“Part of the power of Emerson's individualism is his insistence, at crucial moments, that individualism does not mean isolation or self-sufficiency. This is not a paradox, for it is only the strong individual who can frankly concede the sometimes surprising extent of his own dependence.” ThinkingMeanDoeSelfSometimesMomentsIndividualStrongIsolationParadoxCrucialIndividualismSurprisingDependenceInsistenceSelf SufficiencySufficiencyCrucial MomentsStrong Individuals Author:Robert D. Richardson
“If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude. Like the color white that includes all colors, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. Creativity allows for paradox, light, shadow, inconsistency, even chaos -and creative people experience both extremes with equal intensity.” PeopleIfsHumansDifferentLightTogetherIndividualWhiteCreativityCreativePossibilityColorEqualShadowChaosExtremesRangeComplexityParadoxIntensityMultitudesOne WordCreative PeopleInconsistencyColor White Author:Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Love is the bridge that leads from the I sense to the We, and there is a paradox about personal love. Love of another individual opens a new relation between the personality and the world. The lover responds in a new way to nature and may even write poetry. Love is affirmation; it motivates the yes responses and the sense of wider communication. Love casts out fear, and in the security of this togetherness we find contentment, courage. We no longer fear the age-old haunting questions: "Who am I?" "Why am I?" "Where am I going?" - and having cast out fear, we can be honest and charitable.” WorldWayWritingMayAgeIndividualLove IsHonestSecurityCommunicationPersonalityLoversRelationResponseCastsBeing HonestBridgesContentmentParadoxNew WaysAffirmationHauntingTogethernessLove PoetryCharitablePersonal Love Author:Carson McCullers
“Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to it but superior - yet in such a way, please note, that it is the single individual who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal, now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute.” WayMeanIndividualAtheismHigherPleaseUniversalRelationAbsolutesNotesSuperiorsParadoxInferiorsJustifiedSubordinates Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“Few things are more agreeable to self-love than revenge, and yet no cause so effectually restrains us from revenge as self-love. And this paradox naturally suggests another; that the strength of the community is not unfrequently built upon the weakness of those individuals that compose it.” SelfIndividualCausesCommunitySelf LoveWeaknessBuiltRevengeParadox Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“The individual - stupendous and beautiful paradox - is at once infinitesimal dust and the cause of all things.” BeautifulIndividualCausesAll ThingsDustParadox Author:C. V. Wedgwood
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally. A higher paradox confounds emotion as well as reason and there are long periods in the lives of all of us, and of the saints, when the truth as revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive. Witness the dark night of the soul in individual saints. Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.” WorldWellsLongDoeSoulReasonWholeSeemsNightIndividualDarkAbilityEmotionHigherPeriodsRight NowSaintWhole WorldWitnessParadoxStomachDisturbingHideousDark NightDark Night Of The Soul Author:Flannery O'Connor