Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.

In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

All things will be ambiguous, for this is the curse of wisdom.

I find the more you analyze, the less you really know.

The truest sayings are paradoxical.

Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

All vital truth contains the memory of all that for which it is not true.

We endeavor to stuff the universe into the gullet of an aphorism.

To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.

In order to have wisdom we must have ignorance.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

It's very hard to know what wisdom is.

Doubt is the origin of wisdom.

In contradiction and paradox, you can find truth.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

The more you learn, the more you learn you don't know.

I say this all the time: All I know is I know nothing at all.

The opposite of every truth is just as true.

For only when I err do I get away from what I know and what I understand. If "truth" were what I can understand, it would end up being but a small truth, my-sized. Truth must reside precisely in what I shall never understand.

Secrets are the blood of life. Every big thing is a secret, even when you know it, because you never know all of it. If you can know everything about anything, it is not worth knowing.