“Among the many paradoxes of human life, this is perhaps the most peculiar and consequential: We often behave in ways that are guaranteed to make us unhappy.”

— Sam Harris

Many of us spend our lives marching with open eyes toward remorse, regret, guilt, and disappointment. And nowhere do our injuries seem more casually self-inflicted, or the suffering we create more disproportionate to the needs of the moment, than in the lies we tell to other human beings. Lying is the royal road to chaos.
2010s, Lying (2011)

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American author, philosopher and neuroscientist 1967

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“Among the many paradoxes of human life, this is perhaps the most peculiar and consequential: We often behave in ways that are guaranteed to make us unhappy. Many of us spend our lives marching with open eyes toward remorse, regret, guilt, and disappointment. And nowhere do our injuries seem more casually self-inflicted, or the suffering we create more disproportionate to the needs of the moment, than in the lies we tell to other human beings. Lying is the royal road to chaos.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

2010s, Lying (2011)

“A society, in the process of moving forward, often appears to be tearing itself apart. Certainly, an age of rapid change, such as ours, produces many paradoxes. But perhaps the most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.”

Earl Warren (1891–1974) United States federal judge

Writing in Saturday Review (23 October 1971), p. 16
1970s

“Humor and paradox are often the only ways to respond to life's sorrow with grace.”

Matthew Fox (1966) American actor

“Organizations are complex and paradoxical phenomena that can be understood in many different ways. Many of our taken-for-granted ideas about organizations are metaphorical, even though we may not recognize them as such. For example, we frequently talk about organizations as if they were machines designed to achieve predetermined goals and objectives, and which should operate smoothly and efficiently. And as a result of this kind of thinking, we often attempt to organize and manage them in a mechanistic way, forcing their human qualities into a background role. By using different metaphors to understand the complex and paradoxical character of organizational life, we are able to manage and design organizations in ways that we may not have thought possible before.”

Gareth Morgan book Images of Organization

Source: Images of Organization (1986), p. 13; Cited in: Morgen Witzel (2011) Fifty key figures management, p. 205

“As animals, we walk the earth. As bearers of divine essence, we are among the stars. As human beings, we are caught in the middle, seeking to reconcile the paradox of how to make our way upon earth while striving for something more permanent and more profound.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, P.xiii

“There isn’t a right way to be educated; there are as many ways as there are fingerprints. We don't need state-certified teachers to make education happen — that probably guarantees it won't.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

"I Quit, I Think" (1991)

“The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"Ireland" (1998).
2000s, 2000, Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere (2000)

“Unpopular minority religions are especially dependent upon a constitutional guarantee of free exercise of religion. We are fortunate to have such a guarantee in the United States, but many nations do not. The importance of that guarantee should make us ever diligent to defend it.”

Dallin H. Oaks (1932) Apostle of the LDs Church

Fundamentals of Our Consitutions http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/fundamentals-of-our-constitutions-elder-dallin-h-oaks, 17 September 2010

“Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.”

Charles Darwin book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

Source: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

“Tragic paradox of freedom: the mediocre men who alone make its exercise possible cannot guarantee its duration.”

Emil M. Cioran book History and Utopia

History and Utopia (1960)

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