Contradiction

This diagram shows the contradictory relationships between categorical propositions in the square of opposition of Aristotelian logic.

Contradiction consists of a logical l incompatibility between two or more propositions. It occurs when the propositions, taken together, yield two conclusions which form the logical, usually opposite inversions of each other. By extension, outside of classical logic, one can speak of contradictions between actions when one presumes that their motives contradict each other.

Alphabetized by author or source

A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Anon · External links

A

• He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
  • Douglas Adams, in Andy Wrasman Contradict: They Can't All Be True, WestBowPress, 13-Jan-2014, p.84

• Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God.
  • Thomas Aquinas, in Jim Kanaris Polyphonic Thinking and the Divine, Rodopi, 2013, p.58

• It is... axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensitive in our dealings with others, we cannot be aware of it at the time: conscious insensitivity is a self-contradiction.
  • W. H. Auden, in Robert J. Wicks Availability: the problem and the gift, Paulist Press, 1986, p.46

B

• I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.
  • Georges Bataille, in Carol A. Dingle Memorable Quotations: French Writers of the Past, iUniverse, 2000, p.17

• ...Erich Fromm wondered why most people did not become insane in the face of the existential contradiction between a symbolic self, that seems to give man infinite worth in a timeless scheme of things, and a body that is worth about 98¢.
  • Ernest Becker, in Fear Of Death, Christianism.

• Do what you will, this world's a fiction and is made up of contradiction,
  • William Blake, in The Perennial Satirist: Essays in Honour of Bernfried Nugel, Presented on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, 13 September 2005, LIT Verlag Münster, 01-Jan-2005 p.158

• Everything must be recaptured and relocated in the general framework of history, so that despite the difficulties, the fundamental paradoxes and contradictions, we may respect the unity of history which is also the unity of life.
  • Fernand Braudel, in On History, University of Chicago Press, 15 February1982, p.16

• Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions.
  • Andre Breton, in Georges Bataille Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939, U of Minnesota Press, 1985, p.41

C

Union with Christ- Deepak Chopra:Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention.

• A quarter of America is a dramatic, tense, violent country, exploding with contradictions, full of brutal, physiological vitality, and that is the America that I have really loved and love. But a good half of it is a country of boredom, emptiness, monotony, brainless production, and brainless consumption, and this is the American inferno.
  • Italo Calvino, in Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985, Princeton University Press, 2013, p.197

• Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.
  • G. K. Chesterton , in John Eldredge Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul, Thomas Nelson Inc, 17-Mar-2011, p.171

• Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention.
  • Deepak Chopra, in Mary-Anne Frank The Cinderella Evolution, BalboaPress, 10 October 2013, p.79

• So you're trying to make her happy despite the fact that the reason she'd unhappy in the first place is you," said Simon not very kindly. "That seems contradictory, doesn't it?" "Love is a contradiction," said Jace, and turned back to the window.
  • Cassandra Clare, in angels City of Fallen Angels, Read The Mortal Instruments

• Jesus lived a life that was full of joy and contradictions and fights, you know? If they were to paint a picture of Jesus without contradictions, the gospels would be fake, but the contradictions are a sign of authenticity.
  • Paulo Coelho, in Stuart Jeffries Paulo Coelho on Jesus, Twitter and the difference between defeat and failure, The Guardian, 17 March 2013

E

• Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Emerson in His Journals, Harvard University Press, 1 January 1984, p.206

• Else if you would be a man speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Essays and poems of Emerson, Harcourt, Brace, 1921, p.157

• Motion itself is a contradiction.
  • Engels, in "Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung On Contradiction".

• ... one of the basic principles of higher mathematics is the contradiction that in certain circumstances straight lines and curves may be the same.... But even lower mathematics teems with contradictions.
  • Engels, in "Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung On Contradiction".

