Have You Wrestled With A Paradox Today?

  "We can't leave the haphazard to chance." — N.F. Simpson
"Real knowledge is knowing the extent of one's ignorance."— Confucius

I love paradoxes! They energize my mind in the same way that a splash of cold water awakens me when I'm drowsy.

What are paradoxes? Simply put, they're statements that initially seem self-contradictory, but which after we've thought about them for a bit, can be seen to express a truth. Sometimes this truth is funny, sometimes it's a bit weird, and sometimes it can be profound. As Carl Jung put it, "Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life."

"Where there is a great deal of light,
the shadows are deeper." — Goethe

"The only wealth which will give you
pleasure is the wealth you give away." — Martial

"Only the ephemeral is of lasting value." — Ionesco

"When I came home I expected a surprise and there was
no surprise for me, so, of course, I was surprised." — Wittgenstein 

Paradoxes are a wonderful creative discovery tool. For example, in the midst of a difficult problem, the great Danish physicist Niels Bohr said, "How wonderful that we've met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making some progress." Bohr knew that paradoxes force us to question our basic assumptions and find a different context in which the contradictory ideas make sense. And, in the process, we do some thinking.

Indeed, the very act of "seeing the paradox" — the
ability to entertain two contradictory ideas at the
same time — lies at the heart of creative thinking.

Listed below are some of my favorite paradoxes. Some are humorous, some are off-beat, and some are profound. All, however, make us think — they give us a nice "creative whack." As you read these, you might ask yourself, "What's paradoxical about my life or work? Is there another context that explains this contradiction?"

• Montaigne: "A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears."


• Voltaire: "The superfluous is a very necessary thing."


• Lao-Tzu: "Failure is the foundation of success, and success the lurking place of failure."


• Picasso: "Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."


• Gauguin: "I shut my eyes in order to see."


• Heraclitus: "A thing rests by changing."


• George Santayana: "Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself."


• Bertolt Brecht: "What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?"


• George Wald: "A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms."


• Hobbes: "Prophecy is many time the principal cause of the events foretold."


• Timothy Connor: "I have such a high regard for the truth that I use it sparingly."


• Chang-Tzu: "Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness."


• Foucault: "All modern thought is permeated by thinking the unthinkable."


• [Judge] Learned Hand: "There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally."


• Everett Dirksen: "I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times."


• Disraeli: "No government can be long secure without formidable opposition."


• Katherine Mansfield: "If you wish to live, you must first attend your own funeral."


• Seneca: The hour which gives us life begins to take it away."


• St. Francis: "It is in giving that we receive, it in pardoning that we are pardoned."


• Eden Philpotts: "The people sensibile enough to give good advice are usually sensible to give none."


• Mill: "Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so."


• Degas: "Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."


• Orville Mars: "The little I know I owe to my ignorance."


• Alan Kay: "Any company large enough to have a research lab is too large to listen to it."


• Kahlil Gibran: "The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply."


• [Pianist] Arthur Schnabel: "The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes, ah, that is where the art resides."

As the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once put it: "The paradox is the source of the thinker's passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling."

What do you find paradoxical in your life and work? What paradoxes can you share?

Comments

[Liz Strauss]

When you sent this to me I was in the middle of writing a post about how it's better to be inconsistently wrong than consistently right. But I think my most favorite is one my husband said during a discussion he was having with me about his job at the time, "If you want perfection, you have to expect a few flaws."

[Michael Wagner]

A professor of mine use to say, "you're not ready to learn till you are sufficiently confused".

He would go on to confuse us till we were ready to learn.

He was my favorite!

I love paradoxes too!

What a great way to start Monday - thanks.

[Roger von Oech]

Thanks Liz and Mike. As the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu put it, "Most true things are stated in paradoxes."

[Robert Benchley]

"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."

[Christian]

I recently read in a book:

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."

It is not a classical paradox but it also has this riddle logic.

[Carl Becker]

The significance of man is that he is insignificant and is aware of it.

[Alima]

Pleasing others may injure me.
Pleasing myself may benefit others.
Not forcing an issue makes space for something else to happen.
Trying to control other people seldom leads to the desired outcome.

[Roger von Oech]

Alima,

You must live a very paradoxical, interesting life! Lao-Tzu was right: "Most true things are stated in paradoxes."

[G.B. Veerman]

Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.
(Yogi Berra).

[Robert Wieder]

"Whenever I'm accosted by panhandlers, I give them a little card that says, 'I'm sorry, but I spent all of my spare change having these cards printed.'"

[Peter Ustinov]

"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."

[Nitya]

My favourite 2 by Yogi Berra:

" The future ain't what it used to be "

" If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be "

[P.D. Perkins]

I dont Know Where I heard it But It Made Total Paradoxical Sense!
"It Adds Flavor, But You Can't Taste it "

[Windows 8 Pack full version]

Awesome, this is the reason i come to your site almost daily. Your articles are always up to date and interesting. Thanks again.

[Brandon]

The following statement is true.

The previous statement is false.

[G. Lance]

Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is filled with paradoxes along the lines of:

I went to war because I was a coward.

The moral of war is that there is no moral.