Oxymoron Quotes

Sex and older women used to be considered an oxymoron, rarely mentioned in the same breath.

An oxymoron? What's that? A moron who studies at Oxford?

Dead Max was the biggest oxymoron in history.

For many people - from secular feminists to observant Jews - the notion of a feminist Judaism is an oxymoron.

I've been saying in the press that being a NY Post investigator reporter is an oxymoron.

A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.

The good oxymoron, to define it by a self-illustration, must be a planned inadvertency.

As I see it, a lukewarm Christian is an oxymoron; there is no such thing. To put it plainly, churchgoers who are 'lukewarm' are not Christians. We will not see them in heaven.

Many 'hard' scientists regard the term 'social science' as an oxymoron. Science means hypotheses you can test, and prove or disprove. Social science is little more than observation putting on airs.

instant opinion is an oxymoron. You don't get real opinions in an instant. You get reactions.

Why would one's identity be a matter of feelings? I think that that's a misuse of terms, philosophically. Identity is mind independent. It's something that is objective, regardless of how you feel. So, the term gender identity seems to me to be something of an oxymoron. It's not really about one's identity. It's rather a matter of one's self-perception or one's feelings about oneself.

I am not going to say I told you so, but I did.

Any man who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.

I never liked you, and I always will.

Don't worry about the war. It's all over but the shooting.

I hate people but I love gatherings.

The budget was unlimited, but I exceeded it.

I have a terrible memory; I never forget a thing.

We learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive.

I never put on a pair of shoes until I've worn them at least five years.

'Sustainable Development' is an oxymoron. 'Development' in all it's senses entails expansion and wanting more. Continual expansion and wanting more are unsustainable. Globally we are approaching the point when the only sustainable way forward is to want less. Indeed, the choice element may be removed from us and we will just have to have less. In the meantime we still have some choices about how to influence our future

I learned why 'out riding alone' is an oxymoron: An equestrian is never alone, is always sensing the other being, the mysterious but also understandable living being that is the horse.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that men never learn anything from history.

'Realistic dreamer' is not an oxymoron.

My parents divorced when I was born, and my mother is a political science professor, like a feminist Mormon, which is sort of an oxymoron.

I find nothing more depressing than optimism.

That's the Senate Ethics Committee, an oxymoron since 1973.

Notice that whenever we suffer pain, the mind is always quick to identify with the negative aspects of things and replay them over and over again, wounding us deeply. Almost all humans have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) of the mind, which is why so many people become fearful, hate-filled, and wrapped around their negative commentaries. This pattern must be recognized early and definitively. Peace of mind is actually an oxymoron. When you're in your mind, you're hardly ever at peace, and when you're at peace, you're never only in your mind.

I'm for democracy, but imposing democracy is an oxymoron. People have to choose democracy, and it has to come up from below.

Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.

So about 80 years after the Constitution is ratified, the slaves are freed. Not so you'd really notice it of course; just kinda on paper. And that of course was at the end of the Civil War. Now there is another phrase I dearly love. That is a true oxymoron if I've ever heard one: "Civil War." Do you think anybody in this country could ever really have a civil war? "Say, pardon me?" (shoots gun) "I'm awfully sorry. Awfully sorry."

The concept of an inactive church member is an oxymoron. Biblically, no such church member really exists.

The child is father of the man.

Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

A cautious creative is an oxymoron.

The phrase 'domestic cat' is an oxymoron.

It's not unsporting to thrash a cowardly cad,' said Simmons. 'Everyone knows you don't fight like a gentleman.' 'That might be called an oxymoron,' Ramses said. 'Oh--sorry. Bad form to use long words. Look it up when you get home.' The poor devil didn't know how to fight, like a gentleman or otherwise.

Robert Torricelli, a powerful fund-raiser who helped raise more than $100 million for the Democratic party, took inappropriate gifts from a businessman, including an $8,000 gold Rolex watch, for which he was severely admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee in July. To recap: raising $100 million in contributions from gigantic corporations - ethical; taking a watch - unethical. That's the Senate Ethics Committee, an oxymoron since 1974.

The real causes of terrorism are not poverty and oppression per se, but rather the bankruptcy of materialist ideologies, like Neo-Conservatism, which promise much but deliver little. The central doctrine of Neo-Conservatism is "democratic capitalism." This is the ultimate oxymoron, because in practice the political pluralism that should underlie democracy cannot exist in a climate of economic plutocracy.

A bachelor's life is no life for a single man.

Conceptual art' is an oxymoron. Concepts are articulations of fact or supposition, not attributes of quality.

For me taking a pragmatic decision when it comes to art is almost an oxymoron. The reason I first picked up a pen and wrote a story had nothing pragmatic in it.

I guess I'm a spiritual secularist, if that's not an oxymoron. My paths of secularism and spirituality are the same: I try to do the appropriate thing at each moment.

I never said most of the things I said.

'Feminist comedy,' practically an oxymoron, had a couple of good years after WWII. Chalk it up to the forced female autonomy that occurred during wartime, when Rosie the Riveter went to work in the factories, constructing the Allies' war machines while taking charge of the finances, the home, and the children.

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!

I always advise people never to give advice.

You're lying through your fangs," Iggy accused. Fang tried to play innocent--but "innocent Fang" is an oxymoron, so it didn't work.