• If simple mechanical change of place contains a contradiction, this is even more true of the higher forms of motion of matter, and especially of organic life and its development... life consists precisely and primarily in this--that a being is at each moment itself and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves, and which constantly originates and resolves itself; and as soon as the contradiction ceases, life, too, comes to an end, and death steps in. We likewise saw that also in the sphere of thought we could not escape contradictions, and that for example the contradiction between man's inherently unlimited capacity for knowledge and its actual presence only in men who are externally limited and possess limited cognition finds its solution in what is--at least practically, for us--an endless succession of generations, in infinite progress.
  • Engels, in "Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung On Contradiction".

F

• I have only found the key to the cipher of the Christian religion, only extricated its true meaning from the web of contradictions and delusions called theology.
  • Ludwig Feuerbach, in Irving Hexham, er al., Encountering New Religious Movements: A Holistic Evangelical Approach (Google eBook), Kregel Academic, p.101

• A strange contradiction the Mahatma was...there was a kind of androgynous, charismatic vitality that lurked within him , a dangerously effeminate quality that could provoke high anxiety.
  • Frederick B. Fischer, in “That Strange Little Brown Man quoted” in Sean Scalmer Gandhi in the West: The Mahatma and the Rise of Radical Protest, Cambridge University Press, 6 January 2011, p.22

• The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary.
  • Benjamin Franklin, in Jan Logemann The Development of Consumer Credit in Global Perspective: Business, Regulation, and Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, 17 July 2012, p.268

• Reason is man's faculty for grasping the world by thought, in contradiction to intelligence, which is man's ability to manipulate the world with the help of thought. Reason is man's instrument for arriving at the truth, intelligence is man's instrument for manipulating the world more successfully; the former is essentially human, the latter belongs to the animal part of man.
  • Erich Fromm, in The Sane Society, Open Road Media, 26-Mar-2013, p.74

G

Thomas Aquinas - Greg Graffin:Bad Religion has never been about criticizing people who are Christian. But we've always been about pointing out the irony and contradictions in Christian theology and the more extreme versions of Christians that seek to challenge modern secularism.

• Paradoxes specific to the work are, in a sense, the counterpart of the contradictions of the perceivable world.
  • Robin Wildstein Garvin, in Romantic Irony in the String Quartets of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Robert Schumann, ProQuest, 2008, p.9

• That is exactly the point, what we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction makes us productive.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in E. A. Bucchianeri Faust: My Soul be Damned for the World, Volume 2, AuthorHouse, 2008, p.654

• Bad Religion has never been about criticizing people who are Christian. But we've always been about pointing out the irony and contradictions in Christian theology and the more extreme versions of Christians that seek to challenge modern secularism.
  • Greg Graffin, in Emily Zemler Bad Religion Cut an Unlikely Christmas EP, Rolling Stone, November 28, 2013

H

Brad Holland: Many of the contradictions in Postmodern art come from the fact that we're trying to be artists in a democratic society. This is because in a democracy, the ideal is compromise. In art, it isn't.

File:Hazaras of Afghanistan.jpg

Khaled Hossein: n Afghan society, parents play a central role in the lives of their children; the parent-child relationship is fundamental to who you are and what you become and how you perceive yourself, and it is laden with contradictions, with tension, with anger, with love, with loathing, with angst.

• I try to get closer to reality, to get close to the contradictions. The cinema world can be a real world rather than a dream world.
  • Michael Haneke, in Michael Haneke: I try to get closer to reality, close to the contradiction, Metro, 15 November 2012

• The prime requisite of a set of postulates is that it be consistent. Since the ordinary notion of consistency involves that of contradiction, which again involves negation, and since this function does not appear in general as a primitive in [the generalized set of postulates] a new definition must be given.
  • Jean Van Heijenoort, in From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931, Harvard University Press, 1977, p.276

• Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.
  • Eric J. Hobsbawm, in Gopal Balakrishnan, Benedict Anderson Mapping the Nation (Mappings Series), Verso Books, 13 November 2012 , p.255

