paradox

The truth often sounds paradoxical.

The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.

In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.

It is a paradox that in our time of drastic rapid change, when the future is in our midst devouring the present before our eyes, we have never been less certain about what is ahead of us.

By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us. There is no true liberty for the individual except as he finds it in the liberty of all. There is no true security for the individual except as he finds it in the security of all.

Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that there are paradoxes in mathematics.

Chuang Tzu or Chuang Chou was a Taoist sage, living sometime before 250 B.C. The book, by the same name, Chuang Tzu, is believed to contain both his own writings and writings by others about him and his teachings. ". . . the Chuang-Tzu is distinguished by its brilliant and original style, with abundant use of satire, paradox, and seemingly nonsensical stories. Chuang-Tzu emphasizes the relativity of all ideas. . . . He puts forward as the solution to the problems of the human condition, freedom in identification with the universal Tao, or principle of Nature." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 4th Edition.