Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

certainty doubt absurdity

About Voltaire

Portrait of Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet (French: [fʁɑ̃swa maʁi aʁwɛ]; 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by his pen name Voltaire (, US also ; French: [vɔltɛːʁ]), was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher (philosophe), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and his Criticisms of the Catholic Church and slavery, Voltaire was...

More quotations from Voltaire

The key is to commit crimes so confusing that police feel too stupid to even write a crime report about them.

…the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

The secret of being boring is to say everything.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

More quotations tagged with “absurdity”

I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.

—Georges Duhamel

God respect world absurdity

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

—Bertrand Russell

opinions belief evidence absurdity

Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together.

—George Santayana

time reason absurdity transition

Only exceptionally rational men can afford to be absurd.

—Allan Goldfein

rationality absurdity

For monkeys to speak of truth is hubris of the highest degree. Where is it writ large that talking monkeys should be able to model the cosmos? If a sea urchin or a raccoon were to propose to you that it had a viable truth about the universe, the absurdity of that assertion would be self-evident, but in our case we make an exception.

—Terence McKenna

wonder truth universe hubris cosmos absurdity

History

11 Jul 2015 Added