Author:Arundhati Roy
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“Interruption, incoherence, surprise are the ordinary conditions of our life. They have even become real needs for many people, whose minds are no longer fed by anything but sudden changes and constantly renewed stimuli. We can no longer bear anything that lasts. We no longer know how to make boredom bear fruit. So the whole question comes down to this: can the human mind master what the human mind has made?”

PeopleKnowsNeedsMindHumansMadeRealWholeLastsKnow HowOur LivesConditionsMastersBearsOrdinarySurpriseFruitBoredomFedsHuman MindStimulusInterruptionsIncoherenceSudden Change
Author:Paul Valery
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“Religious doctrines would do well to withdraw their pretension to be dealing with matters of fact. That pretension is not only the source of the conflicts of religion with science and the vain and bitter controversies of sects; it is also the cause of the impurity and incoherence of religion in the soul.”

WellsSoulMatterFactsCausesReligiousAtheismSourceConflictPositive AtheismDoctrineBitterVainControversyMatter Of FactSectsPretensionImpurityIncoherence
Book:Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana
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“Everybody have equal rights to a life of full flourishing. Philosophy slowly, slowly has given us arguments saying, look, you already committed to your own life flourishing, and you're being inconsistent if you don't expand it. So philosophy often works in trying to show us that there's an inner incoherence in our points of view. We're all committed to one thing when it comes to us and our own kind, but we're not willing to expand it and we're guilty of inconsistency.”

IfsTryingLooksKindPhilosophyShowsGivenViewsRightsOne ThingWillingEqualArgumentCommittedPoint Of ViewGuiltyEqual RightsInconsistentFlourishingInconsistencyIncoherence
Author:Rebecca Goldstein
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“Freudian psychoanalytical theory is a mythology that answers pretty well to Levi-Strauss's descriptions. It brings some kind of order into incoherence; it, too, hangs together, makes sense, leaves no loose ends, and is never (but never) at a loss for explanation. In a state of bewilderment it may therefore bring comfort and relief.... give its subject a new and deeper understanding of his own condition and of the nature of his relationship to his fellow men. A mythical structure will be built up around him which makes sense and is believable-in, regardless of whether or not it is true.”

MenGivingWellsKindMayEndsStatesTogetherOrderUnderstandingNatureLossAnswersRelationshipConditionsSubjectsTheoryComfortBuiltFellowsStructureDeeperMythMythologyMake SenseExplanationReliefDescriptionFellow ManPsychoanalysisBelievableBewildermentDeeper UnderstandingIncoherenceLoose EndsBelievabilityLevi Strauss
Author:Peter Medawar
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“If you engage in positive thinking to overcome negative thoughts, the negative thoughts are still there acting. That's still incoherence. It's not enough just to engage in positive thoughts when you have negative thoughts registered, because they keep on working and will cause trouble somewhere else.”

IfsThinkingMindStillsEnoughPainCausesActingTroublePositive ThinkingNegativeOvercomingPositive ThoughtsSomewhere ElseNegative ThoughtsIncoherence
Book:Thought as a System
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“Alas, Islam turned against science in the twelfth century. The most influential figure was the philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali, who argued in The Incoherence of the Philosophers against the very idea of laws of nature, on the ground that any such laws would put God's hands in chains. According to al-Ghazzali, a piece of cotton placed in a flame does not darken and smoulder because of the heat, but because God wants it to darken and smoulder. After al-Ghazzali, there was no more science worth mentioning in Islamic countries.”

WantDoeIdeasCountryHandsLawPiecesCenturyFiguresIslamPhilosopherChainsFlamesHeatIslamicAlsAlasLaws Of NatureInfluentialCottonIncoherence
Author:Steven Weinberg
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“In trying to explain our political paralysis, analysts cite President Obama's tactical missteps, the obstinacy of congressional Republicans, rising partisanship in Washington, and the Senate filibuster, which has devolved into a super-majority threshold for important legislation. These are large factors to be sure, but that list neglects what may be the biggest culprit of all: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.”

