Absurdities Quotes

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

“The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs... In fact, the Athanasian paradox that one is three, and three but one, is so incomprehensible to the human mind, that no candid man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea? He who thinks he does, only deceives himself. He proves, also, that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.

[Letter to James Smith discussing Jefferson's hate of the doctrine of the Christian trinity, December 8 1822]”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“I have now gone through the examination of the four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; and when it is considered that the whole space of time, from the crucifixion to what is called the ascension, is but a few days, apparently not more than three or four, and that all the circumstances are reported to have happened nearly about the same spot, Jerusalem, it is, I believe, impossible to find in any story upon record so many and such glaring absurdities, contradictions, and falsehoods, as are in those books. They are more numerous and striking than I had any expectation of finding, when I began this examination, and far more so than I had any idea of when I wrote the former part of 'The Age of Reason.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“From what I saw the plurality of students and faculty had been educated exclusively in the tradition of writers like William Gaddis...”
― Junot Díaz

“One must constantly meditate upon the absurdities of chance, a subject even more edifying than the subject of death.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

“When sceptical about reality, man tends to believe the absurd.”
― Raheel Farooq

“But that’s what they do with everything inconvenient in history— either label it as some freak event, or as irrelevant surface details. The only reason their theories even seem consistent is that they’ve presented a version of history rendered into reductive pap, with more lies of omission than facts. They simply can’t allow themselves to acknowledge that history’s basically nothing but messy absurdities, and that there is no inevitable path to it. Every shape will fit into a round hole if you carve it and hammer it enough.”
― John Bierce, The Siege of Skyhold

“When you believe in absurdities, it will be very easy for you to commit atrocities.”
― Chidi Ejeagba