• It is also plausible that those movements with the greatest inner contradiction between profession and practice - that is to say with a strong feeling of guilt-are likely to be the most fervent in imposing their faith on others.
  • Eric Hoffer, in The True Believer, 1980, p.115

• When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths or to reject absurdities and palpable contradictions.
  • Paul-Henry Baron d'Holbach, in Dale McGowan Voices of Unbelief: Documents from Atheists and Agnostics, ABC-CLIO, 2012, p.64

• Many of the contradictions in Postmodern art come from the fact that we're trying to be artists in a democratic society. This is because in a democracy, the ideal is compromise. In art, it isn't.
  • Brad Holland, in Illustration, America: twenty-five outstanding portfolios, Rockport Publishers/Allworth Press, 1996, p.139

• In Afghan society, parents play a central role in the lives of their children; the parent-child relationship is fundamental to who you are and what you become and how you perceive yourself, and it is laden with contradictions, with tension, with anger, with love, with loathing, with angst.
  • Khaled Hossein, in Barnes & Noble interview with Khaled Hosseini, Barnes & Noble

K

• Do you think when two representatives holding diametrically opposing views get together and shake hands, the contradictions between our systems will simply melt away? What kind of a daydream is that?
  • Nikita Khrushchev, in Khrushchev Remembers; the Last Testament, Volume 2, Little, Brown, 1974, p.415

• Really, life is full of contradictions. Life is messy.
  • John N. Kotre, Elizabeth Hall, in Seasons of Life: The Dramatic Journey from Birth to Death, University of Michigan Press, 1990, p.375

L

• Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradiction in the very essence of objects.
  • Lenin, in "Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung On Contradiction"

• Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.
  • Audre Lorde, in Kimberly Wallace-Sanders Skin Deep, Spirit Strong: The Black Female Body in American Culture, University of Michigan Press, 2002, p.67

M

• The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me.
  • Thomas Merton, in Loren E. Pedersen Dark Hearts: The Unconscious Forces That Shape Men's Lives, iUniverse, 2002, p.49

• Capitalism is not so much an aberration as a step on an evolutionary path, and one that contains within it some of the answers to its own contradictions.
  • Geoff Mulgan, in The Locust and the Bee: Predators and Creators in Capitalism's Future (Google eBook), Princeton University Press, 27 February 2013, p.209

N

• ...it is trite that contradictions per se do not lead to the rejection of a witness’s evidence and what the trier of fact has to take into consideration, are matters such as the nature of the contradictions; their number and importance, and their bearing on other parts of the witness’s evidence. These differences could either be immaterial to the charges the accused is facing or bona fide mistakes made by a witness.
  • Nicholas, J, in Case No. 38/2008 In the matter between:The State And Amakali Leevi, Superiorcourts.org , p.5

• One is fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, in Wolfgang Müller-Lauter Nietzsche: His Philosophy of Contradictions and the Contradictions of His Philosophy, University of Illinois Press, 01-Jan-1999, p.7

• After all, what would be "beautiful" if the contradiction had not first become conscious of itself, if the ugly had not first said to itself: "I am ugly"?
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, in Onora O'Neill The Sources of Normativity, Cambridge University Press, 28-Jun-1996, p.159

• We must be physicists in order to be creative since so far codes of values and ideals have been constructed in ignorance of physics or even in contradiction to physics.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, in Carl C. Gaither, et al., Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations, Springer, 08-Jan-2008,

• Theories which are logically self-contradictory may be significant and fruitful just in so far as their self-contradictory.
  • Richard Norman, in Joe McCarney Social Theory and the Crisis of Marxism, Verso, 1990, p.56

• I'm fascinated by the ways in which people express themselves, because their responses are often counter to what they're actually feeling. Like when they're frightened, they tend to freeze. When they're angry, it doesn't always come out as volume. There are wonderful contradictions in the way that people express their emotions.
  • Edward Norton, in Scott Tobias Interview Edward Norton, A.V. Club, 3 January 2007

