Short Absurdity Quotes & Sayings

It is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin. I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it ... Among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.
[Letter to William Short, 13 April 1820] — Thomas Jefferson

What is meditative absorption? What is leaving the body? What is fasting? What is holding the breath? These are a flight from the ego, a brief escape from the torment of being an ego, a short-term deadening of the pain and absurdity of life. This same escape, this same momentary deadening, is achieved by the ox driver in an inn when he drinks a bowl of rice wine or fermented coconut milk. Then he no longer feels his self, then he no longer feels the pains of life - he achieves momentary numbness. Falling asleep over his bowl of rice wine, he reaches the same result Siddhartha and Govinda reach when, through long practice sessions, they escape their bodies and dwell in nonego. That is the way it is, Govinda." Govinda — Hermann Hesse

At the heart of existentialist philosophy is the premise that all existence is absurd. Life has no meaning and death is the ultimate absurdity, But in the course of this absurd existence, man is forced to make choices, even if those choices may be about absurd issues. But man abhors this freedom of choice, a condition called 'existential angst'. Until we reach a time when most of our life lies behind us, we second guess ourselves interminably. 'What if I had done done this?' 'What if I had done that?' 'Could I have learnt from what others before me have done?' But that is a futile endeavor. It is just not possible to pass on the burden of decision-making to someone else, nor is it possible to learn from other's experiences. Every man has to make choices by falling back on his own experience. In short, man is condemned to be free. — Duvvuri Subbarao

In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. — Samuel Adams

My mother was the concert master of the symphony. Absurdity and eccentricity were not criticized. — Martin Short

Relativism reduces every element of absoluteness to relativity while making a completely illogical exception in favor of this reduction itself. Fundamentally it consists in propounding the claim that there is no truth as if this were truth or in declaring it to be absolutely true that there is nothing but the relatively true; one might just as well say that there is no language or write that there is no writing. In short, every idea is reduced to a relativity of some sort, whether psychological, historical, or social; but the assertion nullifies itself by the fact that it too presents itself as a psychological, historical, or social relativity. The assertion nullifies itself if it is true and by nullifying itself logically proves thereby that it is false; its initial absurdity lies in the implicit claim to be unique in escaping, as if by enchantment, from a relativity that is declared to be the only possibility. — Frithjof Schuon

I don't know what else to say."
"There is nothing else to say. A few minutes of words can't change years of absurdity. — Cameron Trost

Satire is a good tool for highlighting flaws or short-comings, but it is also a way to goad individuals, groups and governments into improvement, by juxtaposing reality with absurdity and not having a giant chasm in between. — Marietta Rodgers

No human reality would therefore have been engendered if, thanks to a propensity that can be considered
fortunate for Hegel's system, there had not existed, from the beginning of time, two kinds of
consciousness, one of which has not the courage to renounce life and is therefore willing to recognize the
other kind of consciousness without being recognized itself in return. It consents, in short, to being
considered as an object. This type of consciousness, which, to preserve its animal existence, renounces
independent life, is the consciousness of a slave. The type of consciousness which by being recognized
achieves independence is that of the master. They are distinguished one from the other at the moment
when they clash and when one submits to the other. The dilemma at this stage is not to be free or to die,
but to kill or to enslave. This dilemma will resound throughout the course of history, though at this
moment its absurdity has not yet been resolved. — Albert Camus