TryingMayImportantPoliticalPresidentGrowingIgnoranceRepublicanMajorityListsFactorsRisingNeglectPresident ObamaSenateLegislationThresholdAnalystsParalysisPartisanshipCitingObstinacyTacticalCulpritChildishnessIncoherenceFilibuster
Author:Jacob Weisberg
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“The aggressive incoherence of our common surroundings can be described as entropy made visible. The way we have disposed things on the landscape leads us in the direction of disorder and death. They are categorically evil. These dispositions are destroying our only home-planet and other organisms that share it. They defeat our need to care about where we are and the things in place there. They prompt us to feel that civilization is not worth carrying on. They rob us of our identity and our will to live. These things are not about personal taste or style.”

WayNeedsFeelsMadeHomeCareEvilCommonShareStyleIdentityPlanetsCivilizationTasteDefeatLandscapeVisibleDisorderAggressiveDestroyingOrganismsDispositionSurroundingsPromptsEntropyCarrying OnWill To LiveIncoherencePersonal Taste
Author:James Howard Kunstler
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“As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings; this indeed is the only excuse that offers for the middle-aged or elderly writer whose thoughts should more properly be turned to graver matters, occupying himself with the trivial concerns of imaginary people.”

PeopleIfsMenShouldHumansRealMatterGrowsHuman BeingsFictionStudyMiddleMankindFiguresOffersCreaturesConsciousConcernExcuseSignificantReal LifeComplexitySensibleImaginaryIrrationalElderlyMiddle AgedIncoherenceOccupy Yourself
Author:W. Somerset Maugham
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“We could speak about the meaning of life vis-a-vis non-consequential/deontological theories, apodictic transformation schemata, the incoherence of exemplification, metaphysical realism, Cartesian interactive dualism, revised non reductive dualism, postmodernist grammatology and dicey dichotomies. But we would still be left with Nietzsche's preposterous mustache which instills great anguish and skepticism in the brain, which leads (as it did in his case) to utter madness. I suggest we go to Paris instead.”

StillsLeftSpeakBrainCasesTheoryMadnessTransformationParisMeaning Of LifeRealismSkepticismAnguishMetaphysicalInstillMustacheDichotomyInteractiveDualismIncoherence
Author:Maira Kalman
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“We exist for ourselves, perhaps, and at times we even have a glimmer of who we are, but in the end we can never be sure, and as our lives go on, we become more and more opaque to ourselves, more and more aware of our own incoherence. No one can cross the boundary into another – for the simple reason that no one can gain access to himself.”

EndsReasonSimpleOur LivesGoes OnGainsCrossesAccessBoundariesWho We AreLife Goes OnOpaqueIncoherence
Book:The New York Trilogy
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“Any time one person makes an effort to contact a deeper part of him or herself, balance his or her emotions, and deflect the stress momentum, others benefit. As more individuals learn to maintain their poise and balance and refrain from adding to the incoherence around them, they help to counterbalance the frequency of stress”

PersonsHelpingIndividualEffortEmotionBalanceBenefitsStressDeeperContactFrequencyMomentumRefrainPoiseIncoherence
Author:Howard Martin
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“Our culture's adjustment to the epistemology of television is by now all but complete; we have so thoroughly accepted its definitions of truth, knowledge and reality that irrelevance seems to us to be filled with import, and incoherence seems eminently sane. And if some of our institutions seem not to fit the template of the times, why it is they and not the template, that seem to us disordered and strange.”

IfsRealitySeemsCultureTelevisionStrangeFitInstitutionsFilledDefinitionsAcceptedSaneAdjustmentImportsEpistemologyIrrelevanceIncoherence
Author:Neil Patrick Harris
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“Wrangel pretended to combat the Bolsheviks, Bolshevism is Jewry. In order to retain the favor of the Jews holding the real power in England, France and the United States, Wrangel showed to the Jews signs of his submission to them. Thereafter the Russian masses abandoned Wrangel as a traitor or as a comedian. It is impossible simultaneously to be an auxiliary of the Jew and an enemy of the Bolsheviki who are Jews. Be it incoherence or treason, Wrangel deserved the same fate as Denikin and he got it.”