O

• I was listening to a lot of hip hop, music like Public Enemy that was about raising consciousness, and I realised I could feed that directly into my work, using images in a way that was a bit like sampling - taking images from diverse places, exploring the contradictions without trying to hide the seams.
  • Chris Ofili, in Mark Hudson Chris Ofili: 'I wander deep into the forest - where it's scary', The Telegraph, 25 January 2010

P

• Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.
  • Thomas Paine, in Todd Andrew Rohrer This Time They Perceive, Volume 15 (Google eBook), iUniverse, 11 June 2010, p.208

• Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
  • Blaise Pascal, in George Englebretsen Bare Facts and Naked Truths: A New Correspondence Theory of Truth, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006, p.153

• . . . I in my astonishment said: What do you mean Dionysodorus? I have often heard, and have been amazed to hear, this thesis of yours, which is maintained and employed by the disciples of Protagoras and others before them, and which to me appears to be quite wonderful, and suicidal as well as destructive, and I think that I am most likely to hear the truth about it from you. The dictum is that there is no such thing as a falsehood; a man must either say what is true or say nothing. Is not that your position?
  • Plato, in The Dialogues of Plato: Charmides. Lysis. Laches. Protagoras. Euthydemus. Cratylus. Phaedrus. Ion. Symposium (Google eBook), Macmillan, 1875, p.211

• But when I describe something and you describe another thing, or I say something and you say nothing - Is there any contradiction? How can he who speaks contradict him who speaks not.
  • Plato, in Euthydemus, Arc Manor LLC, 1 February 2009, p.49

• He who comes from afar may lie without fear of contradiction as he is sure to be listened to with the utmost attention.
  • French proverbs, in Quotes about Speakers and Speaking, Quotations Book, p.13

R

Bertrand Russell:Ever since Plato most philosophers have considered it part of their business to produce ‘proofs’ of immortality and the existence of God. They have found fault with the proofs of their predecessors — Saint Thomas rejected Saint Anselm's proofs, and Kant rejected Descartes' — but they have supplied new ones of their own. In order to make their proofs seem valid, they have had to falsify logic, to make mathematics mystical, and to pretend that deep seated prejudices were heaven-sent intuitions.

• Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
  • Ayn Rand, in Edward Wayne Younkins Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 1 January 2007, p.128

• Part of me is drawn to the nature of sadness because I think life is sad, and sadness is not something that should be avoided or denied. It's a fact of life, like contradictions are.
  • Robert Redford, in Suzie Mackenzie American dreamer, The Guardian, 14 August 2004

• Ever since Plato most philosophers have considered it part of their business to produce ‘proofs’ of immortality and the existence of God. They have found fault with the proofs of their predecessors — Saint Thomas rejected Saint Anselm's proofs, and Kant rejected Descartes' — but they have supplied new ones of their own. In order to make their proofs seem valid, they have had to falsify logic, to make mathematics mystical, and to pretend that deep seated prejudices were heaven-sent intuitions.
  • Bertrand Russell, in Ie – Evaluating “Proofs” of God’s Existence, Zenofzero.net, 30 October 2012

S

Andreas Cellarius hypothesis, demonstrating the planetary motions in eccentric and epicyclical orbits.

• Those laws, being forged for universal application, are in perpetual conflict with personal interest, just as personal interest is always in contradiction with the general interest. Good for society, our laws are very bad for the individuals whereof it is composed; for, if they one time protect the individual, they hinder, trouble, fetter him for three quarters of his life.
  • Marquis De Sade, in Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, Grove Press, 01-Dec-2007, p.422

• The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can't all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It's a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I'm not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they're called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation.
  • Carl Sagan, in Contact, Simon and Schuster, 1997, p.162

• When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time.
  • Saint Francis de Sales, in Gabriella D. Filippi Celebrate Your Seasons: Inspirational Devotions to Progress in Love and Grace (Google eBook), University Press of America, 10-Jul-2012, p.30

