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Incongruity Quotes

Browse 47 quotes about Incongruity.

Incongruity Quotes

“You have a consistent character yourself and you wish all the facts of life to be consistent, but they never are. For instance you despise public service because you want work always to correspond to its aims, and that never happens. You also want the activity of each separate man to have an aim, and love and family life always to coincide––and that doesn't happen either. All the variety, charm and beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”

Black And WhiteSpectrumDissonanceIncongruity
Book:ANNA KARENINA
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“Brandon: How does the character fit into the story, how will people expect them to fit into the story, and how, therefore, can I make them incongruous for those expectations? I'm looking for incongruity. Ask yourself why this character cannot fill the role in the plot that they are expected to fulfill. Ask yourself who would be perfect for this role. I'm not going to use that person.”

Character DevelopmentIncongruityQuirky CharactersWriting Excuses
Author:Brandon Sanderson
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“He remembered a version of himself untrammeled by expectation, unimpeded by Ego. He had suffered in the many years since then, seeking to return to that original self, if, in fact, it ever existed. And yet, he was helpless but to regard that unmistakable fear that gripped him in his dream as a sign that his unevenness lent him now to utter incongruity with this specter of past.”

SufferingEgoLiberationPurityEmancipationSymmetryPast And PresentLoss Of InnocenceIncongruityRemembrance Of Things PastSpecter
Book:Sinew of the Social Species
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“The position occupied by Toporóff, involving as it did an incongruity of purpose, could only be held by a dull man devoid of moral sensibility. Toporóff possessed both these negative qualities. The incongruity of the position he occupied was this: It was his duty to keep up and to defend, by external measures, not excluding violence, that Church which, by its own declaration, was established by God Himself and could not be shaken by the gates of hell nor by anything human. This divine and immutable God-established institution had to be sustained and defended by a human institution--the Holy Synod, managed by Toporóff and his officials. Toporóff did not see this contradiction, nor did he wish to see it, and he was therefore much concerned lest some Romish priest, some pastor, or some sectarian should destroy that Church which the gates of hell could not conquer.”

ReligionChristianityIncongruityState Religion
Book:Resurrection
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“Some seem to be desynchronized in their relationships. They feel oppressed, because they cannot move forward together and at the same pace. Their thinking is often incongruent, their motivation disparate. The phone could be a mediator, as it creates an impression to be a perfect reliable friend. However, in the end, it causes rather a sense of isolation, since it divides more than it unites. Eventually it appears not to be such a good friend but only a ghost friend. ( "Kein Schwein ruft mich an" )”

ThinkingMotivationRelationshipsImpressionIsolationPaceFriendOppressedPhoneIncongruityMediatorDisparate
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“But whatever you do, take neither yourselves nor your fellow-creatures too seriously. There is tragedy enough in our daily routine, but there is room too for a keen sense of the absurdities and incongruities of life, and in the shifting panorama no one sees better than the doctor the perennial sameness of men’s ways.”

MenWayEnoughRoomsCreaturesDoctorsTragedyFellowsRoutineAbsurdityShiftingSamenessDaily RoutinesIncongruityPanorama
Book:The Quotable Osler
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“When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse .”

IfsWellsDreamActionLyingFourDoorsStreetsYouthLowsWindowNobleLocksApocalypseWrathMonstrousMaidensHopes And DreamsShuttersHorsemenIncongruityFour HorsemenFour Horsemen Of The Apocalypse
Book:The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
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“An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no more than an entirely dishonest knave: the best and the worst are only approximations of those qualities. Who are those that never contradict themselves? yet honesty never contradicts itself: Who are those that always contradict themselves? yet knavery is mere self-contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things themselves, but their proportions, the quan∣tum of congruities and incongruities.”

