Paradox

Quotations

“There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.”

— Niels Bohr

“It is a platitude as well as an occult paradox to say that in the midst of profound personality distress and unhappiness, the joy of the soul may be known and felt.”

— A Treatise on White Magic, Alice Bailey

“…it is necessary primarily to preserve the personality but be freed of egotism. To many, such an antithesis will seem absurd; for them, egotism is personality. The manifestation of a powerful personality devoted to the General Good is beyond the imagination of many, but without personality thinking would not have potency.”

— Helena Roerich

 

Paraphrased paradoxes

We have all the time in the world, but there is no time to loose.

One must achieve detachment. But detachment is separation, and one must achieve unification that is the ultimate “attachment.”

We are to be oriented to the soul that takes us away from the world. At the same time we are to be oriented to humanity that involves us in the world.

The individual is of supreme importance, and at the same time not important at all because it is the larger whole that is important.

Death is the result of a living process.

All metaphysical teachings are full of abstract concepts, yet it is said that nothing abstract is of any use. What’s the use of anything abstract? Abstract floats lonely in the upper regions of the cosmic undefined.

Someone speaks about the concept of truth within and the need to turn within. Notice the paradox between this and the concept of unity. Since unity exists, turning within can also be turning without. Since unity exists, looking without is in one sense looking within. So it appears, that in broadening of consciousness, the distinction between inner and outer melts away.

Contradictions may be considered as different aspects of the same manifestation. But if one, then there is no contradiction.

 

More Quotations

“Nothing is farther than earth from heaven; nothing is nearer than heaven to earth.”

— Hare & Charles

“All high truth is the union of two contradictions.”

— Robertson

“The Fanatic Is The Man Who Cannot Understand A Paradox. Most fanatics, cranks, and madmen, are those who are unable to understand a paradox. Every truth has its opposite, which is also true. Sanity consist in understanding this; insanity in failing to see it.

Workable, every day truth is made up of two or more contradictions. The true doctrine is always the balance. For instance, the truth lies not in fate (determinism, predestination) nor in free will, but in both. Man is not a spirit, nor a brute; he is both. Whoever excludes wholly the one or the other from his idea of man is not so much untrue as he is crazy.”

— Frank Crane

Words seem to spring from classifications and division, yet the paradox is that every word may become catalyst. So, ultimately, words bridge the gaps between divisions, yielding sparks of amazing cognition.