• In art, and maybe just in general, the idea is to be able to be really comfortable with contradictory ideas. In other words, wisdom might be, seem to be, two contradictory ideas both expressed at their highest level and just let to sit in the same cage sort of, vibrating. So, I think as a writer, I'm really never sure of what I really believe.
  • George Saunders, in 3 George Saunders Quotations About Confusion and Contradiction, An Inspiration Book, 26 March 2013

• Life is never free of contradictions.
  • Manmohan Singh, in Beryl A. Radin Federal Management Reform in a World of Contradictions, Georgetown University Press, 1 March 2012, p.131

T

• In love all the contradiction of existence merge themselves and are lost. Only in love are unity and duality not at variance. Love must be one and two at the same time.
  • Rabindranath Tagore, in Sadhana the Realization of Life, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC., 01-Jan-2006, p.90

• Marx believed, the contradictions of capitalism would lead to communism, a classless society that operates on the principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
  • Alex Thio, Jim Taylor, in Social Problems, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 11-Feb-2011m p,299

Mao Tse-tung:Contradiction is present in the process of development of all things; it permeates the process of development of each thing from beginning to end. This is the The universality and absoluteness of contradiction.

• The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end.
  • Mao Tse-tung, in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung On Contradiction, August 1937

• Contradiction is present in the process of development of all things; it Italic textpermeates the process of development of each thing from beginning to end. This is the The universality and absoluteness of contradiction.
  • Mao Tse-tung, in "Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung On Contradiction".

• The sciences are differentiated precisely on the basis of the particular contradictions inherent in their respective objects of study. Thus the contradiction peculiar to a certain field of phenomena constitutes the object of study for a specific branch of science. For example, positive and negative numbers in mathematics; action and reaction in mechanics; positive and negativeelectricity in physics; dissociation and combination in chemistry; forces of production and relations of production, classes and class struggle, in social science; offence and defence in military science; idealism and materialism, the metaphysical outlook and the dialectical outlook, in philosophy; and so on--all these are the objects of study of different branches of science precisely because each branch has its own particular contradiction and particular essence.
  • Mao Tse-tung, in "Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung On Contradiction".

• The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.
  • Mao Tse-Tung, in Audrey Kurth Cronin How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns (Google eBook), Princeton University Press, 24-Aug-2009, p.14

U

• If a man never contradicts himself, the reason must be that he virtually never says anything at all.
  • Miguel de Unamuno, in Elliot Lovegood Grant Watson The Mystery of Physical Life, SteinerBooks, 1992, p.167

W

Alfred North Whitehead: My criticism of Hegel procedure is that when in his discussion he arrives at a contradiction, he construes it as a crisis in the universe.

• As the new spirituality begins to become the pervasive spirituality of the planet, we'll find that we have abandoned our philosophy of contradictions in which we say we're all one but continue to try to win.
  • Neale Donald Walsch, in Janice Hughes and Dennis Hughes Interview with Neale Donald Walsch Educator, Lecturer and Bestselling author of Conversations with God, Share Guide Publishers

• My criticism of Hegel procedure is that when in his discussion he arrives at a contradiction, he construes it as a crisis in the universe.
  • Alfred North Whitehead, in Max Harold Fisch Classic American Philosophers: Peirce, James, Royce, Santayana, Dewey, Whitehead : Selections from Their Writings, Fordham Univ Press, 1996, p.19

• Do I contradict myself?
  Very well then I contradict myself,
  (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
  • Walt Whitman, in Katie Heffelfinger I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes: Lyric Cohesion and Conflict in Second Isaiah, BRILL, 15 February 2011, p.6

• The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?
  • E. O. Wilson, in Derek Robertson The Moral Compass: A Personal Search for Meaning, Lulu.com, 2006, p.177

• Propositions show what they say: tautologies and contradictions show that they say nothing.
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein, in Joachim Schulte Wittgenstein: An Introduction, SUNY Press, 1 January 1992, p.59