MenSelfQualityWorstHonestHonestyMereDetermineProportionContradictionQuantumSevereHonest ManKnavesApproximationIncongruityKnavery
Author:Johann Kaspar Lavater
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“Nature's law says that the strong must prevent the weak from living, but only in a newspaper article or textbook can this be packaged into a comprehensible thought. In the soup of everyday life, in the mixture of minutia from which human relations are woven, it is not a law. It is a logical incongruity when both strong and weak fall victim to their mutual relations, unconsciously subservient to some unknown guiding power that stands outside of life, irrelevant to man.”

MenHumansLawFallStrongNatureHuman NatureWeakRelationVictimEverydayEqualityNewspapersLogicalMutualArticlesEveryday LifeSoupIrrelevantStanding OutMixturesWovenHuman RelationsTextbooksSubservientIncongruity
Author:Anton Chekhov
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“Yet again, an ancient answer echoes across the centuries: Listen! Listen to stories! For what stories do, above all else, is hold up a mirror so that we can see ourselves. Stories are mirrors of human be-ing, reflecting back our very essence. In a story, we come to know precisely the both/and, mixed-upped-ness of our very being. In the mirror of another's story, we can discover our tragedy and our comedy-and therefore our very human-ness, the ambiguity and incongruity, that lie at the core of the human condition.”

KnowsHumansStoriesLyingAnswersComedyConditionsCenturyEssenceTragedyMirrorsAncientCoreHuman ConditionEchoesReflectingAmbiguityIncongruityReflecting Back
Book:The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning
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“Ira [Gershwin] was the shyest, most diffident boy we had ever known. In a class of lower east side rapscallions, his soft-spoken gentleness and low-keyed personality made him a lovable incongruity. He spoke in murmurs, hiding behind a pair of steel-rimmed glasses..Ira had a kid brother who wore high stiff collars, shirts with cuffs and went out with girls.”

MadeKidsGirlSidesBehindsKnownClassBoysBrotherPersonalityLowsEastShirtsPairsSpokesHidingSteelGentlenessCollarsLovableSpectaclesIraGershwinCuffsEast SideIncongruity
Author:Yip Harburg
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“It is better to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity. Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind. For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself!”

PeopleMenWorldGivingEnoughYoungUniverseBehindsBrainTheoryFoolShapesGive MeSakeStupidityYoung ManScreamPillsJarsForlornInsensibleIncongruity
Author:Robert Louis Stevenson
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“I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things but where edges meet. I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders. There are interesting frictions and incongruities in these places, and often, if you stand at the point of tangency, you can see both sides better than if you were in the middle of either one.”

IfsActionFeltSidesInterestingMiddleFrontsInternationalEdgesWeatherBordersBoth SidesFrictionIncongruityShoreline
Author:Anne Fadiman
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“It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity.”

TheoryShapesStupidityScreamJarsForlornInsensibleIncongruity
Book:The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Letters and Essays (Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, containing Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, Catriona and A Child's Garden of Verses
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“Everything can happen, everything is possible and probable. Time and place do not exist; on a significant bases of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns; a mixture of memories, experiences, free fancies, incongruities and improvisations.”

RealityHappensImaginationMemoriesBasesPatternsSignificantFancyMixturesImprovisationWeavingIncongruity
Book:Strindberg Plays: 2: Dream Play; Dance of Death; The Stronger
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“The intimate relation between humor and faith is derived from the fact that both deal with the incongruities of our existence. Laughter is our reaction to immediate incongruities and those which do not affect us essentially. Faith is the only possible response to the ultimate incongruities of existence, which threaten the very meaning of our life.”

FactsDealsExistenceOur LivesLaughterUltimateRelationResponseReactionsIntimateVery MeanIncongruity
Author:Reinhold Niebuhr
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“This is America, This vast, confused beauty, This staring, restless speed of loveliness, Mighty, overwhelming, crude, of all forms, Making grandeur out of profusion, Afraid of no incongruities, Sublime in its audacity, Bizarre breaker of moulds.”

AmericaFormSpeedStaringConfusedOverwhelmingSublimeBizarreRestlessGrandeurCrudeLovelinessAudacityMouldIncongruity
Book:Complete poetical works: With an introd. by Louis Untermeyer
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