RealStatesOrderUnitedEnemyUnited StatesFateImpossibleMassEnglandJewFavorsFranceComedianCombatAbandonedSubmissionTraitorTreasonReal PowerBolsheviksBolshevismIncoherence
Author:Boris Brasol
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“Commonly, people believe that defeat is characterized by a general bustle and a feverish rush. Bustle and rush are the signs of victory, not of defeat. Victory is a thing of action. It is a house in the act of being built. Every participant in victory sweats and puffs, carrying the stones for the building of the house. But defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom. And above all of futility.”

PeopleBelieveActionHouseBuildingVictoryBuiltStonesDefeatBoredomSweatParticipantsFutilityWearinessPuffBustleIncoherence
Author:Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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“Careless of waste, wallowing in refuse, exterminating the enemies . . . despising age, denying human natural history, fabricating pseudotraditions, swamped in the repeated personal crises of the aging preadolescent; all are familiar images of American society. They are signs of private nightmares of incoherence and disorder in broken climaxes where technologies in pursuit of mastery create ever-worsening problems - private nightmares expanded to a social level.”

HumansProblemAgeSocialNaturalLevelsEnemyTechnologyBrokenWasteCrisisAgingHistoricalRefusePursuitFamiliarPrivacyNightmareDisorderMasteryCarelessAmerican SocietyClimaxNatural HistoryWallowingIncoherence
Author:Paul Shepard
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“The library will endure; it is the universe... We walk the corridors, searching the shelves and rearranging them, looking for lines of meaning amid leagues of cacophony and incoherence, reading the history of the past and of the future, collecting our thoughts and collecting the thoughts of others, and every so often glimpsing mirrors, in which we may recognize creatures of the information.”

MayPastUniverseReadingLinesWalksInformationCreaturesMirrorsEndureLibraryLeagueOur ThoughtsShelvesCollectingCorridorsCacophonyIncoherenceRearranging
Author:James Gleick
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“Very often, I confess, the teller of dreams bores me. His dream could perhaps interest me if it were frankly worked on. But to hear a glorious tale of his insanity! I have not yet clarified, psychoanalytically, this boredom during the recital of other people's dreams. Perhaps I have retained the stiffness of a rationalist. I do not follow the tale of justified incoherence docilely. I always suspect that part of the stupidities being recounted are invented.”

PeopleIfsDreamInterestStupidityTalesInsanityBoredomGloriousSuspectsBoresJustifiedIncoherenceRecitalsStiffness
Author:Gaston Bachelard
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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.”

WantRealHappensHurtViolenceStyleTragedyAbsolutesAbsurdCrudeIncoherence
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts
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“There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.”

MindFirstsPersonsHas BeensGoalInterestStepsParticularPeriodsFirst TimeDistanceStartingConclusionOccupationStarting PointAmusedIncoherence
Book:The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition
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“Al-Ghazali is the most important philosophical theologian of classical Islam, and Moderation in Belief is among his most important works. It sets out al-Ghazali's Ash?arite theology with unusual clarity and provides important background for such well-known works as his autobiographical Deliverance from Error and his attack on Avicenna in The Incoherence of the Philosophers. This first English-language translation, with notes that bring out the argumentation and background of the work, is thus very much to be welcomed.”

FirstsWellsImportantBeliefLanguageKnownPhilosophicalErrorsNotesIslamPhilosopherBackgroundsTheologyClarityWorking ItAlsUnusualAshesModerationWell KnownTheologianTranslationsEnglish LanguageDeliveranceImportant WorkArgumentationIncoherence
Author:Peter Adamson
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“Mr Earbrass stands on the terrace at twilight. It is bleak; it is cold; and the virtue has gone out of everything. Words drift through his mind: anguish turnips conjunctions illness defeat string parties no parties urns desuetude disaffection claws loss Trebizond napkins shame stones distance fever Antipodes mush glaciers incoherence labels miasma amputation tides deceit mourning elsewards.”

MindLossPartyGoneVirtueColdStonesShameDistanceDefeatIllnessLabelsMourningDeceitStringsTwilightTidesAnguishFeverClawsBleakGlaciersConjunctionsNapkinsTerraceIncoherenceTurnipsAmputationAntipodes
Book:The Unstrung Harp, Or, Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel
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