“By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.”
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer
"—All You Zombies—" (1958)
Variant: A Paradox May Be Paradoctored.
“By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.”
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer
“Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution.”
Edward Teller (1908–2003) Hungarian-American nuclear physicist
Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics (1991) by Edward Teller, Wendy Teller and Wilson Talley, Ch. 9, p. 135 footnote
“It may be thought almost paradoxical that writers who are most in favour of transmutation”
Charles Lyell (1797–1875) British lawyer and geologist
Source: The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Ch.20, p. 405
Context: It may be thought almost paradoxical that writers who are most in favour of transmutation (Mr. C. Darwin and Dr. J. Hooker, for example) are nevertheless among those who are most cautious, and one would say timid, in their mode of espousing the doctrine of progression; while, on the other hand, the most zealous advocates of progression are oftener than not very vehement opponents of transmutation.
“Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Walter Savage Landor http://www.emersoncentral.com/walter_savage_landor.htm, from The Dial, XII (1841)
Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman
Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter XV, p. 133 (See also: Say's Law)
Context: A man who applies his labour to the investing of objects with value by the creation of utility of some sort, can not expect such a value to be appreciated and paid for, unless where other men have the means of purchasing it. Now, of what do these means consist? Of other values of other products, likewise the fruits of industry, capital, and land. Which leads us to a conclusion that may at first appear paradoxical, namely, that it is production which opens a demand for products.
Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) Jesuit theologian and cardinal
Author's Preface, p. 8
Paradoxes of Faith (1987)
“Irony is a form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.”
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar
Aphorism 48, as translated in Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms (1968), p. 151