{"quotes":[{"text":"Why can't we love the right people? What is so wrong with us that we rush into situations to which we are manifestly unsuited, which will hurt us and others? Why are we given emotions which we cannot control and which move in exact contradiction to what we really want? We are walking conflicts, internal battles on legs.","author":"Marian Keyes","tags":["contradictions","hurt","love"],"id":21875,"author_id":"Marian+Keyes"},{"text":"You claim that the evidentiary miracle is present and available, namely, the Koran. You say: 'Whoever denies it, let him produce a similar one.' Indeed, we shall produce a thousand similar, from the works of rhetoricians, eloquent speakers and valiant poets, which are more appropriately phrased and state the issues more succinctly. They convey the meaning better and their rhymed prose is in better meter. … By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: 'Produce something like it'‽.","author":"Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi","tags":["contradictions","islam","koran","miracle","myth","poetry","quran"],"id":42101,"author_id":"Muhammad+ibn+Zakariya+al-Razi"},{"text":"Strange combination, isn't it--gratitude and resentment? But this is the way I think. Actually, I think everybody thinks that way. Even the children of the humans who died long ago, I think they lived their lives holding similar contradictory thoughts about their parents. They were raised to learn about love and death, and they lived out their lives passing from the sunny spots to the shady spots of this world.","author":"Otsuichi","tags":["children","contradictions","contradictory","death","epiphany","gratitude","human-nature","humanity","insight","love","love-and-death","love-and-loss","parents","parents-and-children","resentment","spots","sunny","world"],"id":48360,"author_id":"Otsuichi"},{"text":"All those religions--they contradict each other on every point but every one of them is filled with ways to help people to be brave enough to laugh even though they know they are dying.","author":"Robert A. Heinlein","tags":["bravery","contradictions","life-and-death","religions"],"id":54251,"author_id":"Robert+A.+Heinlein"},{"text":"Man has 2 common problems with God: the one is that there is evil in the world; the other is that free will is limited. The one, he is charging that the world is too evil; the other is that it is not evil enough.","author":"Criss Jami","tags":["agnosticism","antitheism","apologetics","atheism","benevolence","confusion","contradictions","depraved","evil","fallen","forgiveness","free-will","freedom","god","grace","hypocrisy","laws","malevolence","mercy","paradox","peace","problems","self-refuting","sin","theism","world"],"id":102654,"author_id":"Criss+Jami"},{"text":"Embrace contradictions for they make upall of life:You will eternally be looking for yourself andseeking ways to lose yourself.","author":"Kamand Kojouri","tags":["accept","acceptance","acknowledge","balance","character","consciousness","contradiction","contradictions","contradictory","contrary","different","ego","embrace","eternal","eternally","existence","find","find-yourself","forget","found","give-in","identity","kamand","kamand-kojouri","kojouri","let-go","life","life","look","looking","lose","lose-yourself","lost","make","oppose","opposites","opposition","paradox","remember","search","searching","seek","seeking","self","surrender","truth","yin-and-yang","yin-yang","yourself"],"id":108405,"author_id":"Kamand+Kojouri"},{"text":"Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your values are the fuel with which your mind fills it. If you choose a mix of contradictions, it will clog your motor, corrode your transmission and wreck you on your first attempt to move with a machine which you, the driver, have corrupted.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["contradictions","emotions"],"id":112669,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"Now there are some, and I don't just mean Communists like you, but thinking men of all political parties, who think that not many of these gods actually exist. Some believe that none of them exist. There's just us and an ocean of darkness around us. I'm no philosopher or poet, how would I know the truth? It's true that all these gods seem to do awfully little work - much like our politicians - and yet keep winning reelection to their golden thrones in heaven, year after year. That's not to say I don't respect them, Mr. Premier! Don't you ever let that blasphemous idea into your yellow skull. My country is the kind where it pays to play it both ways: the Indian entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, at the same time.","author":"Aravind Adiga","tags":["contradiction","contradictions","entrepreneur","god","gods"],"id":115776,"author_id":"Aravind+Adiga"},{"text":"Our contradictions are never so to ourselves.","author":"Jeanette Winterson","tags":["contradictions","perception"],"id":118321,"author_id":"Jeanette+Winterson"},{"text":"The many contradictions in our lives – such as being home while feeling homeless, being busy while feeling bored, being popular while feeling lonely, being believers while feeling many doubts – can frustrate, irritate, and even discourage us. They make us feel that we are never fully present. Every door that opens for us makes us see how many more doors are closed.But there is another response. These same contradictions can bring us into touch with a deeper longing, for the fulfillment of a desire that lives beneath all desires and that only God can satisfy. Contradictions, thus understood, create the friction that can help us move toward God.","author":"Henri J.M. Nouwen","tags":["contradictions","god","longing","paradox"],"id":132851,"author_id":"Henri+J.M.+Nouwen"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":40,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}