Gentle reader, if you have been spending time with my blog entries you already know that I love paradoxes. I also love good. . .no. . .great humor. Some of the humor I enjoy the most combines paradox and humor. So on this cloudy, rainy, humid and nearly hot day I have decided to share with you, gentle reader, some of my favorite quotations that are paradoxes and that I also find to be of good-to-great humor. So without further ado:
My college roommate, Ken, once told me that he had to learn that he was unique but not different. Margaret Mead captured this quite well when she wrote: ‘Always remember that you are absolutely unique. . .just like everyone else.’
This is a twist on another famous quote [perhaps you will recall it when you read the following]: ‘There are some ideas that are so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe them.’ –George Orwell
This is one that my son, Nathan, lived by when he was young – he followed it faithfully. ‘When all else fails, read the instructions.’ –Agnes Allen
This is one that I have, at times during my life, enjoyed living out. ‘It’s easier to suffer in silence if you are sure someone is watching.’ [noted by the most quoted person in history – Anonymous]
During my adult years I have enjoyed reading in a variety of disciplines; some of which were un-understandable to me. This quote from the physicist Niels Bohr continues to comfort me. ‘If you aren’t confused by Quantum Physics, then you haven’t really understood it.’
I’ve had the privilege of visiting seven different countries and almost many of our fifty states; the following quote is universal, it seems: ‘Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.’ –George Burns
The following reminds me that it is not always possible to know true from false. ‘There is a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.’ –Winston Churchill
The following quote succinctly captures what a therapist told me fifty years ago. ‘I told the psychiatrist I was overtired, anxiety-ridden, compulsively active, constantly depressed, with recurring fits of paranoia. Turns out I’m normal.’ –Jules Feiffer
The following supports pessimists. ‘If there is a 50-50 chance that something can go wrong, then nine times out of ten it will.’ –Paul Harvey
This one is for the ethicist residing within [I am not sure of the author]: ‘Everything is relative, of that I’m sure.’
I will conclude today’s posting with a wonderful quote regarding leadership: ‘To lead the people, walk behind them.’ –Lao Tzu