Citations:paradoxical

English citations of paradoxical

• 17?? — Edmund Burke, On Taste (Can we date this quote?)

  And my point in this inquiry is, to find whether there are any principles, on which the imagination is affected, so common to all, so grounded and certain, as to supply the means of reasoning satisfactorily about them. And such principles of taste I fancy there are; however paradoxical it may seem to those, who on a superficial view imagine, that there is so great a diversity of tastes, both in kind and degree, that nothing can be more indeterminate.

• 1776 — Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, book II, ch 2

  It is the ambiguity of language only which can make this proposition appear either doubtful or paradoxical. When properly explained and understood, it is almost self-evident.

• 1787 — Alexander Hamilton or James Madison, Federalist Papers No. 63

  I add, as a SIXTH defect the want, in some important cases, of a due responsibility in the government to the people, arising from that frequency of elections which in other cases produces this responsibility. This remark will, perhaps, appear not only new, but paradoxical. It must nevertheless be acknowledged, when explained, to be as undeniable as it is important.

• 1839 — Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

  There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition—for why should I not so term it?—served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis.

• 1861 — John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism

  I will add, that in this condition the world, paradoxical as the assertion may be, the conscious ability to do without happiness gives the best prospect of realising, such happiness as is attainable.

• 1898 — H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, Book 2, ch 4

  It sounds paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that the weakness and insanity of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane man.

• 1914 — Edgar Rice Burroughs, At the Earth's Core, ch XV

  The Mahars had offered fabulous rewards for the capture of any one of us alive, and at the same time had threatened to inflict the direst punishment upon whomever should harm us. The Sagoths could not understand these seemingly paradoxical instructions, though their purpose was quite evident to me.

• 1933 — H. P. Lovecraft & Hazel Heald, Out of the Aeons

  It was tightly fitted with a cap of the same substance, and bore engraved figurings of an evidently decorative and possibly symbolic nature - conventional designs which seemed to follow a peculiarly alien, paradoxical, and doubtfully describable system of geometry.