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Literary notes about paradoxical (AI summary)

In literature, the term "paradoxical" is often employed to evoke the presence of inherent contradictions or unexpected juxtapositions within ideas, characters, or situations. It captures the sense that something can be simultaneously self-affirming and negating, revealing layers of complexity that defy straightforward explanation. For instance, a statement about origins may be called deeply paradoxical and even sacrilegious ([1]), while a philosopher’s attempt to eliminate any hint of contradiction in his work points to an intrinsic tension within language itself ([2]). Likewise, characters described as possessing paradoxical traits—where solidity and absurdity intermingle—highlight the unpredictable nature of human emotional experience ([3]). This use of "paradoxical" underscores literature’s fascination with ideas and realities that hover between opposites, inviting readers to reconsider their understanding of truth and rhythm in life ([4], [5], [6], [7]).
  1. Does not almost every exact statement of an origin strike us as paradoxical and sacrilegious?
    — from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
  2. His next concern is to explain away the air of paradox, for James was never wilfully paradoxical.
    — from The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell
  3. 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.
    — from The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
  4. The answer which is given by Plato is paradoxical enough, and seems rather intended to stimulate than to satisfy enquiry.
    — from Meno by Plato
  5. We [Pg 681] thus reach the paradoxical result that one condition of remembering is that we should forget.
    — from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James
  6. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis.
    — from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe
  7. The line of thought we have been pursuing is deemed by a large class of thinkers not only paradoxical, but utterly contradictory and self-destructive.
    — from Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation by Jesse Henry Jones

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